MADAGASCAR – Sayna, a Malagasy ed-tech startup has secured a round of funding to help it expand access to its training programme and launch new platforms.
Launched in 2018, Sayna aims to provide quality training in the digital sector in Africa and offer professional opportunities to young people by bridging the gap between the growing demand of companies on digital issues and the supply of digital talent.
It has now raised a round of funding from I&P Acceleration Technologies, a programme dedicated to African digital start-ups led by Investisseurs & Partenaires (I&P), and Miarakap, an impact investment firm, to help it grow.
By 2024, Sayna aims to have enabled 8,000 people in Africa to enter the digital industry through its training programmes, and also to have more than 3,500 people working a micro tasking connecting SMEs and start-ups in the French-speaking world with African talent.
“As a team, we are immensely proud of what we have accomplished so far. Our successes and failures have allowed us to utterly understand our market so that we can now offer a solution that can truly reinvent access to the job market for junior developers. The best is ahead of us!” said Matina Razafimahefa, co-founder and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Sayna.
In April 2021, American Holberton, the software engineering education company, announced partnership with Sayna to offer affordable, high-quality tech education in the country.
Holberton will work with Sayna to create three, tailored, full-stack web curricula using Holberton’s OS of education, a set of tools that enable organizations to quickly create courses or curricula on their own.
Julien Barbier, Holberton’s CEO said at that time that: “We are delighted to work with such an innovative education company in deploying our OS of education to create opportunities for students to join the digital revolution that is sweeping the world.”
“ Our successes and failures have allowed us to utterly understand our market so that we can now offer a solution that can truly reinvent access to the job market for junior developers”
Martina Razafimahefa – Co-founder & CEO, Sayna
The Republic of Madagascar is the world’s second-largest island country, located in the Indian Ocean about 250 miles West of Africa and with a population of nearly 30 million, per capita annual income of US$450 and GDP of US$13 billion, Madagascar has been a surprising hotbed of recent technology innovations, with the high local demand for software engineering talent.
The world’s first 3D-printed school is being built in Madagascar.
SAYNA gives its students the opportunity for real-world work experience through micro projects sponsored by companies such as Capgemini (global systems integration firm), Generali Group (financial services), Societe Generale (banking) and Orange (telecommunications).
Students not only learn through these projects but earn money as well and the better students perform in their studies, the more access they have to these micro projects and future employment.
As elsewhere in 2020, online education boomed In Madagascar as many people lost their jobs during the Covid-19 pandemic and sought retraining.
With this partnership, Sayna expects to train 500 new software developers this year alone and hopes for exponential growth from there.
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