For many, working from home is the ultimate luxury, especially when living in a big city where bumper-to-bumper traffic stretches for miles.
This is always the case for New York City, which recently ranked fifth in Forbes’ “10 U.S. Cities With The Worst Gridlock.” But there is one company that’s paying the work-from-home luxury all the way to Nigeria.
Andela is the global talent accelerator that allows people in Africa to work locally and reach globally. They find the brightest people to provide training and mentorship needed to thrive as full-time, remote developers for companies across the world. Though the company also has offices in the U.S., what distinguishes it from others is its global outreach mission to provide people in Africa an opening to the digital economy and give companies access to untapped talent.
For example, Nigerians are getting paid to learn programming skills before putting them to work on projects that serve businesses back in the States. Chibuzor Obiora is one of those people who at first thought it was too good to be true when he discovered the opportunity on Twitter.
“I was always interested in learning [to code] because of the problem-solving aspect of it,” he told Wired Magazine, “and here was a firm that promised to pay you to learn.”
Even with the increase in competition to gain technical skills such as programming, companies around the world are still struggling to find software developers to meet the demand. Thus, Andela aims to bring out the pool of talent found in other countries that are not known to be tech-hubs like Silicon Valley. This not only includes Nigeria but other countries in Africa.
“We know that brilliance is relatively evenly distributed across the human population,” says Andela co-founder Jeremy Johnson. “In terms of pure aptitude, there are genius level people across the world. But what there’s not is equal opportunity.”
So how exactly do they choose “genius level people” across the world?
Using rigorous, online aptitude tests, Andela gauges reasoning and logic skills followed by a two-week-long screening process that interviews the top 10 percent to access their “soft skills,” such as interpersonal communication.
Those who pass this phase go on to a several-month training program, but not many make it this far due to highly selective nature of the program. Less than one percent of applicants are selected to become Andela developers, which is 10 times more selective than Harvard University, for example.
What comes next for those accepted is access to educational resources that are hard to come by in Nigeria. For example, one student, Tolulope Komolafe, had learned how to “code” from what the teacher wrote on a chalkboard and realized during her first two weeks of training at Andela that her university computer science courses did not involve actual programming.
Students are eligible to work as web developers for Andela’s clients once they finish at least 1,000 hours of training. However, that’s not to say that the learning stops there. According to Johnson, most students will spend about two-thirds of their time working for clients and the rest on education. Work averages around 60 hours a week for both students and staff.
“It’s very similar to the way that guilds worked in the middle ages,” Johnson tells Wired. “You get paid a small amount as an apprentice, then you work as a journeyman with lots of other craftspeople, and eventually become a master.”
Today, U.S. tech companies continue their struggle to find programming talent that meets the demands of selective hiring practices and qualifications. As result, companies like Andela are left with a window to provide a new wave of services that can work globally.
– Chelsee Yee
Sources: Andela, Wired, Forbes
Photo: Wired Magazine
SID: Promoting Policy Dialogue
At the forefront of shaping the theory and practice of development, the Society for International Development (SID) challenges existing practices and suggests alternative approaches to three notable themes— environment, women in development and the concept of human development.
SID is a global network of individuals and institutions that are concerned with development, believing it is participative, pluralistic and sustainable.
Founded in Washington D.C. in 1957 and based in Rome since 1978, SID is a policy-oriented organization that focuses on advocacy and service-delivery actions but plays a unique role that sets their society apart from the rest. What differentiates SID from other development organizations is that the organization builds on multi-disciplinary dialogues, future-minded thinking and scenarios-based and holistic policy planning. Three core actions truly distinguish SID from any other organization: knowledge building through research, facilitating dialogue and catalyzing policy change.
According to the SID website, “since its inception in 1957, SID has always acted as a unique global space for honest dialogue and effective interconnected nature among diverse actors at community, national and international level.” The Society’s broadly-stated vision and mission has remained unchanged and generally, SID’s activities will aim to, “contribute to building consensus for the need for a new convivencia (or coexistence) by supporting initiatives that generate new visions for society, leadership and political will; Encourage and facilitate dialogue between diversities through knowledge based activities; [and] facilitate knowledge generation, sharing and dissemination.”
