Andela Learning Community Growing Africa
Eight weeks ago, Google in partnership with Andela and Udacity kicked off the first phase of Google Africa Scholarship (Challenge Course). After successfully running two ALC Programs in partnership with Google we still believe that the best investment we can make is in people. The Andela Learning Community is a network of people across Africa dedicated to learning how to develop technology to solve humanity’s problems. Through ALC, Andela invests in communities of talented technologists across the African continent.
Our goal is to provide an ever-growing population of aspiring technologists with the resources and environments they need to become world-class problem solvers.
Whats the role of Andela Learning Community in Google Africa Scholarship ?
Fuelled by Andela’s learning science and transparent tracking, Udacity’s online curriculum, and Google’s community science ALC supported over 15,000 Google Africa Scholars from 17 Different Countries.
How did we achieve this?
We live on SLACK!!!
Over 12,000 scholars were on-boarded to our slack workspace to ensure all learners were equipped with all the relevant information, resources and supportive environment to make their learning experience great and to also ensure we help learners achieve their goals.
Peer Learning Groups(PLG)
With the aim of driving maximum course completion and project submissions, we had 226 PLG’s across all tracks and 5 teams in each Group. A community mentor is in charge of each PLG.
Meet ups
Although learning is entirely online on the Udacity platform, we held physical meetups facilitated by Learning Community Ambassadors. This way learners get to meet their peers, recap what they have learned as they get unblocked. For those countries that we did manage to hold physical meetups in this phase, we had our program assistants running online support concurrently to ensure inclusivity.
Extra Challenges
The best way to be a great programmer is by practicing. You have to start with “Hello World” then “Hello $name” then with incessant practice you eventually become virtuosos at what you do.
Community driven by Learning Community Ambassador
A Learning Community Ambassador (LCA) is an ALC volunteer whose goal is to drive maximum engagement and interactions among learners in the program by providing relevant support (such as facilitation, mentorship, and code review) to learners in the program.
As an LCA Ownership is Key, and this makes them the pillars of the program. Much gratitude to this team for dedicating their time to give back to this community.
What next?
Out of over 15,000 learners, 3.3% (500) scholars were selected for Nanodegree program that will be running for the next six months.
This is not only the end of the challenge course and beginning of nanodegree but a chance for all learners to continue leveling up their skills. Learning is a continuous process, we never stop learning.
ALC is guided by 3 principles:
- Build our ALC Community: Andela is a family and we welcome all learners as such hence beside learning friends were made, ideas were shared and we grow together.
- Drive Your Learning -One practice learners got from Andela is the idea that You Own Your Learning #YOYO What someone learns is up to them.
- Hold Each Other Accountable -What others learn is driven by how you support them. We encourage learners to share resources, ask questions, seek help, and provide mentorship to one another.
Through ALC we believe we are going to achieve Andela’s goal of mobilizing 100,000 world-class developers over the next decade and catalyzing tech ecosystems across the continent.
Here is to changing the African Tech Ecosystem.
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