Host: This week on the Limitless Africa podcast, we look at something young Africans care about: work! And we’re looking at how American tech platforms are transforming work for young Africans.
We’ll be talking about how to network online with Temi Badru, a Top Voice on LinkedIn; we’ll be discussing the potential of AI to transform our lives if we Africans take control of the means of production; and we’ll also be talking about how remote work is breaking geographic barriers.
Andela is an American company doing just that – it’s a talent marketplace that trains and connects technologists and software engineers from Africa and other emerging markets with leading American companies.
Koffi Kelvin, a engineer who trained with Andela, and Nicola Lyons, the company’s talent lead, welcome to Limitless Africa.
Host: Nicola, can you just explain to us who Andela is and the kind of work that you’re doing?
Nicola Lyons: Yeah, absolutely. So Andela is an AI-native data and services company, and we power AI transformation across all of our clients and global enterprises. We actually started on the continent, founded in Lagos in 2014. We started with a fellowship program where we trained technologists, an intensive three-year fully funded fellowship where high potential software engineers were trained and and then placed on remote technology work engagements with our clients, which range from Fortune 500 companies, unicorns and startups around the world… The likes of Meta, AWS, the Linux Foundation, and NVIDIA, the list goes on. We have a wide range of partners who help us train the brilliant technical talent across the continent.
Host: But can you maybe take us through the story of what inspired the model that Andela works with?
the the founding team was a mixture of of North American and African brilliant minds who identified that there was so much world-class engineering and talent on the continent, but it was under-recognized and under-resourced globally. So their early American investors believed in their mission: the mission statement of Andela is that brilliance is evenly distributed, but opportunity is not.
So that’s why Andela started training software engineers in Africa and placing them with U.S. companies.
Host: So can you tell us more about what that experience has been like and maybe which other companies you’ve worked for?
Koffi: I would say, the COVID-19 pandemic made the concept of remote work fully catch on.
When you mentioned that you work remotely, it’s not a super novel idea. It’s more or less mainstream, but then most companies now went back to their offices and a few of us now have been left working remotely.
And I would say this is one of the best innovations. Because to be completely honest, not many of us would have been able to relocate to Europe or US to work for some of these companies.
It would have been really, really challenging and costly for me to relocate to the US to go work for GitHub. But now, sitting in my room in Nairobi, I’m able to log on to my laptop and meet targets, join meetings. I think the idea of remote work now has become a game changer in that sense.
To be honest, I really enjoy it. I love it so much.
Host: What would you say are some of the things that you are able to do because of the flexibility of remote work?
Koffi: So I’m able to be present in my daughter’s life. I have a 10 year old daughter, so I’m able to get her to school in the morning and pick her up in the evening, help her with her homework. um I’m able to be present in the lives of the people who matter to me.
Host: how would you compare your earnings to let’s say the standard in kenya?
Koffi: For example, GitHub is way above market average in the local economy. And this you know avails and affords us to be extremely useful for our native countries. For example, I was able to take my younger brother through university. I was able to help my mom build her own place, I set up businesses. Basically, these financial opportunities unlock so much more.
Nicole: As Kofi said himself there, he’s paid very, very competitively
Honestly, and price isn’t really what Andela competes on with our global North American clients. It’s the skills. So right now, the demand for AI native engineers is so fierce. The vast majority of Andela’s clients are coming to us because they know that we invest in upskilling and creating AI engineers.
So it’s not really on price that we’re competing on. primarily right now, it’s on the fact that Andela is constantly upskilling technologists in AI and creating a fleet of AI forward deployed engineers who can be embedded within our clients’ teams and make radical AI transformations in a very short window of time.
Koffi: Like at GitHub right now, the input that we give, for example… Being a Kenyan is so useful and it covers so many blind spots that maybe somebody whose life experience is probably in North America only has. We are able to share so much perspective. So I feel like this is useful. Having different voices who are located all over, I feel like it’s a huge plus for the companies. They get my perspective as an African.
Even AI, the products we build in AI, talking about AI bias, when it comes to generating AI for images… Having perspective from even these parts of the world when building such technologies, I think is extremely useful because these products will eventually be sold to people in these parts of the world. So I feel like many companies and the companies do benefit from having me and fellow Africans in their pool of talent.
STING
Someone else thinks AI is the future of work. Claude spoke to Preston Ideh, the co-founder of STEARS, a financial data company for investors interested in Africa. And he asked him one question…
Claude Grunitzky: And you’re also working with a lot of American companies in the financial services firms, companies like PitchBook and Prequin. And i guess what you’re trying to do is make sure that African data is available for investors focused on Africa and focused on African opportunities.
So the question is what is the one thing we don’t talk enough about when it comes to Africa’s limitless potential?
Preston Ideh
We don’t talk about enough. Well, we so i mean we we do talk about a lot of things, so it gets very narrow narrow list, but I will use this opportunity to speak about, i think, something that one of the most recent topics, which is really artificial intelligence, right?
And I am, as an African living on the continent, but having been exposed to, you know, global market, I think that we do run the risk of not capturing any of the real economic value that is going to be already being created from artificial intelligence.
By that, I mean we run the risk of being pure consumers of the tools.
We’re not in a place where you know we can set up data centers or hyperscalers or the big players are talking about building new data centers on the continent.
We understand why that is, of course, you know there are limitations in terms of access to energy, access to water, things that are needed, even talent.
