Fred Swaniker, CEO of Sand Technologies, a tech and AI solutions company headquartered in New York, recruits a third of his company’s engineers from African leadership and tech education institutions that he helped set up.
In 2004, Swaniker founded the African Leadership Academy to develop the most outstanding young African talent for university, followed by African Leadership Universities, which opened to students in 2015.
In 2017, aware of the boom of the tech sector on the continent and potential for remote work, Swaniker founded African Leadership Xcelerator (ALX) with short virtual courses for skills like software engineering and data analytics, and is now expanding to tech skills in film, music, gaming and animation.
CNN’s Nick Watt spoke with Swaniker about how access and education in technology empowers the rise of African’s young tech talent.
The following interview has been edited for clarity and length.
