iTalanta Academy in Kakuma prepares talented youth from refugee and host communities for employment as IT developers

Nairobi, 20 October 2021

On Monday 1 November the first campus of the iTalanta Academy starts in the Kakuma refugee camp. 20 candidates, selected from the refugee camp and host communities, will undergo an intensive 30-week program, preparing them for employment as IT developers.

The key learning opportunities for the students will be both focused on programming as well as problem solving skills which are highly relevant in the current market and IT space.

The program is free of charge to the selected students. They are equipped with a laptop and with a bicycle, for their daily commute to the campus in Kakuma. The curriculum is permanently supervised on site by experienced coaches from iTalanta.

The graduates from the program are likely to gain interview opportunites with Microsoft African Development Center or be absorbed into the iTalanta apprenticeship program.

This first campus of the iTalanta Academy is co-sponsored between Windle, Microsoft and Elewa.

Windle International Kenya (https://windle.org/) is a humanitarian organization working in Dadaab and Turkana Counties.  The organization supports education in the refugee camps and surrounding areas hosting the camps.  In Kakuma, Windle International Kenya is managing 9 secondary schools with a population of 17,118learners. 

Windle International Kenya has a great wealth of experience and expertise in managing education programmes both at secondary and tertiary level.  As such, with their skilled team and educational facilities on the ground, Windle International Kenya will play a crucial role in communicating the program to the different stakeholders and ensuring that the program is implemented as required.

“Through the iTalanta Academy, the learners from Kakuma Refugee Camp, Kalobeyei Settlement, and the host community in Kakuma will have an alternative pathway to generate income”, says Phyllis Mureu, Executive Director of Windle International Kenya. “This resonates well with the current plans to ensure that both the refugee and host communities work together towards social and economic development in Turkana County”.

The Africa Development Center (ADC) represents Microsoft’s first-ever engineering offices in Africa. With locations in both Nairobi, Kenya and Lagos, Nigeria, the ADC is a premier center of Engineering for Microsoft.

Apart from supporting the initiative financially, Microsoft is also contributing with a mentorship program where members of the ADC mentor candidates of the iTalanta Academy. The program ends with ADC’s Game of Learners Exhibition (https://aka.ms/gameoflearners), providing a fun, multi-week hackathon for learners to showcase their newly acquired skills.

“We at the Microsoft Africa Development Center are keen on enabling the next generation of great African engineers, software developers and innovators that will not only benefit Microsoft, but the entire ecosystem will benefit,” says Jack Ngare, Managing Director of Microsoft ADC. “We look forward to the outcome of the program and the software developers that rise from it.”

Elewa (https://www.elewa.education/) is a Kenyan education innovation company, incorporated in 2015. Elewa has been the driving force behind the iTalanta Academy. It intends to set up additional campuses in Kenya, with the same or similar partners, addressing talented youth from disadvantaged or marginalized communities.

Elewa provides the curriculum and the coaches while the iTalanta Academy creates a talent pipeline for the successful iTalanta Apprenticeship program, which was started in 2020.

“In the industrialized world, enterprises – from corporates to start-ups – experience increasing difficulties to find quality IT resources”, says Jente Rosseel, Founder and CEO of Elewa. “At iTalanta, we engage young Kenyan IT professionals for a 2-year apprenticeship. While gaining a substantial salary, they constantly up-skill their level, as they are coached and supervised by senior IT profiles. We are proud to see that global iTalanta customers are off-shoring their entire IT development needs to tech teams in Nairobi.”

With the industrialization of the iTalanta Academy and the iTalanta Apprenticeship program, more than 1,000 talented youth will be educated and employed over the next 4 years by iTalanta (https://italanta.net/)