We have Andela, codeX and Moringa School, and now we have Gebeya, a marketplace for IT talent headquartered in Nairobi and set to train developers in Ethiopia.
Gebeya, which will formally launch on September 15, is launching an IT training programme in Ethiopia, from which it aims to graduate 5,000 students over the next five years.
The second part of the startup’s platform, an IT services marketplace, will be focused elsewhere, however, given the lack of demand in Ethiopia.
“Kenya has one the highest demands for software developers in Africa, with a number of Fortune 500 technology companies making the country its African home base,” Gebeya marketing associate Muthoni Njoki told Disrupt Africa.
“This provides an opportunity to accelerate customer acquisition, and because the new distribution channel is an online marketplace, we will create awareness amongst new and existing IT professionals throughout the African continent.”
The startup’s goal is to produce African IT talent, and make these individuals available to the African and global business market via its the marketplace, offering companies access to developers and offering young Africans the chance to become active in the tech jobs market.
“Africa may have missed the industrial revolution but its youth has no intention to miss the digital one,” Njoki said.
“Gebeya will offer businesses unique access to a pool of talent unmatched on any other platform that will help them get their project built right and on budget. Gebeya will also offer training to coding enthusiasts who want to improve their skills.”
Although Gebeya will be taking clients from all around Africa, the focus is currently on Ethiopia and Kenya. Njoki said the plan is to expand and scale the platform to other African countries within the first two years of operations.
Gebeya will generate revenue through matching developers with businesses, with Njoki saying the company has already started acquiring clients even prior to launching.
“We believe greatly in training the next generation of African IT professionals, so no difficulty we face will divert us from this vision,” she said. “We are all Africans from different parts of the continent here at Gebeya. We are determined to contribute to the ever growing African IT marketplace, starting with education for our people. We hope to leverage education to cultivate African talent.”
