Holberton, a coding academy has announced that it has been acquired by African Leadership Group. The organisation has physical campuses across the world and its online platform, will split into two entities.
As part of the deal, Holberton’s technology platform will become part of ALG’s existing ALX online learning platform and the existing 34 physical locations will get spun out to become a stand-alone business under current Holberton COO Florian Bucher.
Holberton co-founder Julien Barbier said: “There are a lot of similarities between the two companies and the missions that we are after.”
“The talk about an acquisition came very naturally at one point. When you hit those big numbers with a partner, you start thinking if there’s potential for a merger? Would it make sense to combine the two companies? And it made a lot of sense and that’s how we started talking about it — first as a joke and then very seriously.”
On the other hand, ALG founder and CEO Fred Swaniker started the organization as a leadership academy (now the African Leadership Academy) for small cohorts of students. He then added the African Leadership University to reach a broader group of students, but still with a focus on leadership and entrepreneurship.
“Four years ago, we realized that the world is going through a digital transformation and there will be a need for skills like software engineering, data science, cloud computing, cybersecurity and so we created ALX,” Swaniker explained. “It’s not a high school. It’s not a university — but it’s for people who already have college degrees and then we re-skill them for these careers in the fourth industrial revolution.”
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