From Novice to Software Engineer: Muflihat's Transformative Experience with eHA Academy

By Favour Oriaku

Introduction:

In today's digital era, technology plays a pivotal role in addressing local challenges and improving communities' well-being. Recognizing this, eHealth Africa (eHA) has taken on the mission to share knowledge and empower the next generation of tech enthusiasts in Africa. With over a decade of experience in developing and deploying digital solutions across the continent, eHA established the eHA Academy, a training arm that has been at the forefront of equipping aspiring individuals with software development skills for over four years now. In this blog post, we'll delve into the transformative journey of Muflihat Abdulmajid, a graduate of the eHA Academy, and how the program paved the way for a promising career in software engineering.

Unveiling the eHA Academy:

eHA Academy is a renowned program that offers free training to individuals throughout Africa, irrespective of their technical background. The program's primary focus is to equip participants with the necessary skills to create digital solutions that contribute to healthier communities. Spanning nine months, the program consists of two phases: three months of intensive in-class live sessions followed by a six-month internship. By combining engaging live sessions, videos, challenging assignments, and practical projects, students acquire both theoretical knowledge and real-world experience, setting them on the path to success.

Muflihat's Transformational Journey:

Muflihat Abdulmajid's story exemplifies the transformative impact of the eHA Academy. Initially skeptical due to a lack of computer science or engineering background, Muflihat hesitated to apply for the program. However, after realizing that a technical background was not a prerequisite, Muflihat took the leap of faith and applied, securing a spot in the cohort.

Reflecting on the training experience, Muflihat shared, "At first, it was quite fierce and challenging because I didn't have a computer background. However, the small wins of completing a challenging task and the support from fellow students kept me motivated." The rigorous curriculum, comprising live sessions, videos, and assignments, pushed Muflihat beyond her comfort zone, helping her develop a strong foundation in HTML, CSS, and Javascript.

Internship and Career Opportunities:

The journey didn't end with the completion of the eHA Academy program. Muflihat's dedication and newfound skills led to an internship offer from eHealth Africa's software department. This internship proved to be an invaluable opportunity to apply the knowledge gained during the program and work alongside experienced software developers. Muflihat recalls, "The internship sharpened my skills further and opened the door to a full-time role as an associate software engineer within the software department at eHealth Africa."

The Impact and Gratitude:

Muflihat's testimonial is a testament to eHA Academy's transformative impact on aspiring tech enthusiasts. "The eHA Academy course was the birth of my career as a software engineer," Muflihat shares. "The joy and fulfillment I now have, being part of a team building software solutions for public health interventions here at eHealth Africa, is compared to none."

Muflihat expresses gratitude to the eHA Academy team, mentors, and tutors for their dedicated efforts in shaping her professional journey. "I will forever be grateful to the eHA Academy team, the mentors and tutors who have put in effort in shaping me into who I have now become and for grooming young Africans in the tech ecosystem."

Conclusion:

eHA Academy's commitment to empowering the next generation of tech enthusiasts in Africa has led to remarkable success stories like that of Muflihat Abdulmajid. By providing free training, bridging the gap between theoretical knowledge and practical experience, and fostering career opportunities, the program serves as a vital stepping stone for aspiring tech enthusiasts. Through eHA Academy, eHealth Africa continues to nurture young African talent, enabling them to make significant contributions to their communities and beyond.

eHA Academy: The Journey So Far

By Favour Oriaku

If you are someone who’s interested in a tech program that builds the capacity of young people in software development, then you are probably familiar with the name eHA Academy, our brainchild academy that has successfully trained several aspiring tech enthusiasts in software and web development. Here is a walkthrough of our journey so far.

The Birth of eHA Academy in 2016

In 2015, eHealth Africa was one of several organizations working in the three main West African countries that were affected by the Ebola epidemic - Guinea, Sierra Leone, and Liberia. We primarily provided support for the EVD outbreak response by building and customizing software-based solutions for contact tracing and disease surveillance. By the end of 2016, the epidemic was declared over, and as we finalized the response effort in Guinea; we identified a need. Who would maintain and improve the solutions we introduced to Guinea? There were not that many software developers living in Guinea and we decided we needed to build human capacity in-country to maintain or upgrade the digital solutions we introduced in Guinea during the epidemic. This led to the eHealth Africa team designing a program to build the capacity of young people and equip them with the skills needed to do this.  

In-person class session at eHA Academy in Conakry, Guinea

In August 2016, we launched the inaugural eHA Academy in Conakry, Guinea. The software team at eHA designed an eight-week curriculum in software development and network engineering and staffed the course with expert instructors, bringing international software design and development expertise to Guinea. 

The Academy was offered free of charge to all participants who were successfully admitted into the program. By the end of the first cohort, 100% of the participants completed the entire 8-week program, 15 software developers took part in eHealth Academy and three of them were so skilled that we offered them full-time positions with eHealth Africa.

