Tech in Africa is Taking Off

From uni­corns aim­ing for world dom­i­na­tion to small town­ship star­tups look­ing to make a dif­fer­ence in women’s lives, Africa is replete with inno­va­tors. It has the youngest pop­u­la­tion of any con­ti­nent in the world, with about 60% of Africans under the age of 25. Add to that the fact that smart­phone pen­e­tra­tion is ris­ing as coun­tries become increas­ing­ly con­nect­ed, and you have a sure­fire recipe for creativity.

Now, the big guns are mov­ing in. Jack Dorsey, whose com­pa­ny, Twit­ter, is set­ting up shop in Ghana, believes “Africa will define the future.” Aliba­ba co-founder Jack Ma esti­mates that African entre­pre­neurs will dri­ve the next dig­i­tal rev­o­lu­tion. In today’s Dai­ly Dose, we’ll intro­duce you to some of the most fas­ci­nat­ing movers and shak­ers the con­ti­nent has to offer. Get ready for some Afri-nnovation!

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Andela
Iyi­noluwa Aboye­ji has been involved in just about every major uni­corn to come out of Africa after becom­ing “hooked on tech” hav­ing watched The Social Net­work. Before he found­ed Future Africa in 2015, which funds and men­tors inno­va­tors across the con­ti­nent, Niger­ian entre­pre­neur Aboye­ji was at Flut­ter­wave. And before that? He co-found­ed his first start­up, Andela. Now head­quar­tered in the U.S., Andela has offices in Nige­ria, Kenya, Rwan­da and Ugan­da, where it works to com­bat America’s tech work­er short­age by train­ing African soft­ware devel­op­ers and plac­ing them with U.S. firms remote­ly. This effort to train more peo­ple in tech will also help bridge what the World Eco­nom­ic Forum says is a huge dig­i­tal divide. Andela, which won ear­ly seed mon­ey from the Chan Zucker­berg Ini­tia­tive, boasts a huge net­work of free­lancers that serves about 200 firms.

To read the full arti­cle please vis­it ozy​.com