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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