Business
Andela is Expanding Across Africa after Shutting Down its O ces and Going Remote By Yomi Kazeem.
Developer outsourcing company Andela is major name investors including Facebook’s Mark making yet another major shift in its operational Zuckerberg, former vice president Al Gore and model. tennis superstar Serena Williams. After laying o 135 people in May as well as Its initial business model included training local shutting down o ces globally while adopting entry-level developers to be globally competitive, fully remote operations, Andela will now allow place them on fourapplications from interested developers across year contracts and all of Africa, rather than just in the six countries— earn revenue by Nigeria, Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Ghana and outsourcing their skills Egypt—where it had previously operated in. to clients in that time The remote, pan-African model essentially sees frame. Andela’s new Andela morph into an online marketplace for model means it will African developers who can apply, get accepted take on neither the and then be matched with an Andela client, usually initial cost of training an American company in need of engineering nor employment and talent. simply earn revenues The company has some experience with the new when it can place model having operated remotely in Ghana and engineers signed up Egypt and accepting engineers from outside those on its platform. countries’ capital cities. Andela is now accepting applications from senior developers across the continent adept in the most in-demand web frameworks and program languages. However, developers will now only be contracted on a per project basis rather than be employed by Andela. The move represents a significant shift from Andela’s founding premise of providing opportunity that might have been out of reach to budding developers across Africa primarily through training—a premise upon which it raised Andela’s erstwhile Lagos o ce. around $180 million from ANDELA 14
July-August 2020
DAWN
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