SID’s website further states that the organization is “recognized as a pertinent, innovative and future oriented institution that fosters learning, innovation and constructive dialogue; one that nudges institutional boundaries and enlarges the spaces for exchange and exploration in the search for social justice and development that is just, equitable and sustainable.”
Today, SID has more than 3,000 members in 80 countries and more than 45 chapters worldwide. SID works with more than 100 local and international associations, networks and institutions involving parliamentarians, academics, students, political leaders and development experts. This society has a holistic, multi-disciplinary and multi-sectoral approach to development.
– Eastin Shipman
Sources: Society for International Development 1, Society for International Development 2, Society for International Development 3, Society for International Development 4, Society for International Development 5 SIDW
Photo: Facebook
Education in Myanmar
Paying Out-of-pocket for Healthcare Contributes to Poverty
The UN recently announced that paying out-of-pocket for healthcare leads to “deep impoverishment” in many nations. It is estimated that 80 percent of people throughout 44 countries do not have healthcare due to the high cost.
“It is the poorest with the highest needs who suffer the most from having to pay out-of-pocket healthcare expenses,” says ILO Health Policy Coordinator, Xenia Scheil-Adlung.
According to the World Health Organization, over 100 million people fall into poverty every year due to medical expenses. An additional 150 million are required to contribute almost half of their incomes on medical bills. The majority of these countries lack social healthcare programs, affordable insurance options or government-funded healthcare.
Remarkably, a great deal of those living in impoverished areas devote relatively more money to health services than people living in wealthy, developed countries. For instance, in Germany where almost every citizen has social healthcare, residents pay only 10 percent of national medical expenses.
On the other hand, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo very few residents have access to healthcare and they pay approximately 70 percent of national medical care costs. Similarly, in Seirra Leone, citizens pay over 75 percent of total healthcare expenses out-of-pocket. This has resulted in deep impoverishment in Seirra Leone and other similar nations.
“At least 1.3 billion people worldwide lack access to the most basic healthcare,” said Dr. Rüdiger Krech, Head of Social Protection in the Division Health, Education and Social Protection at GTZ. “Often it is because they cannot afford it. As a result, millions become very sick or die every year from preventable or curable medical conditions. For example, the toll from treatable infections and preventable complications of pregnancy and delivery is more than 10 million deaths each year,” Krech added.
Since 2010, national economic consolidation policies have delayed and adversely affected efforts toward universal healthcare. Recent policies have cut back health services and reduced wages for healthcare workers, augmenting the financial hardship on private households.
Officials state that universal healthcare access is a key element in the global initiative to end poverty. Director-General of the International Labor Organization, Guy Ryder, emphasizes that universal healthcare diminishes inequality and promotes economic growth.
“Social health protection is not only a key tool to make health care accessible to all and to free millions of people from poverty. It is also an investment in health, productivity and development—an investment that is a prerequisite for international competitiveness,” said Assane Diop, Executive Director of the ILO.
Experts agree that investments in healthcare systems create economic growth for all parties involved as well as raises in productivity and wellbeing for residents. Many urge that in order to overcome the global health crisis, policies for universal healthcare must be initiated.
– Meagan Douches
Sources: United Natons, World Bank, World Health Organization
Photo: Empower Magazine
Child Poverty Rate Increases in the US
Increasing economic inequality between middle and upper economic classes has grown since the ’90s. Children living in urban centers remain the most affected by poverty and low income.
Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health released a statement based on a study showing that poverty increased dramatically after the recession in 2007. The report states, “Years after the end of the Great Recession, child poverty remains widespread in America’s largest cities. Nearly three children in five living in Detroit are poor, according to the most recent Census figures, a rate that has grown by 10 percentage points since the onset of the Great Recession in 2007. Most children in Cleveland and Buffalo also live in poverty, as do nearly half the children in Fresno, Cincinnati and Memphis.”
The way the U.S. defines poverty is different from the way many other countries define the issue. Most other countries measure poverty after a person has received the social service benefits. However, the U.S. Census measures a person who is below the poverty line before they receive government funded social services that could technically keep them out of poverty.
Children in poverty then, are measured without the benefits that have otherwise kept them out of poverty. Contributing writer, Tim Worstall, of Forbes Magazine writes, “It’s the number of children who would be in poverty if there wasn’t this system of government alleviation of poverty. When we do actually take into account what is done to alleviate child poverty we find that it’s really some two to three percent of U.S. children who live in poverty. Yes, that low: the U.S. welfare state is very much child orientated.”
