E-Business
Andela Launches Integrated, End-to-End Platform to Bolster Global Remote Tech Hiring

Andela, the world’s largest private marketplace for technical talent, announced today the Andela Talent Cloud, an integrated, end-to-end platform to match global technologists with companies seeking to bolster capacity and skill sets.
The Andela platform is an all-in-one, AI-driven solution that provides IT executives with complete transparency of talent profiles and skills assessment results, enabling informed and secure hiring decisions.
“Market-leading organizations realize that rewriting their workforce strategies to include global, remote tech talent offers a distinct competitive advantage,” said Jeremy Johnson, Andela CEO and Co-Founder. “Andela offers a seamless approach. By combining the world’s preeminent private talent marketplace with an AI-driven platform, Andela helps companies scale their teams and deliver projects faster.”
The Andela Talent Cloud delivers clients greater speed, flexibility, performance, and trust, unlike other approaches to hiring, such as in-house recruiting, consulting firms, and outsourcing.
The solution allows IT organizations to scale quickly with a highly elastic resource pool and flexible hiring options, to find the right talent for the right role, at the right speed and cost.
The platform streamlines the complete hiring lifecycle, helping companies source, qualify, hire, manage, and pay global technologists in one integrated platform. The entire hiring process can take as little as 48 hours and be 30% to 50% more cost-efficient.
“Our global client footprint requires us to deliver to anywhere from anywhere. To accomplish this, we need a balanced global talent strategy,” said Ikechi Okoronkwo, Global Executive Director, Advanced Analytics at Mindshare.
“With Andela, we scale up or down easily as business needs change. They help us quickly find talent that is highly motivated, highly skilled, and embodies a culture of excellence and delivery. The talent hits the ground running, which drives maximum value for our clients. Andela de-risks global hiring, so businesses can grow and be competitive.”
According to a Gartner® Press Release, “[It] is no surprise that the rate of hiring borderless technology staff doubled in the last three years as increasing retention and hiring has risen to the No. 3 priority for CEOs this year and 2023, said Gabriela Vogel, Senior Director Analyst at Gartner.
The COVID-19 pandemic also accelerated borderless hiring, and what began as an exception is no longer.” “Gartner defines borderless workforce as talent working remotely from different countries based on an employment contract made across national borders.”
The Andela Talent Cloud features:
Enhanced AI Capabilities
At the core of the Andela Talent Cloud is the Talent Decision Engine™ (TDE) which is powered by AI and data-driven matching algorithms to pair the ideal talent to client-specific roles and skills requirements.
The TDE™ learns from thousands of data points across the hiring lifecycle, assessing a broad data set including both hard and soft skills, experience, title, geography, work preferences, language proficiency, candidate interactions, and client feedback for each and every job position.
The TDE™ reduces bias and subjectivity from the recommendation and matching process for each candidate presented for review and acceptance to ensure a fairer and more accurate match to the job requirements.
Further, the TDE™ continually evolves for each client by analyzing their interactions across the marketplace as well as talent success, enabling the platform to get smarter over time, and improving the ability to match the right talent for future project work.
Andela boasts a 96% talent match success rate and a speed to hire up to 70% faster than traditional recruiting, which is expected to improve as the platform scales from additional interactions and placements.
Predictive performance:
With the acquisition of Qualified in March 2023, Andela has integrated into the Talent Decision Engine™ proprietary developer assessment capabilities that help better determine the on-the-job performance of the recommended talent before selection.
The top customer-rated assessment platform on G2, Qualified, provides over 500 predefined and fully configurable coding challenges to evaluate technical skills objectively at scale.
Qualified uses an evidence-based evaluation process to signal skills-based proof that the engineering candidate can problem solve, make technically knowledgeable decisions, and has the requisite hard and soft skills to fit the role and company culture.
According to a Gartner report, “76% of HR leaders who completed Gartner’s 2022 HR Budget and Staffing Benchmarking Survey expect headcount to increase well into 2022, with turnover remaining high”. Given the global need for reskilling and upskilling, Andela will continue to offer Andela Qualify as a standalone developer assessment solution.
Seamless Global Payout Capability
Andela Pay manages all aspects of global payouts, currency exchange, and compliance in over 100 countries to ensure that technologists receive funds in a low-cost and timely manner.
Technologists are paid out directly in USD into a partner wallet of their choice – clients are thus insulated from foreign exchange risk. The Andela Pay partner ecosystem also runs OFAC checks and Know-Your-Customer reviews on contracted technologists as per applicable regulations to ensure compliance by all remote workers.