But I do think that it’s important we take advantage of whatever we can. And I think what we can take advantage of is the global talent. We do have a young population right that is savvy enough if it can be sort of channeled to take advantage of this revolution. Having so many young people who are coming to the workforce and have the opportunity, right, to be native to these tools means that we could actually have a very, very productive workforce.
But we just have to think about AI, right? not just from the perspective of consuming, ah you know, tools, right? Paying the $20 subscription or the $200 subscription. I always think to myself, right, you know, can we just move one step earlier in the value chain, right?
You know, let’s not just be the end users, right? Let’s be something else.
Let’s also create some tools, right? And then, you know, start to capture even more of that.
Claude Grunitzky: Well, when you talk about paying the $20 subscription, you mean paying your $20 subscription to ChatGPT, right? In order to be just a user of ChatGPT, as opposed to the creator of the ChatGPT.
So, you know, what I like about your approach here is that you’re not just focused on the digital divides and the structural inequalities, which everybody talks about, the limited connectivity, the infrastructure deficits.
You’re really talking about the human capital and the potential for young Africans to provide the human capital that can fuel an AI boom on the continent as well.
And do you see that actually happening potentially? Do you see the potential of that actually manifesting?
Preston Ideh: I do, I do. um There are certain things I will acknowledge might make a bit trickier now. I think, of course, globally, um borders are not as as um as open as they have been you know historically.
So one of the biggest opportunities to leapfrog, which is just getting access to high quality education, either by going to universities abroad, right? you know we might start to see some friction around that.
But it does point to an opportunity to think about, ah ah i guess, more remote education, right? Or education that happens outside you know physical physical limitations.
There is, I think that Africa as well, if and only if, right, we’re able to take advantage of sort of new thinking.
And Africans are like, you know what, we’re going to get educated. We’re going to really advance and push the frontiers.
**
One of the social networks pushing frontiers at the moment is LinkedIn – if you want to get hired by a global company, that’s where you should be networking online – LinkedIn has over a billion members worldwide across more than 200 countries. So Claude spoke to Temi Badru, a lawyer, communications specialist, and Top Voice on LinkedIn.
My name is Tammy Badru. I am a lawyer, as you mentioned. I’m also called the presidential host on stage as the master of ceremonies. I’m a host, you know, also on TV, on radio. I used to be on the radio. i used to present a show on the radio. So wherever you need to host events, I am there. I also founded a company called Voices and Faces Communications.
Now, what we do at Voices and Faces Communications is that we provide communication services and we train individuals and organizations in public speaking, in communication, emceeing, that’s being the master of ceremonies at events, and in other soft skills such as networking and networking on platforms like LinkedIn, because that is very essential. I liked what you said in your intro that says LinkedIn has over a billion people, a billion members, and, you know, across over 200 countries. And that means that if you have one billion people somewhere, that’s a place that professionals, and entrepreneurs should be. Networking is key. How do we access these people? How do we leverage the network that we have there? So I train people, well, my company trains people in these skills
So what tips would you give someone looking to network on LinkedIn?
The first one that comes to mind would be share value. Value is hard to miss. LinkedIn is about value.
It’s not just about your accomplishment because sometimes you go to LinkedIn and you want to share, my goodness, I’ve been recognized for XYZ. I’m going to another continent. I’m traveling. I’m doing this. I’m exploring.
I’m on the Limitless Africa show. Woo, beautiful! but you know But that’s a good thing, right?
And let me also mention that you found me through LinkedIn. So yeah, kudos to LinkedIn, right? But for me, it is also about sharing value.
I’m a lawyer. So I was sharing about how you should avoid some legal issues, how you should, very simple things, As a matter of fact, I was writing about, or on LinkedIn, about how you should have a written agreement instead of an oral agreement. And somebody who will say, that’s so simple. We all know that. But guess what? People were dropping comments and saying, oh my goodness, thank you. This is so helpful for me.
So share value. Let me not overflog that. That is so important. Number one, share value. Number two, recognize that LinkedIn is a professional platform, like you said, but a professional platform that has so many humans on it. the keyword being human beings.
We’re human beings on LinkedIn. So we want to make a personal connection and not just the technical language.
So you need to connect with people. You need to share stories. You need to share relatable things. Now, when you were asking me this question, you you told me to make it very, very practical.
That is how people like to connect on LinkedIn. They want to relate with you. Even though you are in the US and I’m in Nigeria, the things you’ve said that I can relate with because you’re human.
So the stories, remember that people can get on AI platforms and they can get so much knowledge. But what makes your knowledge stand out is the personal connection, the stories, the practical insight.
So you want to share that on LinkedIn. So I’ll call that number two. Number three is my all-time favorite quote that says, in consistency lies the power.
Continue show up consistently. It’s not about the numbers. but The numbers are good and they can be encouraging. So yes, the numbers are good. in terms of engagement, the likes, the comments and all of that.
But remember that you have a vision, like a long-term vision, whatever you’re looking at, your goal for LinkedIn. So stay consistent.
Claude: Wonderful. Thank you, Temi. This has been really fun for me. I really enjoyed this. I hope we get to meet in person.
It was fun for me to, and look forward to connecting with you on LinkedIn or building relationships on LinkedIn.
Host: The world of work is changing. A booming youth population, rising internet connectivity, and tech-driven innovation are reshaping the continent’s workforce. For American tech companies we are the next consumers but we are also the next software engineers and innovators. Africa is the next global talent powerhouse, and if we lean in, our potential is limitless.
