DevCareer has secured $100,000 in grants led by Pledges to support upcoming African developers with learning resources necessary to graduate from beginners to intermediates within a space of 3 months.
The organisation pioneered the #laptop 4Developers campaign in 2019 which was founded by Sultan Akintunde, a software engineer and developer to support aspiring African developers with discounted courses and coupons to access premium resources.
Andre Mori, CEO of Deimos stated that Africa tech ecosystem engineers are in high demand which in turn is leaving a gaping hole in the supply Even with this high demand. Africa is starting to cement itself as a region of enormous engineering capability and capacity. Today’s junior software engineers are tomorrow’s seniors and we are proud to play a role in it.
DevCareer is a non-profit organization that is focused on supporting upcoming developers with resources to excel in the tech world. The organisation plans to groom 100 persons into employable African tech talent who can compete on a global stage.
Since its inception, the campaign was funded largely through donations and pledges from Twitter, the fund was contributed by Pledges alongside Deimos, Kuda, and Dojah.
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However, the campaign runs a yearly cohort for fledgling software developers with existing knowledge of the subject to benefit from organized curriculum, mentorship, Laptops, and a conducive learning environment equipped with internet and electricity.
According to the organisation, the campaign focused primarily on frontend and backend development and a mobile application.
The campaign in the last two cohorts has trained 72 interns with a number working on-site and remotely in technology companies such as Healthtrack, Flutterwave, Bento, among others.
The organisation in the last cohort received over 6000 applications with Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, and Zambia featuring as top four countries. Rwanda will be joining the list of countries in cohort three.
The organization says it will adopt a model whereby an intern who successfully graduates into paid employment within six months will be required to buy a succeeding intern a Laptop.
This model employs the “pay-it-forward” attitude. As such, the number of laptops to giveaway is not limited to what is sourced from sponsors or partners, the more the resources, the bigger the outreach.
Devcareers and Deimos, a Pan Africa technology company shares a focus on developing and empowering engineers whose sole mission is to sponsor and support individuals to get a start in technology.
“Youths can improve their economic standing as well as those around them. #Laptops4Developers has brought forth a model that not only up-skills youths but ensures that they remain on the same path post the training. We understand that people get to achieve only as far as they can perceive, thus our goal, in this case, is to broaden that horizon so our target communities see limitless possibilities,” Mori said.