Enterprise HRM Integrations
Andela Connect provides integrations to popular Application Tracking (ATS) and Vendor Management Systems (VMS). With this release of the Andela Talent Cloud, integrations are available for Greenhouse, Beeline and Fieldglass.
These integrations allow clients to link job postings on their website or LinkedIn to instantly connect to the Andela Talent Cloud to begin the matching process against the Andela Talent Marketplace. Clients are able to streamline their recruitment process to source talent recommendations to hire quickly.
E-Business
Kike, Nigerian Tech Firm Launches ‘Kike AI’ for Kitchen Innovation

Kike Technologies, a Nigerian technology firm, has launched ‘Kike AI’, a revolutionary artificial intelligence-driven kitchen application designed to transform Nigeria’s food and cooking gas industries.
The app aims to enhance convenience for consumers while optimising gas supply through predictive technology.
Speaking at the launch event, Femi Oye, CEO of Kike Technologies, highlighted the app’s ability to address a common household issue, unexpected depletion of cooking gas.
“Using advanced algorithms and data analytics, this app can forecast when a user’s gas cylinder is running low, enabling them to order refills ahead of time,” Oye explained.
Beyond individual household benefits, Kike AI is expected to have a broader economic impact by creating jobs within the logistics, gas retail, and food industries.
“We anticipate significant job growth as the app gains traction, particularly in delivery and gas station services,” Oye noted.
The app is also designed to bridge the digital gap, specifically targeting women and marginalised groups by providing them with opportunities to showcase their culinary skills and earn a sustainable income.
According to Oye, this initiative will not only empower women economically but also help preserve Nigeria’s rich culinary heritage.
By leveraging AI technology, Kike AI aims to revolutionise everyday cooking experiences, support economic development, and create essential employment opportunities in Nigeria’s growing tech and food sectors.
The application is expected to drive a shift towards more efficient cooking gas management, ensuring affordability and ease of access for millions of users.
E-Business
Africa’s Data Workers are Being Exploited by Foreign Tech Firms – Report

Data workers in Africa often have a hard time, according to a report published in theconversation.com, a nonprofit, independent news organization dedicated to unlocking the knowledge of experts for the public good.
The article by Mohammad Amir Anwar, senior lecturer in African Studies and International Development, University of Edinburgh, found that data workers in Africa face job insecurities – including temporary contracts, low pay, arbitrary dismissal and worker surveillance – and alarming physical and psychological health risks.
The consequences of their work can include exhaustion, burnout, mental health strain, chronic stress, vertigo and weakening of eyesight.
Data work includes text prediction, image and video annotation, speech to text validation and content moderation.
The world of data work is built on labour arbitrage – exploiting the fact that workers earn less and have less protection in some countries than in others.
Large technology firms often outsource this work to the global south, including African countries like Kenya, Uganda and Madagascar, and also India and Venezuela.
The result is complex production networks that are generally opaque and shrouded in secrecy.
Workers and researchers have issued many warnings about data workers’ health.
Despite numerous court cases in multiple jurisdictions, nothing much has been done to address these issues either by tech companies or by regulators.
Still, the news of the death of a Nigerian content moderator, Ladi Anzaki Olubunmi, who was found dead in her apartment in Nairobi, Kenya on 7 March 2025, came as a shock.
While the circumstances of her death are still unclear, it has renewed calls for wider systemic change.
Her death has sparked condemnation from the Kenyan Union of Gig Workers, which demanded an investigation.
Since 2015, we have been studying the central role of African data workers in building and maintaining artificial intelligence (AI) systems, acting as “data janitors”.
Our research found that companies rarely acknowledge the use of human workers in AI value chains, thus they remain “hidden” from the public eye. In other words, the world of AI is built on the toil of human workers most people are unaware of.
In this article, we outline key steps needed to protect these data workers in Africa.
They include business process outsourcing regulations, ensuring quality rather than quantity of jobs, and providing social protection. There is also a need to name and shame companies that maltreat data workers.
Data work needs tighter regulation.
Regulation
Business process outsourcing is the practice of procuring various processes or operations from external suppliers or vendors.
Firms that do this are sometimes trying to evade local regulations (like minimum wages) and responsibility towards workers’ welfare (via sub-contracting and the use of temporary employment agencies).
This is happening in Africa as some data training firms and digital labour platforms circumvent local labour laws.
