AltSchool Africa is an online school, that decentralizes and democratizes access to education and opportunity for the next billion Africans. We deliver accessible, affordable, relevant, representative, and culturally-inclusive diplomas, starting at less than a dollar a day.
Our programs are designed to arm anyone with the practical skills, portfolio, and foundational knowledge they need to launch their career.
Currently, we have engaged over 13,000 students from 76 countries, with 30/54 African nations represented (including Nigeria, Ghana, Uganda, and Kenya). We are there to support talents, from their first-day writing code to signing their offer as senior software developers.
While placing senior software developers via TalentQL, it became increasingly clear that most emerging markets lack a scalable pipeline of talent to fuel the exponential demands of their tech ecosystems. Africa is no exception. African university curricula are obsolete. As a result, traditional post-secondary education is failing students.
After all, how can we expect them to get jobs in 2023 with a curriculum that hasn't been relevant since 1957?
Why Africa?With 1.4 billion people across the Continent, 60% of whom are under the age of 25, these markets literally represent the Future of Work. The median African today is just 18.6 years old. So, access to relevant education has tremendous potential to make or break their futures.
While this may sound promising, the current landscape is not a sustainable option to bridge the gap. Each year hundreds of thousands of young adults (in Nigeria alone!) graduate from university. Yet, unemployment remains at a record high -- 34%!!
Solution
Even ambitious individuals who self-study to further their skills often cannot close the foundational knowledge gaps a cohesive program would have instilled.
Looking around and seeing no pipeline, we set out to build one ourselves.
Our programs enable students across the Continent, and beyond, to access educational programs that equip them with relevant, in-demand skills to supercharge their careers.
Business ModelOur business model is simple, we charge a one-time application fee of $20. Those who pass our assessment process can then enroll. Students pay a monthly subscription fee -- starting at just a dollar a day -- for course access as well as add-ons for short courses and advanced lessons.
Those who are seeking job opportunities can work with our TalentQL recruitment team. We charge companies a commission, based on successful placement.
Our programs offer students a unique combination of flexibility and accountability, through a combination of synchronous and asynchronous learning models.
But, our community is our secret sauce. We recognize that people don't stay in school because of some fancy building or the promise of a piece of paper. They stay in school because of the PEOPLE!
Even in a virtual space, we want to ensure our students feel that sense of connection and camaraderie that will help them cross the finish line. So, we've gamified our community engagement, making helping fellow students synonymous with excelling within a course. As a result, we've seen 20-30% higher engagement and retention than the industry average.
Traction
Our first cohort of Pipeline students have increased their salary by an average of 8x, and have gone on to work at some of the world's top companies such as Yelp, Fluna, Andela, and TopTal as senior-level engineers.
Within 90 days of the opening of our applications for our School of Engineering, we had over 9,200+ applicants apply from 52 separate countries. We earned $243k in revenue, before we sat down to write our first line of code for our Learning Management System (LMS).
We welcomed our first class of students to our School of Engineering in April 2022. Months later, thousands sign on to our LMS each week to learn alongside their peers and develop their marketable skills.We are on track to have 10 million talents unlock their next opportunity by 2030.
In 2022, we invested in our program development and content, launching our School of Engineering, School of Product, and School of Data. In 2023, we are focusing on increasing the distribution of our existing educational assets and programs. This means that unit economics for existing programs will keep getting better, as our CAC with distribution at scale, at little additional cost.
Competitor Analysis
Our programs offer students the community-based sense of accountability they need to succeed, without any of the expensive physical infrastructure most schools rely on. We deliver locally developed, culturally representative content starting at just $30/month, and support our students with job placement.
Team
Our team is well-rounded with top-in-class developers from prestigious computer science programs, a CEO that has over 8 years of experience building and scaling startups from the ground up, a Head of Technology who founded the largest NGO coding school on the Continent, and many more learning and development experts with experience scaling startups in Africa.
Our team is uniquely qualified, given our ability to learn from our decades of professional experience building businesses in Africa, as we re-envision the Future of Work.