They are coming.
First let me clarify, this post is not a referendum about Andela and how critical they are to breeding high quality devs.
That said
This is so untrue it actually hurts to read it. First of all - no one pays to be at Andela. In fact, Andela pays them. A training program that can take someone from TV presenter to building complicated cash transfer payment systems is definitely nothing like Aptechs or NIITs.
Maybe you shoud go back to my statement where I mentioned that the differentiator from Aptech and NIIT is in fees. So you’ve just managed to write a longer prose of the same statement.
Second:
I have uncommon insight into how their model works and I do not believe Andela is building developers who will simply take available roles.
You said they won’t just take up existing role
First I doubt the local ecosystem values them enough to afford them at the price and quality they will be at in four years.
Then you said in the next four years, may I ask where the experience is going to be coming from if they won’t just be taking up existing roles?
Second of all, they will probably all mostly start their own companies and the program is supporting them to do so.
I believe this thread is about developers, and my knowledge is on Andela producing world class developers not entrepreneurs.
I apologies if my earlier statement didn’t make it clear what I meant on fees and branding.
Then you said in the next four years, may I ask where the experience is going to be coming from if they won’t just be taking up existing roles?
You need to learn more about Andela’s model. 
I’ll pm you to hear more about that later.
In other words why reinvent the wheel.
Check out Moringa School (moringaschool.com), East Africa’s leading code school. Not only are they teaching Ruby on Rails and Java (for Android) deeply, but they are also revolutionizing tech education by fostering growth mindsets and strong communication skills among their students. Their graduates are extremely hireable, as MS is transferring Silicon Valley-level education to East Africa by working with the US’s top code school, Hack Reactor.
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You got it spot on.
In my perspective it all comes down to demand and supply. In the early 2000’s the dot com bubble bust and left many developers in the west without jobs. But now with the advent of mobile apps, increased reliance on the internet and software, you could say there is quite a bit of a buzz for developers (again). Hackathons have turned from small novice gatherings to full-fledged top events with top recruiters combing for prospective talent. Analysts are asking whether we are headed to another bubble.
Many people in tech compare Africa unfavorably to the West, while there are arguably more experienced developers in the West, the culture, resources and demand is vastly different from what we have here in Africa. The small number of actually good developers here in Africa understandably look for situations worthy of their talent, which remain institutions like banks, telecoms and certain government sectors.
The reality is most start ups in the West fail, and many good developers simply hope to find a job in a top firm or company. At best you commend them for actually trying to chase their dreams, and build great things. I have met some pretty good programmers in my time, some have gone on to work for Microsoft and Google. These are both from Africa and from the West, but one thing seems to be prevalent with all of them. At the end of it all, they have bills to pay, few are lucky enough to actually go out there and make a living from EXACTLY what they dreamed of, most of them end up in high paying roles and say yeah we put our cards on the table and AT LEAST we ended up here.
Most of Africa is a growing economy and while services like mobile money have shown true potential for software applications mass market appeal, many Africans simply don’t (YET) have the spending capacity to sustain the demand for software applications like the west does. Like it was noted many developers find themselves (including myself) working for banks, telecoms and perhaps government sectors that have a need for their skills.
In my Uganda, for example, they are 600,000 thousand graduates for every 100,000 jobs. It isn’t an environment where you can just throw caution to the wind and divulge in a tech start up.(Though its worth a shot ) One of the telecoms in Uganda, used to hold an annual community innovation awards, where programmers (university students) would come in floods competing for prize money to fund their ides. But after all was said and done, following up with these extremely bright kids and the winners ( I befriended many being a participant myself ) , they all had to settle for getting paying jobs at firms once the responsibilities really started set in.
From my perspective, we may not have the fully blossomed Silicon Valley that many tech analysts dream of, but we also do not have bullet trains and space station control centers. Technology industry is a fast moving one, and I think it’s safe to say there is at least more demand now than there was five years ago. And there will be more demand, say five years from now.
Africa’s developers are around. Once the opportunities present themselves, they will come.
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Would love to see you guys come down to Lagos. Lots of amazing people looking for these skills 
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I agree with you on this one.
Have you guys heard of Meltwater Entrepreneurial School of Technology(MEST) in Accra Ghana? There are about 10 Nigerians under the sponsorship of Interswitch. Watch out for them
There are a lot of underlying problems we might have as developers in Africa, Nigeria( think Electricity, Internet and basic needs).
But places like CChub and Andela have started with a requirement for developer productivity which is an ecosystem of like minds. Does it diminish the other issues ?, No but it is something.
What i see many people me included doing now is that of collaboration and fast learning with our peers from all around the world. Is this the solution or the rightt approach ? I can’t say but we must march on confidently.
Learning anything takes time. Becoming a master takes more time. In the coming future i hope it all pays off.
Actually some are of late for example www.fxtrader360.com a trading platform built in Africa from the ground up. Now has over 10000 users
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First post to reach 1k views.
I saw a response claiming that Nigerian/African programmers haven’t reached a stage where they can create technologies that can change the world, because they need to fight poverty first to create an enabling environment for our children to create the technology.
" I think that the current generation of developers will not save Africa. The ecosystem is too nascent to support much beyond transactional initiatives that allow them live from day to day. Remember Maslow’s hierarchy?"
“We have those who call themselves developers but can’t build anything from [the] ground-up [on their own]. They are just masters at combining a couple of hand-picked modules to get a product,”
That said, and as true as it is, it only means that our hope rests on our children and that we can only focus on fighting poverty. Wow!
Well, we can be creative and we can build from scratch, and I think most Africans have built from scratch. Now, I need anyone who has built something from scratch to prove those guys wrong and post whatever they built and are proud of, even if the marketing has been poor and discouraging. I will start by posting mine.
RoadPad is a simple webapp that you can log on to, type a take-off city (e.g Abuja) and then a destination city (e.g Lagos) and it will show you every transport operator (those already added to the system) so that you can do any of the following:
- Just get information from the page about their operation
- Query them about anything
- Write or read a review
- Book directly for their service
You can see a sample here http://roadpad.com/route/6 or just search your own here http://roadpad.com/
So, Africa and Nigeria can build from scratch…
I also have other projects but posting more than one could constitute spamming, so let’s just stick to one.
Looking forward to yours
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@raydaizy I think you just killed it because some people think the best developers are those who know more languages or those with knowledge of some “assumed superior” languages. This comment should really be a lecture of it’s own on our approach to problem solving.
And I’m tempted to lift it unto my Facebook page, and blog if possible. But I won’t until you give a go-ahead
Thanks
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Sure @Ekene you can.
@darilldrems Spot on! While we may not have the abundance of developers like in US or India, we are gradually growing. Everyday I see guys picking up interest in programming. Let’s give it few more years.
To add to your second point:
Developers in India are also in demand internationally by very established companies.
For example; Investment banks in the UK will hire devs and IT specialists (at an intermediate level) from India, because it’s cheaper to do so on a contractual basis than hiring them in the UK.
So you’re right; the demand is extremely high both from companies in India and the West.
If developers in Nigeria (or any other African country for that matter) are given the same opportunity, the story will be drastically different.
Everyone out here got an opinion but that’s none of my business tho! GOES BACK TO SUBLIME/TERMINAL
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