But there is more to the story.
Data work is also seen by lawmakers and practitioners as a solution to the rampant unemployment and informality across Africa.
African governments have actively created regulatory environments that enable these practices to thrive, despite adverse outcomes for workers.
Nonetheless, new regulations have been proposed lately, like the Kenyan government’s Business Law (Amendment) Bill, 2024 targeting the wider business process outsourcing and IT-enabled services sector.
Particularly, it makes business process outsourcing firms responsible for any claim raised by employees. It ensures some accountability for firms bringing data work to Africa.
Other governments should follow with similar measures ensuring worker rights are enforceable. Some data workers are hired on contracts as short as five days and get paid less than the local minimum wage.
Firms found violating labour standards should be penalised.
In fact, there is an urgent need to create regional or continent-wide regulatory frameworks covering the business process outsourcing sector, limiting the space for firms to exploit workers.
It’s possible, however, that jobs might be lost as firms relocate to places with favourable laws, an everyday reality in the outsourcing networks.
Quality, not quantity
African governments should prioritise the quality of jobs and not quantity. Policymakers should think about wider national economic development plans, particularly structural diversification and upgrading of their economies.
Historically, these strategies have resulted in success in some states, addressing social and economic issues such as unemployment, poverty and inequality.
Another option for African governments is to enhance social protection among data workers.
Financing this is a serious issue, so proper taxation and compliance among workers and employers is urgently needed.
Finally, there is a role for naming and shaming firms that treat their data workers poorly. There is evidence that such efforts improve compliance and firms’ behaviour.
Worker movements
African data workers have taken risks in openly speaking about their experiences.
But these kinds of approaches work well when combined with collective bargaining.
Workers have historically won their labour and civil rights after long and hard-fought struggles.
There is a long history of African worker movements and trade unions resisting the apartheid and colonial regimes across the continent.
While the freedom of association is enshrined in the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights and most governments have legislation committed to collective bargaining, it is rarely implemented in the new outsourcing sectors, particularly data work.
It is also difficult to organise workers in the industry, because of the high churn rate. For instance, data training firms like Sama offer short-term contracts to employees, often as short as five days.
Some firms are hostile to workers’ organising activities.
But numerous data worker-led associations have emerged in Africa recently, some led by the co-authors of this article.
Techworker Community Africa, African Tech Workers Rising, African Content Moderators Unions and Data Labelers Association are among them.
These initiatives are crucial to ensure workers have decent remuneration, work-life balance, adequate working hours, protection against arbitrary dismissal, safe working environments, and contributions towards their health and welfare.
Several high-profile court cases are currently being pursued by African data workers against Meta and Sama.
There is precedent. In 2021. Meta was ordered by a Californian court to pay US$85 million to 10,000 content moderators.
AI-dependent tools such as ChatGPT or driverless cars would not exist without African data workers. They are tired of being “hidden”. They deserve to be treated with respect and dignity.
Mophat Okinyi, Kauna Malgwi, Sonia Kgomo and Richard Mathenge co-authored this article.
E-Business
NIMC Says NIN Mandatory to Government Loans

National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) said the National Identification Number (NIN) is a mandatory requirement for securing government loans.
NIMC said on its social media platform that the identity number has become compulsory for Bank of Industry (BOI) loans.
NIMC said, “Enroll for your NIN today to access business aid and other opportunities from the Bank of Industry.
“To access the services of the Bank of Industry (BOI), enroll for the NIN.”
Recall that the federal government, through the Federal Ministry of Industry, Trade, and Investment (FMITI), established three funds totaling N200bn to support businesses across Nigeria.
The fund will be accessed at nine per cent interest, to be disbursed by the Bank of Industry (BOI).
The funds established by the government were the Presidential Conditional Grant Scheme (PCGS), the FGN MSME Intervention Fund, and the FGN Manufacturing Sector Fund.
The government appointed BOI as the executing agency for the funds and is empowered with the responsibility for their day-to-day administration.
“The Presidential Conditional Grant Scheme (PCGS) is a N50bn grant scheme to support eligible Nano Business owners. The grant will be disbursed to a minimum of 1,000 beneficiaries, especially women and youths, per Local Government Area (LGA) in the 774 LGAs across the nation and the six Council Areas in the FCT.
“The target Nano businesses include traders, food vendors, ICT businesses, transporters, artisans, and creatives, among others,” said Dr. Olasupo Olusi, managing director/chief executive officer, BOI.
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