Pioneer graduates, tutors, and management of the eHA Academy in Conakry, Guinea

eHA Academy Re-designed In 2019

After the successful interventions in Guinea, Sierra Leone, and Liberia, we wrapped up operations in those countries. As we focused on our operations in Nigeria and on eradicating the wild poliovirus; we continued to build a larger physical presence in Kano state. Members of a small but growing tech ecosystem often contacted us to provide resources, including space for their meetings, expert speakers, and mentorship. By 2018, we were full members of this community, and our head office was an unofficial meeting space for the monthly tech meetups. Every month we had speakers come and give talks about different topics in tech and people came from neighboring states to attend the meeting in person and several joined online. Again, we noticed a need. 

The need we noticed was the large number of tech enthusiasts seeking additional training for software and web development skills.

Students of the 1st Nigeria cohort of eHA Academy.

In 2019, our management team reintroduced eHA Academy to address this need. We then redesigned a new version of eHA Academy. This time we focused primarily on building the top requested skill-set, web development. In the redesign version, we introduced self-directed learning. Each participant was required to focus on completing coursework on our eLearning platform, prior to in-person workshops and sessions. We also paired each participant with a mentor, and we matched the most successful participants to an internship opportunity.

The Switch to 100% Virtual Learning Sessions

When COVID-19 Pandemic forced the world to shut down, we were 3 weeks into the 2nd Nigeria cohort of eHA Academy. We quickly pivoted to all online learning sessions, mentoring, and even internships and have a few success stories. Watch Jamiu Musa’s success story here.

After successfully completing two eHA Academy cohorts in Nigeria, we took a pause to re-evaluate the number of students we’ve trained so far, and we realized that over 70% of the total number of students trained were male. As an organization, we recognize the importance of having diversity in all sectors, especially in the technology sector. To address this, we hosted an all-female cohort of the Academy. This attracted several female participants across Africa. We recently completed the all-female cohort and here are a few testimonials from some participants.

Juliet Odogwu, eHealth Africa's Executive Director, with mentors and some graduates of the all-female cohort who attended the graduation ceremony in person.

So what is next for eHA Academy? 

The academy’s primary goal is to create a platform for young people to gain first-hand experience and training in technology. We are also working with partners to expand our curriculum to train more people in more aspects of innovative technology, from data science to artificial intelligence to machine learning.

The schedule of the Academy is to implement two cohorts every year, and young people interested in web and software development are welcome to apply. To better prepare yourself and increase your chances of being selected to be part of the next cohort, here is a free course we recommend for you to take.

We invite you to get involved

We are constantly looking to increase the number of participants we take on for every cohort we implement. eHA Academy needs your donation to increase the number of software and web developers in Africa. We have an ongoing donation campaign on the GlobalGiving platform where you can either make a one-time donation or commit to a monthly or yearly donation. We are also accepting donations on academy.ehealthafrica.org as well.

Another way to get involved is by signing up to be a mentor. To find out more about becoming a mentor and to apply, click here.

#BreakTheBias: A step closer

By Juliana Jacob

While many organizations attempt to increase the number of women in the workforce, there is still a disparity between the number of women in the workplace compared with men, especially in the tech industry. As of 2021, women held only about 25% of jobs in the technology industry. Further studies show that the number of female software engineers has gone up by only 2% in the last 21 years.

As an organization, we are passionate about using modern technology tools to make data-driven decision-making to strengthen health systems across Africa. To ensure the sustainability of our interventions, we work to increase tech talent in the countries we work in. In 2016, we launched the eHealth Africa Academy in Guinea to develop technical talent that would maintain and improve the disease surveillance applications we introduced in the country during the 2014 Ebola outbreak. In 2020, we relaunched the eHA Academy in Kano, Nigeria to address the needs of the growing tech ecosystem in Kano and neighboring cities.

We completed successful in-person cohorts in Kano and when the COVID-19 pandemic started we switched to a virtual format which allowed us to attract even more participants from across Africa. With the influx of new participants, we expected the number of women who applied to eHA Academy to increase, however the percentage of women still remained at approximately 20%. This low percentage was troubling to us because as an organization, we are committed to building a more diverse and equitable workplace and have implemented strategies to increase the number of women in our workforce. 

It was important to us to increase the number of women trained by the Academy, so we decided to host an all-female cohort of the Academy to remove any barriers preventing women from applying. The reception of the all-female cohort was overwhelmingly positive and the number of female applicants increased exponentially. This all-female cohort started in January, and I spoke to some of the participants as they round up their classroom training and prepare for their internship placements.

Safinaz Mubarak
El Behaira, Egypt

Safinaz is a GIS specialist who intends to apply the knowledge she has gotten from the Academy to become a better programmer.

