African Leadership International enters into agreement to acquire Silicon Valley’s Holberton Inc.

African Leadership International (ALI) which aims to transform Africa by developing three million entrepreneurial leaders by 2035, has entered into an agreement to acquire Holberton Inc., a Silicon Valley-founded, project-based, college alternative educating the next generation of software engineers. The acquisition will give ALI ownership of the advanced technology program that will enable ALI to provide global organizations access to a significant untapped workforce capable of bridging the growing global shortage of technology talent. It will also change the lives of millions of Africans by equipping them with the software engineering skills essential for the future digital workplace. The acquisition is expected to be completed in the third quarter. As part of the transaction, the Holberton School network will be separated into an independent organization.

According to the World Economic Forum, the pandemic has accelerated the pace of digital disruption in almost all industries, and 97 million new roles will emerge that are more adapted to the new division of labor between humans, machines and algorithms. With its aging populations, China, India, and the West – traditional sources of technology talent – are experiencing shortages to meet this new demand.

Africa is experiencing rapid population growth. It has the youngest workforce in the world, with an average age of 19 years, compared to 48 years in Germany or Japan. The continent is expected to have a workforce of 1.1 billion by 2035 – larger than China or India’s. As a result, global technology companies are increasingly seeing the continent as the next frontier for technology talent. Over the past three years, Twitter, Google, Microsoft, IBM, Alibaba among others, have all announced plans to open tech hubs in Africa.

These trends spurred ALI to partner with Holberton’s advanced technology program two years ago to rapidly scale up the training of software engineers on the African continent. Over the past year, more than 95 000 students have enrolled in African Leadership International’s ALX skills acceleration program, scaling over 2 000 times in the last 15 months.