At April’s Connected Africa Summit in Diani, Kenya, I met the team behind an edtech trying to close the growing gap between digital skills training and actual income opportunities. Here’s how they’re doing it and what’s coming next.
The Connected Africa Summit brings together policymakers, telcos, investors, and tech operators to discuss infrastructure, regulation, and digital growth on the continent. But while the big names debated cloud infrastructure and AI, a team was working on a more grounded challenge of making digital skills generate income.
Power Learn Project (PLP) was founded in 2021 by Mumbi Ndung’u and Kenji Sasaki, driven by what Ndung’u called “a pressing concern: the growing digital divide across Africa.”
Despite the continent’s young population and rising demand for tech talent, millions still lacked the basics, reliable internet, affordable devices, and structured training. “What if we could democratise access to digital skills at scale and directly connect young people to real work?” That was the core idea, Ndung’u said.
The team started with a 16-week software development scholarship in Kenya, offered remotely and at no cost to learners from low-income communities. “What started as a pilot in Kenya with a handful of learners quickly proved that with the right support,” Ndung’u said, adding that with the right support, learners could build real technical skills
Scale doesn’t always translate to success
Since launching in 2021, PLP claims it has trained over 20,000 learners across Kenya, South Africa, Nigeria, Zambia, and Rwanda. But the team is quick to caution that scale, on its own, doesn’t mean impact.
“The number alone doesn’t tell the full story,” Ndung’u said. “What’s important is who these learners are—young people from underserved communities, many of whom had never touched a line of code before.”
PLP also closely tracks what happens after the training ends. The edtech firm says that in 2025, 63% of its alumni will be actively engaged in the tech economy. That includes full-time employment, freelance work on platforms like Upwork, and early-stage ventures. Some have gone further. Peter Okware, one of PLP’s alumni, co-founded iThreeM, a Web3 company that’s now part of a growing wave of African blockchain startups.
The link between training and income is held together by the firm’s Talent Hub, a placement and support platform that helps learners build portfolios, prep for interviews, and connect with employers.
“Our alumni are working across sectors, from fintech and healthtech startups to corporate IT teams and global outsourcing firms,” Ndung’u said. “Encouragingly, many of these placements are not just short-term. Learners are being retained, promoted, or scaling ventures of their own.”
So far, over 1,200 learners have secured work through the hub. PLP adds that feedback from employers has been consistent, as graduates come in better prepared for the demands of fast-moving teams. It points to what one hiring partner called “readiness and adaptability” as key advantages over more traditionally trained candidates.
Still, the team sees placement figures as just one layer of success because it is trying to measure income mobility, business survival, and whether access to training translates into sustained economic change over time. That kind of tracking is harder but essential to proving the model works beyond the initial course.
How PLP pays for free training
PLP operates as a non-profit. Funding comes from a mix of development agencies, corporate backers like telco Safaricom, and some government support. “Organisations like Safaricom Hook and various local governments have helped fuel our growth and sustain the scholarship program.” Safaricom Hook is a youth-focused platform for Kenyans aged 10–24, offering access to technology and career training.
PLP has started building a hybrid revenue model to avoid relying fully on donor cycles. This includes paid advanced courses in cybersecurity and AI.
Employer partnerships, where companies pay to access the talent pool or request custom training, also generate income. There’s even a startup incubation arm where PLP supports ventures built by alumni, with some revenue-sharing or co-investment possibilities.
What does Safaricom bring to the table
PLP’s partnership with Safaricom started with the Hook initiative, a co-branded training programme that supported 300 young Kenyans. Learners underwent a full training cycle, combining technical instruction, career preparation, mentorship, and exposure to engineers working inside one of Kenya’s largest telcos.
But the relationship didn’t stop at the pilot since Safaricom is now a recurring partner across multiple layers of PLP’s work, including curriculum design, mentorship, and startup support. The two are also exploring joint innovation challenges and more structured employer linkages.
For PLP, partnerships like this are part of how it connects learners to actual work. The organisation refers to its model as “skills-to-jobs”, a sequence that begins with free access to software development training, but also builds in soft skills, mentorship, career coaching, and job placement support through its Talent Hub.
The Safaricom partnership is also a test case for something bigger: whether large tech employers can more directly help close the loop between training and employment. PLP’s goal is to anchor those skills to real opportunities, inside and outside formal employment, and Safaricom’s involvement helps make that possible.
Where PLP goes next
PLP now operates in five countries and is expanding, though growth has come with complications. “Scaling across countries has meant navigating local regulatory frameworks, infrastructure gaps, and varying education baselines,” Ndung’u said.
The team has had to adjust how it delivers content, trains support staff, and works with local employers. In some countries, internet access is still unreliable, while in others, aligning with education ministries or labour departments takes time.
But the harder problem is internal. “The toughest part is hiring and retaining mission-aligned talent. People who understand tech and believe in our social vision,” Ndung’u said. Managing teams across countries while keeping the work consistent hasn’t been easy.
PLP is now preparing to enter Francophone and North Africa, which means reworking content, changing delivery formats, and building new relationships on the ground. The team is also betting on its alumni network as a way to learn what works and what doesn’t. Keeping graduates connected to jobs and to each other is part of the long-term plan.
“Our north star remains the same,” Ndung’u said, meaning that it is still honing its original idea. The platform sees tech as a tool, but only if it leads to paid work or real businesses. Skills, in their view, only matter if they change what people can earn.
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