Facebook Developer Circles and Andela have partnered to implement the #BuildforSDG Challenge 2020 to up-skill developers in ten (10) countries across Sub-Saharan Africa through a six-week immersive program where selected developers will work in agile remote teams to innovate on projects relating to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which focuses on simple ways to create a more inclusive, equitable and sustainable future for all.
The key focus of the #BuildForSDG program is to empower developers to build real-world and relevant solutions focused on the SDGs while gaining skills needed to advance their careers. 11 of the 17 sustainable development goals have approved projects with at least 2 problem statements for which the participants can tackle in teams.
The program seeks to engage about 7,500 developers across the participating countries and will run until November 2020 divided into three cohorts with start dates in March, June, and September respectively. The call for applications for Cohort 2 & 3 will be open from April 1, 2020, so interested applicants can apply on buildforsdg.andela.com.
Applicants are required to be above 18 years of age, be willing to dedicate 15 hrs per week for the whole six weeks that the program will run, be proficient in English, and should have at least a year plus of software development experience.
“Through the program, we are giving developers across Africa the opportunity to work on high-value, high-impact projects that could help improve their market-readiness,” said Chimdi Aneke, Developer Programs Manager, Sub-Saharan Africa, Facebook.
Developer Circles is a program from Facebook designed to create locally organized communities for developers. These communities are meant to educate and provide a forum for discussion and knowledge sharing around topics that are top-of-mind for developers in a particular market.
The program will be run by Andela, through the Andela Learning Community which has tested and proven learning science principles relating to small learner groups, transparent output tracking, and robust support communities to up-skill software developers at scale across Africa.
It’ll have six stages through which the developers will go through namely application, pre-selection, assessment, innovation, pitch-a-thon and finally selection of the top 3 teams that will receive prizes. In the first 2 stages, applicants will then have the opportunity to level up with Andela Curated Learning Content.
“During this period of great uncertainty – this isn’t business as usual. It’s a moment in time when the skill-sets you acquire and the prototypes you build as a software developer in the #BuildforSDG program can be the most critical in enabling you to solve some of the toughest challenges faced in our communities and around the world. Andela in partnership
with Facebook is committed to creating an enabling environment for engineers to do meaningful work in both their communities and across the globe through this program.” said Agnes Muthoni, Director of Talent Partnerships Africa at Andela.
Speaking to the ongoing #BuildForSDG program, she added “This is why we believe that having these developers focus on projects based activities will give them a fresh perspective to look inwards while thinking globally to help in creating solutions that could help to solve challenges in their community.
“Andela over the last three years has led the Andela Learning Community with strategic partnerships including leading technology companies like Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Pluralsight, and Udacity has been able to support more than 60,000 aspiring and experienced developers across Africa.
This partnership with Facebook furthers the commitment to cultivate and grow engineering talent on the continent.