The Center for American Progress Fund reported that over 45 million Americans are living in poverty. For a family of four this would mean making a combined income of $23,834 or less in a year. Poverty is concentrated disproportionally in the South. Mississippi, for example, is currently at the top of the list with an overwhelming 24.1 percent of the population living below the poverty line.
Some aspects that affect the structural reasons for poverty consist of low economic mobility, federal minimum wage and little to no healthcare coverage. Because children born into poverty start out with a smaller pool of resources to draw from, the cyclic nature of poverty continues generation after generation. Minimum wage is another factor in the conversation as states such as Louisiana, Alabama and South Carolina adhere to federal minimum wage of $7.25.
Healthcare is nearly impossible for families living below the poverty line to afford especially if they have jobs that do not provide benefits.
The concentrated collective poverty of certain demographics is reinforced by state and local governments. Concentrated collective poverty refers to a relatively affluent country that has destitute segments of the population living in long-term poverty. Although the rate of child poverty in the U.S. is skewed, there are still large demographics underserved with a lack of resources.
– Maxine Gordon
Sources: Forbes, Salon, Britannica
Photo: Century Times
Education in Kazakhstan
Andela Pays Nigerians To Learn Computer Programming
For many, working from home is the ultimate luxury, especially when living in a big city where bumper-to-bumper traffic stretches for miles.
This is always the case for New York City, which recently ranked fifth in Forbes’ “10 U.S. Cities With The Worst Gridlock.” But there is one company that’s paying the work-from-home luxury all the way to Nigeria.
Andela is the global talent accelerator that allows people in Africa to work locally and reach globally. They find the brightest people to provide training and mentorship needed to thrive as full-time, remote developers for companies across the world. Though the company also has offices in the U.S., what distinguishes it from others is its global outreach mission to provide people in Africa an opening to the digital economy and give companies access to untapped talent.
For example, Nigerians are getting paid to learn programming skills before putting them to work on projects that serve businesses back in the States. Chibuzor Obiora is one of those people who at first thought it was too good to be true when he discovered the opportunity on Twitter.
“I was always interested in learning [to code] because of the problem-solving aspect of it,” he told Wired Magazine, “and here was a firm that promised to pay you to learn.”
Even with the increase in competition to gain technical skills such as programming, companies around the world are still struggling to find software developers to meet the demand. Thus, Andela aims to bring out the pool of talent found in other countries that are not known to be tech-hubs like Silicon Valley. This not only includes Nigeria but other countries in Africa.
“We know that brilliance is relatively evenly distributed across the human population,” says Andela co-founder Jeremy Johnson. “In terms of pure aptitude, there are genius level people across the world. But what there’s not is equal opportunity.”
So how exactly do they choose “genius level people” across the world?
Using rigorous, online aptitude tests, Andela gauges reasoning and logic skills followed by a two-week-long screening process that interviews the top 10 percent to access their “soft skills,” such as interpersonal communication.
Those who pass this phase go on to a several-month training program, but not many make it this far due to highly selective nature of the program. Less than one percent of applicants are selected to become Andela developers, which is 10 times more selective than Harvard University, for example.
What comes next for those accepted is access to educational resources that are hard to come by in Nigeria. For example, one student, Tolulope Komolafe, had learned how to “code” from what the teacher wrote on a chalkboard and realized during her first two weeks of training at Andela that her university computer science courses did not involve actual programming.
Students are eligible to work as web developers for Andela’s clients once they finish at least 1,000 hours of training. However, that’s not to say that the learning stops there. According to Johnson, most students will spend about two-thirds of their time working for clients and the rest on education. Work averages around 60 hours a week for both students and staff.
“It’s very similar to the way that guilds worked in the middle ages,” Johnson tells Wired. “You get paid a small amount as an apprentice, then you work as a journeyman with lots of other craftspeople, and eventually become a master.”
Today, U.S. tech companies continue their struggle to find programming talent that meets the demands of selective hiring practices and qualifications. As result, companies like Andela are left with a window to provide a new wave of services that can work globally.
