What is Functional Africa?

We believe that software developers should be able to receive the best education and participate in the global marketplace on the merit of their abilities, wherever in the world they are.

Functional Africa is a program to provide education in functional programming to aspiring developers in Africa who don’t have access to the same teaching that the long-established tech communities in Europe and America enjoy.

We want to make it easier for developers in Africa to participate in a global economy that is increasingly open to remote work, without artificial barriers. We want it to be easier for anyone to apply for a remote job in Haskell or Scala, and easier for employers to hire them.

The Internet is open. Africa is coming online. And the world is waking up to remote work.

Functional Africa is just beginning on its journey towards charitable status. Starting in 2021, we will begin a program of free, interactive, online teaching in Scala, alongside a six-month consultation to investigate the what impediments are holding back Africa’s involvement in the world of functional programming.

Of all of Africa’s diverse exports — coffee and cotton, copper or coal — one that should be easier to trade with the rest of the world, with a lower environmental impact, is code.

Why Africa?

Africa is a diverse continent of 54 nations and 1.3 billion people — coincidentally the same as the combined totals for North America and Europe. But activity in the tech industry takes place predominantly in America and Europe. Why is that?

Few of the answers to that question would be surprising: Africa has a significantly smaller economy; its infrastructure is less developed; and education is generally less available.

But the economies of African nations are growing faster on average than those in the rich world. And infrastructure is improving: more than half a billion Africans are now online. And projects like Alphabet’s Loon are helping to make Internet access even more ubiquitous. And while education lags behind much of the rest of the world, Africa has never had any shortage of capability or innovation.

And meanwhile, the world is changing. The 2020 Coronavirus pandemic has forced businesses all over the world to adapt to a new reality of remote work, particularly software engineers — and it’s been shown to work! And this change has taken place while the industry has been one of the least affected by the pandemic.

So a developer’s physical location is becoming less and less important: a developer in Lagos with the same skills as a developer in London can do the same work, particularly as much of Africa lies in timezones close to Europe’s.

Wages, like living costs, across Africa are typically much lower than those in Europe and America. So if a functional programmer in Africa can perform the same work as a European functional programmer, then why shouldn’t they be able to compete for that work on an equal footing?

Education

Change is difficult, and can take decades. But the most entrenched, lasting changes come about gradually and steadily, and are the hardest changes to reverse.

It is our goal to focus on our particular talents, functional programming, and on the people who can benefit most from them. We want to apply our strongest talents to the places in Africa that are most ready to accept them and use them.

That may mean that we put more resources into regions that have good infrastructure than regions which don’t, because those are the ones that we can benefit most from what we have to offer, while other organizations focusing on more basic needs than software development should be encouraged in these places.

Equally, it may mean that we put less resources into Africa’s more successful economies, because these have already reached a critical mass where they can sustain growth.

Our Hiring Consultation will guide our decisions. For all the passion we are pouring into this project, we care about the efficacy of our actions, and are dispassionate about our use of data and our guidance by science and our best economic understanding.

And while we may target resources in particular areas, we exist to support the whole of Africa; to bring about change to an entire continent, and all our online educational resources will be available to everyone.

The economic empowerment of a few functional programmers helps not just those developers, but others around them. Success in one area breeds success in neighboring areas. And that success will be built on commerce, not aid; it can be self-sustaining and long-lived.

How can you help?

Our short-term goals are focused on education. If you have experience teaching a functional programming language like Haskell or Scala, or any related technologies, and have time to share your skills, then please join us as a volunteer teacher. Our teaching program is flexible, and can be expanded to include your regular lessons, or just a one-off session.

Teaching to a large group is only one part of the solution, and we would like to organize mentorship sessions in smaller groups. If this interests you, then let us know; we anticipate this beginning in the first quarter of 2021, after our teaching program starts.

We will also begin our Hiring Consultation, and this is where everyone in the technology industry can help. We would like to conduct some short interviews online, lasting 20-30 minutes with people who have experience of hiring individuals living in Africa as an employer elsewhere in the world.

That includes both positive and negative experiences. It’s valuable information for us to know what worked as well as what didn’t work.

We plan to report on the findings of our consultation in the third quarter of 2021, which will motivate our next steps: the geographical and technological areas we focus on, the programs of work we embark upon, and the budget we seek to support them. Only then will we ask you for donations.