GoMyCode Opens Flagship Hackerspace in Yaba, Unpacks Business Plan for Nigerian Market

In a bid to ensure that Nigerians, particularly youths are prepared and ready for the future work, GoMyCode, Africa’s leading edtech platform has unveiled its business plans for the Nigerian market, at the official opening of its newly acquired ‘Hackerspace’ in Yaba, Lagos.

Babatunde Olaifa, General Manager of GoMyCode Nigeria,

Babatunde Olaifa, General Manager of GoMyCode Nigeria, Speaking at the event, decried the dearth of digital skills in the country, noting that most of the courses being offered in our tertiary institutions are no longer realisable for today’s employment market.

Speaking further on the massive digital skills gap in Africa, the General Manager, stated that over 150m people in the workforce in Africa & Middle East do not have the necessary skills needed for today’s job.

According to him, “About 50% of current university graduates in Africa do not get jobs and existing solutions fall short in quantity and quality in delivering for today’s digital skills”.

He urged Nigerians to take advantage of the company’s bespoke digital training, in order for them to compete favourable with their contemporaries for the over 4 000 000 job openings in the digital industry in the world.

Giving insight into their plans for the Nigerian market, Olaifa said that their goal is to deliver quality, affordable and localized training on digital skills through a scalable model.

“We provide training for the future of work on the most in-demand digital skills, like data science, machine learning, digital marketing, user interface design, game development, cybersecurity and so no.

“Our large network of qualified instructors provide follow-ups, supervision, one-to-one meetings and technical workshops for students.

“Their lively presence motivates students and stimulates exchange between them.

“Our Completion rate is much higher than solo learning – about 95% program completion rate compared to 10% of online learning”.

On the successes the company is recording in the country, he attributed them to their learning platform, which he said, was tailor made to ensure that students success.

He equally noted that Students & instructors progress & performance are monitored in order to increase completion rates and ensure personalized student support.

“We introduced gamified learning so as to increase engagement on our platform and ensure retention of these students.

“Our localized content helps to remove language barrier, thereby ensuring that more students are captured for the training.

“We also have in place an automated capacity planning, so that the hackerspace manager can focus on sales and student experience,” he added.

Highlighting reasons why people join GoMyCode, Olaifa said that people generally want to improve their livelihood, stressing that their motivation is basically to increase employment opportunities, boost their career, build their startups or understanding technology trends as well as make informed decisions.

He further submitted that 85% of its full-time program students are hired as developers after 6 months of graduation, 90% develops their tech product at the end of the program, while about 35% are reported to witness increase in their salaries after graduation.

He concluded by unraveling the company’s goal of opening 80 hackerspaces and training 100k students per year by 2024. And ensuring the provision of scalable and sustainable educational platform for the youth in Africa and the Middle East.