Sayna, a Malagasy edtech startup secured a funding round to assist in expanding its access to its training programme and to launch new platforms.
The startup was launched in 2018 and aims to provide quality training in the African digital sector and provide professional opportunities to youths by bridging the gap between companies growing demand on digital issues and digital talent supply.
The edtech startup raised a funding round from I&P Acceleration Technologies, a programme developed for African digital startups led by Miarakap, and impact investment FIRMS, and Investisseurs & Partenaires (I&P) to help it grow.
By 2024, Sayna aims to have allowed 8,000 people in Arica to get into the digital industry via its training programme, and to ensure over 3,500 people are working with micro-tasking connecting startups and SMEs 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, a software engineering company, American Holberton announced a partnership with Sayna to provide high-quality and affordable tech education in the country. Holberton plans on working with Sayna to create three customized, full-stack web curricula making use of a set of tools called Holbertons OS of education which allows organizations to create curricula or courses quickly 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” saidMartina Razafimahefa – Co-founder & CEO, Sayna
Madagascar has been a surprising hotbed of recent technology innovations, with the high local demand for software engineering talent.
Recently, the local demand for software engineering talent has been high in Madagascar, a hotbed for recent technology innovations. The first 3D printed school in the world is being built in Madagascar. Sayna provides its students the opportunity to get real-world work experience via micro-projects sponsored by companies like Generali Group (financial services), Capgemini (global systems integration firm), and Societe Generale (banking), and Orange (telecommunications).
Students learn through the projects and earn money while learning, and if students perform well in their studies, they get more access to the micro-projects and future employment.
Just like other parts of the world, in 2020 during the pandemic, online education boomed in Madagascar, as a lot of people lost their jobs which influenced them to seek retraining.
With the partnerships, Sayna plans on training 500 new software developers this year and hopes to continue to grow from there.