– Chelsee Yee
Sources: Andela, Wired, Forbes
Photo: Wired Magazine
Pakistani Taliban Executes Peshawar School Massacre
On Wednesday, the Pakistani Army pointedly allowed numerous television crews to enter the school grounds, where they were able to observe the crime scene for themselves and broadcast those observations back to their respective audiences. Images captured by international news teams revealed the devastating extent of the brutality, showing classroom floors coated with blood, walls covered in hundreds of bullet holes, and rooms blown apart by suicide bombers.
The international community has collectively vocalized utter contempt over the massacre, and Pakistan was immediately consumed by a state of national outrage. Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif responded by declaring three full days of mourning and announcing an abrupt end to the moratorium on the death penalty for terrorist actions.
This decision by Sharif is quite significant given the country’s past responses to terrorist groups. Despite the fact that terrorism in Pakistan has taken more than 50,000 lives since 2001, there has long existed a puzzling lack of a national consensus to fight terrorism. In the immediate aftermath of Tuesday’s massacre, politicians refrained from publicly declaring whether they thought the Taliban had been behind the attack, even though the Tehreek-e-Taiban Pakistan, or TTP, had quickly claimed responsibility. The militants describe the Peshawar disaster as an act of revenge for an army attack that they claim killed approximately 1,000 of their own people.
The Taliban has a lengthy history of attacking schools. As an extremist group that first emerged in northern Pakistan in the early 1990s, the Taliban wields its own version of Islamic law as a major justification for and motivation behind its actions. The Pakistani Taliban adamantly opposes Western education for children, especially for girls. Education activists in Pakistan claim that this opposition is the Taliban’s way of trying to exert control over the population by keeping young people in the intellectual dark. An educated girl or boy represents a threat in the eyes of the Taliban, and the terrorist group actively works to eliminate these perceived threats through violence and oppression.
The Peshawar school massacre represents a departure from the Taliban’s usual school attacks. Militants in the past typically attacked schools while they were empty at night, specifically hoping to have the institutions shut down rather than directly harm students. The Taliban has also tried to threaten Pakistan’s education system by intimidating teachers and pressuring parents to quit sending their kids to class.
Some are beginning to question whether the Peshawar attack will force Pakistan to decidedly confront the terrorist group in a way it has generally refrained from doing in the past. Pakistan has long held an ambiguous view of Taliban militants, a phenomenon known as “good Taliban” and “bad Taliban” that for the past decade has baffled the Pakistani public and sent terribly mixed messages to the West. In the wake of the attack, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif announced “there will be no differentiation between ‘good’ and ‘bad’ Taliban,” while acting foreign minister Sartaj Aziz has described the tragedy as “our 9/11” and a “game changer.”
– Shenel Ozisik
Sources: BBC 1, The Guardian 1, The Guardian 2, BBC 2
Photo: Flickr
Google Plans to Bring Internet to Remote Areas
Google has partnered with the French space agency, the Centre National d’Etudes Spatiales, to provide rural and remote areas of the world with Internet access. The partnership aims to reach higher ground with the Project Loon initiative.
Project Loon is a Google research and development project with the mission of providing Internet access to rural and remote areas. The project uses high altitude balloons to create an aerial wireless network that project Wi-Fi signals.
The balloons are solar powered and each is coordinated to make movements in a complex formation to provide continuous service. Google’s new approach on these balloons involves using technology with powerful satellites. Powerful satellites will provide more responsive Internet for the balloons to harness and spread.
They rise more than 60,000 feet above the Earth’s surface, placing them far beyond the reach of airplanes and atmospheric storm systems.
Satellite Internet is already becoming faster and more inexpensive at a steady rate. About 1.5 billion people get home Internet through a satellite connection, though only 0.2 percent of people in developed countries are connected through satellite.
Google wants to launch 100,000 balloons into the stratosphere to offer free Internet access in remote and rural locations around the world, and retrieve them when they lose air and fall to the ground.
To date, there are 75 Google balloons airborne, hovering somewhere near the far reaches of the Southern Hemisphere. These balloons automatically regulate their altitudes according to the algorithms to catch wind drafts and keep them on path.
A majority of the world still lacks Internet access, even after the 1.8 billion people that joined the Internet in 2014. An astounding 4.4 billion people still have never been online.
Internet access can benefit those in developing countries, especially those in India, where the population has more mobile phones than sanitary toilets. In India, over 1 billion people are still offline.
Moreover, China’s massive population of 1.3 people may be iPhone-obsessed, but more than half of its population still remains disconnected.
