Bolanle Ladoja
The business of grooming and matching tech talent in Africa began with Andela in 2014. Having undergone a series of changes in its business model before arriving at what it is now. Andela claims to have successfully trained over 1,000 software engineers through programmes like the Andela Learning Community.
The idea, which the African tech community quickly embraced, has seen exceptional minds released into the African tech ecosystem. Oyelade Oladayo, who joined in 2014, is one of such talents; and he went ahead to build a similar platform years later.
Having worked directly with the founders of Andela, led at least two teams, and participated actively on many projects including Google’s, he left after 18 months. For the next couple of years, he worked at other local and international companies as a full-fledged senior developer.
By June 2019, he pulled together his wealth of experience in software engineering, teaching, and mentorship to build Enyata. His goal was clear to build a community of developers but he planned to approach it distinctly.
Enyata generates revenue by partnering with local and international companies like Ecobank, NIBSS, and Empire, among others, either to take up the engineering role in their company or take on projects for some time.
Asides this, the Enyata team also has plans to build products that will become an offshoot of the company. The founder expects the first set to be completed by first quarter of 2021.
Apparently, the African dream isn’t limited to Nigeria and the Enyata team has plans that the startup envisages expansion into other African countries. For now, Ghana seems to be the first stop, with Namibia and Senegal also on the list.
Oyelade takes pride in a stable team, which has been key to surviving during the pandemic even though they just opened a physical office. Because of the structure of each scrum team, collaboration and communication were done easily.
With the startup currently serving up to 20 partners, and with more to come, it is interesting to note that some of them came through the good relationship that was built during his time at Andela.
Ultimately, Enyata looks to become the preferred community for exceptional engineers in Africa in a very near future.