Her motivations…

Choosing this industry was a challenge for me. In the area I live in right now, they expect girls to get married after high school and not pursue high learning. But I chose survey and Maths which is a field dominated by men.

I wanted to expand my career by gaining new knowledge. At the moment, I work as a GIS specialist, and we use programming. So I joined the academy to learn how to do better programming and apply it in my daily tasks. Someone once said to me ``I couldn't become a programmer because I was a girl, that was all the motivation I needed to become one.

On her experience so far with the Academy…

I have no regrets. One thing I loved about the academy is that if you have the basic requirements, you will get all the help you need to do well. It was difficult being a part of an academy before now, so I am grateful I was selected. I didn’t know they would select me because I was not a programmer and I studied geography.

On her outlook on her future career in tech… 

Before this time, I would have said I do not have equal chances with men. But with the progress being made with bridging the gap, I feel confident that my chances are high.

As a medical doctor, the eHA Academy was Cynthia’s only way of venturing into the tech industry.

Her Motivations…

Coming from the medical field and now getting into the tech industry, I think the system favors men because there are more men in the workplace. I thought that with the increasing number of women getting into tech careers, we were going to see a change, but I feel there is a disparity and that translates into the support and opportunities given to women.

For me, I chose eHA Academy because I was looking into getting into the tech space and while speaking to people who work in the industry, I found out about the eHA Academy through someone on LinkedIn. I looked into it and I liked it. It includes not only coding but also encompasses healthcare. That’s a big deal for me since I want a career in both tech and medicine and eHA Academy was the perfect platform for me.

Dr. Cynthia Nabukanda Waliaula
Nairobi, Kenya

What she does to challenge the stereotypes…

As an African woman, I am always in the minority, even in my workplace. Diversity and inclusion have been really important to me. The way I have done that has been recognizing first that there needs to be a more diverse and inclusive environment in technology. How that works is for other women and girls to see people like them doing well in that field. When you see people like you doing things, you know you can be like them. I also amplify the voices of women through my Podcast. We need to tackle diversity and inclusion from the grassroots and not at the top.

On her experience so far with the Academy…

It has been very interesting and good. We started with simple things and now we are building more complex things. One of my favorite things about studying in the eHA Academy is the support that you get. We have mentors and others ready to step in to help. We also have platforms where people can share problems and roadblocks and get the help they need. I will recommend it to more women and girls.

Joy Alikali
Ibadan, Nigeria

From listening to her brother and his friends talk passionately about the tech industry, Joy developed an interest in becoming a tech guru.

Her Motivations… 

I am tech-savvy; I am good with gadgets. Also, when I stayed with my brother after school who was a software engineer, I got interested. I got exposed to terms like front-end, back-end, and product management. I started trying out things on my own and I found out that in the tech industry, you can build value for yourself and solve problems.

What she does to challenge the stereotypes…

First, I will speak up because now I know better. I know what I offer. I will also encourage awareness to be made against gender biases. Also, if I am in a position of influence,  I try to encourage equity on both sides.

On her experience so far with the Academy…

The journey has been an interesting one. Let me be honest, when I first started, we did the first challenge “Hello world”, and had to wait for the next challenge. I thought the academy was going at a slow pace, but I didn’t know we were in for it. When the next challenge came up, it had a lot to do with HTML and CSS. Our mentors have been of great help. Any time you reach out, they will help. They broke down software development in such a way that even a little child will understand. I will recommend this academy and cohort for anyone who has an interest in getting into the tech industry.

Getting more women into the tech industry requires several approaches that will ensure that more women are interested, considered, and prepared for tech roles. While we are far from balancing the gender disparity in the world, with initiatives like these, we are at least a step closer to breaking the bias that exists in the tech industry.

Click here to learn more about eHA Academy and to get involved

Applications open for eHA Academy!

Applications are now open for the January 2022 cohort of eHA Academy! This cohort is the first all-female cohort of eHA Academy and aims to increase the number of homegrown tech talent in Nigeria!

eHA Academy is an intensive 10-week program that will teach participants basic web development skills in HTML, CSS, and Javascript. The academy uses a combination of coursework, workshops, mentoring, and a capstone project to train participants and help jumpstart their careers. We will place participants who successfully complete their training in internships in software development, quality assurance engineering, business analysis of UI/UX design.

Donations (cash and in-kind) from our supporters and partners will cover the costs of the program and will be free for participants.

Eligibility

The Academy is 100% free, but to be successful, you must meet the following requirements:

• Basic computer knowledge

• Access to a laptop.

• Access to an internet connection.

The cohort will be selected from applicants who successfully complete assessments and interviews with the selection panel and will start their coursework in January 2022.

This cohort will be implemented with support from our partners

Afrilabs

First Founders

Start Up Kano

Tech4Dev

Women Who Code