It's hard to ignore a company that's integrating top talent from one of the largest pools of untapped brain power in the world. It's even harder to ignore when they're backed by Facebook and Google.
Andela selects the top 1% of tech talent from the African continent and seamlessly integrates them into their clients' teams. The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative is leading a new $24 million series B round of funding into Andela, and was recently joined by GV (formerly Google Ventures).
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Zuckerberg applauded Andela's mission to close the gap in a world where the talent is evenly distributed but the opportunity is not. Through Andela, "companies get access to great developers and developers in Africa get the opportunity to use their skills and support their communities," Zuckerberg said in a statement about the funding.
Andela, now with locations in both Kenya and Nigeria, was founded in 2014 by Christina Sass, Ian Carnevale, Iyinoluwa Aboyeji, and Jeremy Johnson. The cofounders aim to connect top employers to undiscovered, top technical talent.
In their two years, Andela has trained 200 engineers carefully selected from a pool of over 30,000 applicants. Andela selects their applicants in a four step process, and has an acceptance rate of just 0.7%, making it the most selective technical program on the continent. Selection begins with an aptitude test, followed by a passion check, personality match, and programming evaluation. At the end of the process, those who are selected become Andela developers and spend an additional six months in training.
Continue reading on the Code Talent Blog.
