Andrew Stegmann

Zuckerberg Funds African Startup Andela $25M To Connect African Coders With U.S. Firms

There’s a shortage of software developers in the U.S. Demand for coders is huge and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg is investing in training African engineers who don’t always get the opportunity to become programmers, BusinessInsider reported.

That shortage has created a boom in coding bootcamps, which charge tens of thousands of dollars for a few months of training, and it has increased outsourcing to developers all over the world, especially Eastern Europe and India.

Andela, a Lagos and Nairobi-based company that trains and outsources software coders, plans to open a third office in Africa this year with the help of $24 million in funding from Zuckerberg.

After two years in business, Andela has trained close to 200 engineers from a pool of 40,000 applicants, Quartz reported. They get six months of intensive training, followed by three-and-a-half years of full-time remote apprenticeship with American tech companies like Microsoft, Google, and IBM. Andela developers work for those companies from Andela campuses in Lagos and Nairobi.

 Much of the external investment in online African ventures has been European, according to Quartz. Silicon Valley has been relatively slow to turn to the opportunity investment of African digital start-ups.

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Andrew Stegmann

Makro, Game owner looking to Africa for growth

Cape Town – Makro and Game’s owner Wal-Mart is looking for business opportunities in the rest of Africa, CEO Doug McMillon said this week in Cape Town.

Wal-Mart, the world’s largest retailer which owns a controlling stake in South Africa’s Massmart Holdings, is set on expanding into Africa, McMillon said in an address to the Consumer Goods Forum’s global summit in Cape Town.

“South Africa is a terrific market and it gives you something to work with but our aspirations are for the sub-Saharan African region,” McMillon told the summit. “I get really excited about it. You can put me into that optimistic group.”

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Andrew Stegmann

Zimbabwe: Govt to Recruit 10 000 Teachers

Government is set to recruit about 10 000 teachers and headmasters, most of whom will be posted to rural schools in a bid to alleviate the severe shortage of qualified teachers in the country. The Minister of Primary and Secondary Education, Cde Lazarus Dokora, told Parliament on Wednesday that the green light for his ministry to recruit was given by Treasury last month. He said the Government was also looking forward to opening more schools.

“The directive was given at the beginning of the second term. That is when we were told that we are supposed to recruit teachers and headmasters. From that period, we were working hard on the recruitment of teachers so that these teachers would be deployed in resettlement areas, rural areas and other areas that have teacher shortages,” said Cde Dokora.

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Andrew Stegmann

Home affairs… but what about immigrants?

Minister Gigaba seems to be creating a home affairs that delivers super-optimised services to South Africans while rendering dismally inefficient services to foreigners.

A few days ago I had the honour of having breakfast with Minister of Home Affairs Malusi Gigaba, at the Cape Town Press Club. The minister is a stylish gentleman, articulate, with sharp intellectual acuity. While I engaged with him, he looked into the distance beyond us, obviously with a specific vision in mind. He certainly has flair and is well seasoned, having occupied the positions of deputy home affairs minister, minister of public enterprises, and now minister of home affairs.

Gigaba extolled the department of home affairs as a “modern, digital, secure custodian of national identity, responding to the present and future needs and circumstances – run by professionals, operating in a highly-secured environment to protect the precious records of the lives of our people.”

While the minister’s “re-imagined” home affairs is laudable, it also reflects a disturbing myopia. The minister’s address was extraordinary in its silence on a policy that recognises the essential importance of foreigners and their contribution to making South Africa a better and more competitive country. The minister’s emphasis on border security and the establishment of the border management agency is the touchstone of a closed South Africa, a fortress against the influx of skills and foreign direct investment.

It is now crystal clear that Minister Gigaba is an isolationist, bent on the creation of a department of home affairs for South Africans, not for immigrants. Foreigners are now anathema to South Africa’s closed border policy. In a modern, open world, the minister falls on his own sword.

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