By Merlijn Mascini

This is the third of a four-parter about job creation in Africa. It discusses how the Jobtech Alliance is creating roles for Africans by partnering with a Kenyan ICT agency, Elewa, and the regional development agency for the Eastern Netherlands. Part 1 focuses on how jobtech platforms in Africa, when they’re at their best, are truly creating new jobs for Africa. Part 2 looks at specifically how digital work platforms need to create work for global companies rather than just selling it, and how we need to build up digital trade routes. Part 4 asks which jobs are left in the digital work space in the age of AI.

African talent has the opportunity to satisfy global demand

Last year, we shared the first blog post in a series on global demand, which details why we need to look beyond Africa to solve the challenges facing the African youth workforce. In summary: this workforce is growing, there is insufficient demand for labour in Africa, while conversely many geographies in the global North are struggling to fill their vacancies.  Thus, we believe there is an opportunity for African talent to satisfy global demand.

African working-age population is projected to increase rapidly over the coming years, while it is set to decrease in other regions (source: The Economist, Jan 6th 2025)

One particular sector where African talent has a strong opportunity to satisfy global demand is ICT work. The African workforce is highly educated and thus capable of delivering a wide range of borderless ICT-related services. There are, of course, many barriers which still need to be overcome, including issues of visibility, trust, reputation, and entrenched historic norms, as detailed in the second blog post in our series on global demand for ICT services. These challenges demand systemic solutions that will take time to evolve. In the meantime, certain African companies are already making headway — and we have set out to support them.

Enter Oost NL

In October 2024, we were approached by Oost NL, the regional development authority for the East Netherlands. They share our vision for unlocking global demand by matching skilled African providers with European markets. Through their initiative, Oost NL set out to:

1. Identify companies in our portfolio that align with this mission.
2. Support them in establishing a regional sales hub in the East Netherlands.
3. Address labor shortages by connecting Dutch firms with top-notch outsourced talent from Africa.
4. Assist with company registration, accounting, taxation, and market visits—while also coordinating potential sales leads.

Elewa, a Kenyan ICT outsourcing firm combining robust technical delivery with local talent development, proved a perfect match. Together with Oost NL, we are working to help Elewa set down roots in the Netherlands and extend its client footprint across Europe.

Elewa globally delivers custom technology solutions with homegrown African talent

Elewa stood out to us in Kenya’s ICT outsourcing space as a modern, nimble managed service provider that not only delivers quality end-to-end software solutions but also acts as a talent accelerator for emerging African tech talent. Combined with the fact that Elewa has effectively managed to build a strong client base in Europe, this is a three-for-one strike.  Beyond simply matching coders to projects, Elewa takes full-scope ownership of solution delivery—from product design and development through ongoing support—offered at a competitive cost.

From our Jobtech Alliance venture support perspective, this combination is compelling. Elewa simultaneously:

1. Delivers best-in-class software solutions to a growing global clientele.
2. Trains and nurtures African developers within its own accelerator program, effectively boosting long-term talent supply.
3. Maintains strong partnerships in Europe—a major demand region for ICT services.

Since 2020, Elewa has created 32 skilled jobs in-house and trained 1200 externs through its academy, enabling coders and engineers to acquire valuable technical and soft skills while working on live projects. This approach positions them for success in even the most complex software engagements. Having perfected the software developer apprenticeship program, they are now expanding this into other technical and business support roles like product management, customer success and business analysis over the next 5-7 years. This ensures their offering matches the needs of their growing clients.

There is, of course, an important aspect we must not forget to consider here – how resilient is this business model to Generative AI’s impact? GenAI is clearly transforming the software development landscape by automating many routine coding tasks. However, Elewa’s scope ownership model—encompassing product ideation, architecture, and ongoing support—enables the company to integrate AI tools where useful while retaining the human-led insight and oversight that clients depend on. This aligns with our vision for ‘the jobs that are left’ in the ICT space in an era of Generative AI. As generative AI evolves, we strongly believe in Elewa’s end-to-end approach that ensures it remains a trusted partner rather than a commodity service

The Elewa model can serve as a blueprint for the broader ecosystem

Our investment thesis centers on companies that look beyond traditional outsourcing: those that embed talent development, maintain scope ownership, and provide higher-value services more resilient to AI. Elewa fits this bill perfectly. With a growing client base in Europe (especially in northwestern markets), Elewa is stepping up efforts to expand globally, unlocking a multiplier effect for African tech employment.

Over the coming months, we will share insights from this initiative with the broader jobtech ecosystem. While our focus is to help Elewa in their expansion, our approach seeks to use this pilot to establish pathways for wider systems change in the ICT outsourcing space. Notably, we hope to use this first pilot to build trade routes for digital labour services between the Netherlands and Africa (more in Part 2 of this series here), which will ‘thicken’ as more customers begin ‘buying African’ and more African ICT providers begin selling into the Netherlands. 

Notably, our support to Elewa is seen as ‘Part 1’ of an ongoing collaboration with OostNL. While we will continue to provide venture support to high-potential platforms, we cannot support all African ICT platforms in their European expansions. Therefore, Part 2 of the engagement, pending the success of Part 1, will involve exploring different ‘one-to-many’ models, where we can establish outsourcing ‘Hubs’ securing demand for a wider group of African ICT providers. This could involve exploring the theme of the ‘split’ outsourcing agency, as described in the third part of our blog series on global demand in ICT services. 

Our hope is that Elewa’s progress will spark more collaborations between African ICT providers and European partners—helping to address global labor gaps, foster local tech ecosystems in Africa, and deliver real, long-term value for all involved.

With the continued commitment of stakeholders like Oost NL, Elewa is ready to take a seat at the table, carving out a future where African tech talent increasingly fuels global innovation. This can serve as an example for other African ICT service providers, as the gap between African supply of talent and global demand for labour is large enough that bridging it will require not one but multiple of these cross-border partnerships. 

In other words, there’s plenty of pie to go around. With the ever-increasing digitalization and economic growth of the world, that pie is likely to continue getting bigger for the foreseeable future. For other African ICT service providers, there will be no need to fight for a piece of it – all that is needed is to bring a fork and join the table.

Further Jobtech Thoughts;

• Why We Need to Look Beyond Africa
• A Systems-Based Approach to Expanding Global Demand for African ICT Talent
• Promoting African Talent Isn’t Magic

The author is a Venture Building Extern at the Jobtech Alliance.