The Internet can be a useful tool for farmers, as access to the Internet allows farmers to be updated on constant climate changes, and projected problems in the seasons that may affect crop growth. Moreover, Internet access can also be a useful education tool used in schools for learning, and it can improve literacy rates.
Google’s balloons may sound expensive, but research actually indicates that these balloons are cheaper than setting up and maintaining cell towers, and the balloons are also more effective to bring access to remote areas.
Although Google’s project has faced criticism and doubts along the process among Project Loon, Google notes that the next big step is testing how the balloons handle thousands of pounds of pressure.
Google’s engineers have spent weeks trying to isolate any problems they had in the past with the balloons that are already hovering over vast remote areas. Google has the potential to deliver its promise of Internet access across the world and to regions that have been without it with precise research and design.
– Sandy Phan
Sources: Google, NPR
Photo: Digital Trends
Perkins International: Redefining Blindness
People who are blind still have yet to see a world in which they are given the same opportunities as their sighted peers, but there is one organization paving the way for this to happen. Perkins International is a collaborative effort with a mission to provide education and services to those all around the world who are blind or visually impaired.
This progressive, multi-faceted organization works on local, national and global levels in more than 60 countries, joining forces with a number of nonprofits and Disabled Persons Organizations along with academic institutions, foundations and government agencies.
Together they are committed to strengthening disability policies, increasing access to information and assistive technology, expanding education opportunities and transitional outcomes, and building sustainable local capacity.
In addition, there are five areas of focus (distinct lines of businesses) that operate every day to carry out these goals, driven by a team of experts with a passion for actively seeking the next innovative challenge to evolve as an organization.
These five focus areas allow people with blindness the accessibility that they need for leverage in a world where opportunities are scarce even for those who have vision.
Recently, Perkins President and CEO Dave Power spoke at TEDxBeaconStreet about how we’re making the world accessible with new innovations in braille technology, facial recognition software and transportation that will help increase independence for people who are blind.
“The technology is pretty exciting, but technology isn’t the biggest barrier,” he said. “We, sighted people, are much more of an obstacle.”
So what can we do to change this?
“We need to make the world more accessible for them,” Power said. “We need to help them access information, navigate from place to place and find their way into our workforce and into our communities.
– Chelsee Yee
Sources: Perkins, YouTube
Photo: Perkins
EU Grants Help Seychelles Fulfill Regional Leadership Role
Two separate grant agreements between Seychelles and the European Union were signed on December 10. The two agreements will provide as much as $6.4 million in order to help foster sustainable development and fight the effects of climate change in the archipelago nation.
The two agreements come on the heels of warnings from both the UN and the World Bank Group about the potential of climate change to exacerbate poverty in coastal communities. Seychelles’ economy—dependent chiefly upon tourism and tuna hauls—is particularly vulnerable to effects of climate change.
Recently, Seychelles has become something of a regional leader in the fight for sustainable development. Seychelles has already reached the majority of the UN Millennium Development Goals, and is now advocating the adoption of “blue economy” principles, which emphasize the protection of maritime resources and the economic potential of the Indian Ocean’s fishing, shipping, energy and tourism sectors.
Seychelles Foreign Affairs Minister John-Paul Adam believes that the development of the blue economy could allow the Indian Ocean to become a hub of sustainable ocean management and resiliency in the face of a changing climate. Adam, speaking at the 38th annual ministerial meeting of the G77 plus China, said, “The blue economy provides a blank canvas to many developing countries to charter a completely new sustainable development pathway that is to their best interest.”
In a press statement at the same meeting, Adam called for cooperation amongst southern hemisphere nations in science and technology in order to bolster blue economy sectors. Seychelles is also doing its part in building regional cooperation, strengthening bilateral ties with Fiji in the fisheries sector.
Seychelles’ efforts to sustain development and mitigate the compounding effect of climate change on poverty exemplify the kind of regional leadership that will be necessary in meeting the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Similarly, the EU grants will need to be replicated by wealthy nations in order to provide developing nations with the financial resources necessary to not only continue developing, but to do so in a sustainable and climate-conscious way.
– Parker Carroll
Sources: Chatham House, Seychelles News Agency 1, Seychelles News Agency 2, Ventures Africa
Photo: Seychelles News Agency