40 applicants can enroll for free, with Talent 4 Startups scholarships

We recently announced a partnership with Digital Africa, to launch the continent’s first-ever Growth Talent Accelerator Program (GTAP), as part of Digital Africa’s ‘Talent 4 Startups’ initiative.

Founder & CGO Bili Sule explains that…

“Early stages of the African startup ecosystem evolution were characterised by entrepreneurs with innovative solutions, but limited funds to develop their ideas. Later, an increase in Africa-focused investor interest led to capital inflow & access to funding. Then, founders had money but struggled with building products. The lack of credible engineering talent in the market, made it difficult to build apps affordably & quickly. Next, talent accelerators like Andela helped to close the engineering talent gap. Now we have lots of emerging tech startups, with funding and an ability to build products, but very few have achieved significant enough scale. This is where we come in at alGROWithm. Think of us as the Andela for Growth Engineers.”

We recently conducted research to understand the growth talent needs of the African Tech Startup space and to explore how well those needs are currently being met. We discovered that most founders would prefer to hire in-house growth talent versus engaging a growth agency, however over 88% of respondents indicated that the process of finding and hiring such talent was “Difficult” or “Almost Impossible”. Furthermore, for those who ultimately hired growth talent, almost half of them did not live up to the founders’ expectations.

Participate in this ongoing research at www.algrowithm.com/growth-talent-survey

“From the results of our research so far, it is clear that the ecosystem needs a steady supply of growth talent to make it easier for founders to find and hire the people they seek. It is also clear that there’s a need for training and upskilling existing talent to levels of expertise where they can deliver in line with employers’ expectations. This is why the Talent 4 Startups opportunity with Digital Africa, was particularly exciting for us. It presented an opportunity for alGROWithm to start closing these gaps.” – Bili Sule

Talent 4 Startups is developed by Digital Africa, in partnership with Make-IT in Africa, the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH, and the German Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ).

The program is a pilot deploying training scholarships for tech and digital jobs. It aims to meet the skills needs expressed by the continent’s startups by training young people, who will then be matched with startups seeking local talent.

“This partnership will equip African tech entrepreneurs with capabilities to design and scale-up ground-breaking innovations. It is part of our strong commitment to make Africa a pool of tech talent for the real economy.” – Digital Africa

For its initial deployment, Talent 4 Startups plans to award 280 scholarships, 40 of which will be delivered by us- alGROWithm in 2 cohorts running concurrently this year, across Nigeria and Ghana.

In one cohort, we will upskill staff currently working in African tech startups – including Growth leads, Analysts, Product Managers, and Marketing team members – and develop them into full stack Growth Engineers over a 6 month period.

In the second cohort, we will train freelance Digital Marketers, University Graduates and Unemployed Youth with Digital Marketing or Product knowledge and/or experience, to become certified Growth Experts over a 4 month period. Successful graduates will also be placed into tech jobs and internships after the programme. Read more about the programme and how to apply at www.algrowithm.com/gtap.

“At alGROWithm, one of our mission statements is to fill the African market with credible, talented, yet affordable world class growth engineers.

Through the GTAP and our other courses, we will train up to a thousand growth experts over the next 5 years, who we hope will contribute significantly to the emergence of more successful African startups and ultimately, unicorns.

During my career,  I’ve come across many digital marketers or product managers positioning as growth experts, but often missing the ability to implement growth strategies with a full value chain approach. At alGROWithm, we want to change that by evolving and upskilling talent to push beyond one-off lucky growth hacks. We are training Growth Engineers, who will execute systematic and data driven strategies that deliver scale in a consistent and impactful manner for their startups.” – Bili Sule

Do you know anyone who is interested in Growth Hacking? They can learn so much more… Share this article and encourage them to apply before the deadline! Applications close on the 16th of April 2022.

For more information about the programme and how to apply for a scholarship, visit www.algrowithm.com/gtap or follow @algrowithm on Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn.