Emerging economies in Africa often have relationships with developed nations through dark colonial pasts, but today, digital tech is connecting previously unexpected partners.
Developed nations looking for growth are targeting Africa as an opportunity, but must offer the countries of the continent something in return, and one programme to transfer IT professionals and knowledge between Africa and the Baltic region is an example that goes beyond filling a skills gap.
As Computer Weekly reported recently, IT professionals in Africa are being connected to tech businesses in the Baltic region as part of a European Commission-funded project, known as the Digital Explorers programme.
Fronted by Lithuania-based think tank Osmos, it aims to address skills shortages in the Baltic tech sector, and increase more business and government engagement between the Baltic nations and African countries.
While countries in the Baltic region, Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia lead the world in digital business, they lack people. Estonia, for example, while a leading digital nation, has a population of about 1.3 million.
In contrast, countries like Nigeria are lagging in terms of digital economy, but have large and growing IT talent pools. Nigeria, for example, has a population of about 240 million and growing.
But African countries offer more than a skills pool for Europe to tap, with a huge potential market for its goods and services. It’s hoped connecting people through digital technology initiatives, like Digital Explorers, will initiate cooperation between the two regions.
New skills
It also sees African IT professionals learn new skills that can be used to help the economic development in their home countries.
At the Turing College data science school in Lithuania’s capital Vilnius, the Digital Explorers programme has already remotely trained 90 junior to mid-level data analysts from Africa. These trainees then travel to and work in the Baltic region, particularly in its rich tech startup sector. It’s hoped the project will create a model for the wider European Union (EU) region to follow.
Cindy Waweru, aged 24, from Kenya’s capital, Nairobi, a policy analyst in the city, was invited by the Kenya Private Sector Business Alliance (Kepsa) to take up a role that blended economics with statistical analysis. She had the option of taking up the role in Kenya or Lithuania, and opted for the latter. “Once I saw the Lithuania option, I was pretty intrigued,” she said.
With a degree in economics and statistics from the University of Nairobi, and experience as a policy analyst, Waweru took up a role at research institute Visionary Analytics in Lithuania’s capital, Vilnius.
“Originally I wanted to become a policy analyst and this could give me the opportunity to be a global one,” Waweru told Computer Weekly. “I have an IT background and worked initially as a data specialist in the Kenyan government. This was pretty important for the programme.”
She is currently on a six-month placement at Visionary Analytics in Vilnius. After that, she will either be offered a role in Lithuania or take her learnings back to Kenya.
In Kenya there will be opportunities for Waweru to work either in the tech sector or with tech-enabled organisations.
She said her international experience could open up more opportunities for her in Kenya. There is a growing tech scene in the East African country, she told Computer Weekly. “They call Kenya the Silicon Savannah,” said Waweru.
Kenya needs to emulate some of the strategies adopted in Europe, and Waweru said one of the main differences she has learned is the cooperation between nations. “I have noticed with in Europe generally and in terms of the framework and their policies that they operate within all EU member states,” she said. “We have something like that with the African Union, but a lot of the policies are led to the national governments. Something like intergovernmental working would help a lot in Africa.”
Waweru hopes the programme will build a good reputation for African talent and lead to more European countries taking advantage of their skills to fill gaps in their workforces.
But the programme is about much more than tech skills, with future business ties a major goal for both sets of economies.
Ashley Immanuel, co-founder and chief operating officer at Nigeria-based Semicolon, which trains software engineers and other technology skills, is an ambassador of the Digital Natives programme.
Immanuel said she is increasingly engaging with Baltic tech firms and tech ecosystems, as well as others across Europe.
She said the Nigerian digital tech market has evolved quite quickly over the past 10 to 15 years. “There is activity in terms of technology startups, and then of course the digital transformation of established companies,” said Immanuel. “Historically in Nigeria, obviously oil and gas has been present, but also some of the larger corporates like banks and finance firms.”
She said there is a huge population in Nigeria and that “people are anxious to find good jobs”, but added: “There has historically been a gap because the human capital that’s available here hasn’t been aligned to employer needs, especially for leading technology companies.”
Baltic nations
In contrast, the Baltic nations have small populations and a large tech sector.
Immanuel said both regions have challenges and that Baltic employers and tech companies she has met have listed access to talent as one of their challenges.
She said there is a mutual desire to learn from each other, as well as potential for business partnerships and relationships. On her travels in Europe, there is a lot of interest in working with African companies, she told Computer Weekly.
Immanual agreed that diversity of the IT workforce is also important, with the rapid development of technologies such as AI, and that Africa and the Baltics’ relationship can contribute to increased diversity.
Žilvinas Švedkauskas, managing director at Osmos, said it creates “unexpected country partnerships”.
“We built the project around people, digital explorers and their digital journeys,” he told Computer Weekly. “We create connections that set the path for more business-to-business and government-to-government type of engagement between countries.”
