African developers: creating opportunities and building for the future
Every day, African businesses harness ingenuity to empower their communities. African software developers are an engine for digital transformation in local economies across the continent, and there’s no one better to solve challenges than local developers, founders, and entrepreneurs. And as African startup funding reaches unprecedented levels (growing by over 2.5x in 2021 over the previous year), understanding Africa’s developer landscape is key to support the growth of these startups.
For the second year in a row, Google published the Africa Developer Ecosystem report to map Africa’s developer landscape. We expanded this edition of the report to include year-on-year growth analysis, tech ecosystem components and key growth factors. The research was conducted in 16 African markets (Algeria, Cameroon, Egypt, Ethiopia, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Kenya, Morocco, Mozambique, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, South Africa, Tanzania, Tunisia, Uganda) and the findings were extrapolated to the rest of the continent.
Here are the five key takeaways from our study:
1. Africa’s developer population is growing across the continent.
We found that COVID-19 has continued to shape both the tech community at large and the nuances of the developer experience. Despite a contracting economy, the pool of professional developers increased by 3.8% to make up 0.4% of the continent’s non-agricultural workforce. Salaries and compensation also rose, and more developers secured full-time jobs.
2. VC investment in African startups rebounded as the digital economy expanded.
As local businesses transitioned online across the continent, they boosted the need for web development and data engineering skills. African startups raised over $4bn in 2021, 2.5x times more than in 2020, with fintech startups making up over half of this funding. The shift to remote work also created more employment opportunities across time zones and continents for African developers while lifting the pay for senior talent. As a result, international companies are now recruiting African developers at record rates.
3. Learners, junior developers, as well as underrepresented groups including women, need more support.
These groups faced challenges exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Without access to in-person education — or affordable, reliable internet access and at-home equipment — they struggled to make gains last year. This can be seen in how the gender gap between men developers and women developers widened: there are 2.5% fewer women developers in the workforce than there were in 2020.
4. Educators, technology companies and governments are undertaking initiatives to strengthen the developer pipeline.
Educators, tech companies and governments can help developers succeed by improving internet access, education and business support. Bootcamps and certifications, run as part of formal and informal education, are working to bridge the vocational training gap between traditional education and employment moving forward. Global technology companies are investing in digital skill building across the continent to improve job readiness and alleviate the tech talent bottleneck. Governments can also play a vital role in strengthening the developer pipeline by investing in both internet access and education.
5. Nigeria is a striking example of the symbiotic relationship between digital transformation and developer growth in Africa.
The developer ecosystem in Nigeria is thriving, thanks to strong demand for developer talent, significant support from big tech, and Nigerian startups raising the largest total amount of funding on the continent in 2021. Nigeria had the highest number of new developers of all countries surveyed, with 5,000 additional developers joining Nigeria’s developer population in 2021. As countries like Nigeria continue to transform, they will unlock more opportunities for developers, who in turn, grow the economy.
To support the continued growth of Africa’s developers, technology companies, educators and governments are tackling local challenges through innovative partnerships and programs. Google is committed to supporting developers at each stage of their journey through regional developer training, community, and mentorship programs, including Google Developer Groups, Google Developer Student Clubs, Women Techmakers and Google Developer Experts.
Rincaro elettricità. Le energie rinnovabili possono giocare un ruolo per contenerlo?
Il ruolo delle energie rinnovabili di Piero Andreuccetti – Esperto indipendente pandreuccetti@yahoo.it In Italia le Energie Rinnovabili – idroelettriche, eoliche, solare fotovoltaico, biomasse, energia geotermica, … contribuiscono per quasi il 36% al…
L’articolo Rincaro elettricità. Le energie rinnovabili possono giocare un ruolo per contenerlo? scritto da Paolo Brambilla proviene da Assodigitale.
5 Helpful Ways B2B Marketers Can Achieve Content Approval


The “Wild West” of content marketing stuck around longer than we may have imagined, but COVID-19 well and truly brought it to a close. These days, 82% of marketers use content marketing, over 40% of marketers say content is a very important part of their strategy, and 70% plan to actively continue investing in it in the long term.
If content marketing is such big business now, however, why does so much of it still feel distinctly lawless? Nowhere is that more true than when it comes to actually getting either client or internal approval for your content. You go to all the work of producing your stuff, send it to the people in charge, and then… you’re at their mercy. And often, your content disappears then and there.
There’s a better way to work content approval, and it’s all about process building. Securing content approval is a part of your workflow like everything else, and like everything else, it’s more effective when you have a plan.
Follow these five steps to create your own plan for content approval, and you’ll find yourself spending a lot less time bitterly running down approval and a lot more time actually planning for your team’s next big splash.
1 — Standardize the Lead-Up
The last few times your content got trapped in pending purgatory, was it really because your approver got picky about back-and-forth edits? Sometimes, sure, but usually the issue is simpler… and, unfortunately, closer to home.
Chances are, in fact, you don’t know exactly where the bottlenecks are that hold up your content approval process. THAT is the biggest problem.
You’re not alone, either. According to a survey by the Content Marketing Institute, 42% of content marketers said that content production flow was one of their biggest challenges for the upcoming year. Meanwhile, a DIFFERENT survey by the CMI found that only 42% of content marketing teams have a formal content workflow in place.
When you don’t know what you need to see a piece of content from conception to publication, a lot of your content never reaches the approval phase at all. Instead, it gets wrapped up in “where were we at with that piece, again?” territory… until everyone forgets about it. Then, if it DOES see the light of day, everyone’s forgotten what it was for… and you’re back to square one.
There’s a straightforward solution: a content workflow. Create a tight, simple game plan for publishing and follow it for every single piece of content you create. At every turn, you should know:
A: Where a piece is in the process
B: Who’s in charge of the next step
C: When they plan on completing the next step
D: Who they will send their finished work to
E: Repeat
The more you can standardize and streamline your content creation process, the more consistently a clear, relevant piece of content reaches an approver who knows what they’re looking at at. Making that moment happen is the single best way to improve your approval rate.
[bctt tweet=”“Create a tight, simple game plan for publishing and follow it for every single piece of content you create.” — Harry Mackin” username=”toprank”]2 — Simplify & Assign Workflow Deadlines — Internally & Externally
Ok, so you’ve got your workflow established. Great, that’s the easy part. Now you actually have to commit to using it… every. single. time. That means two things: you have to keep it simple, and you have to keep it moving.
85% of CEOs blame internal complexity for their failure to grow and deliver sustainable performance, and it’s the mindkiller of many a content workflow, too. As a general rule, you should be able to write out your content workflow — with the names, positions, content info, and description of the role of each participant at every step in the process — for each piece of content you produce.
Next, you have to avoid the dreaded “content by committee.” Keep as few people plugged into the process as possible. Have these people work closely together to understand each other’s processes and get to know their roles.
Assign concrete deadlines for each of these steps, whether the person in charge of seeing them through is internal or external. Assign a project manager to keep track of these deadlines and ensure everyone is on pace. Remind your client or approver of these deadlines, why they matter, and why they need to keep up with them.
[bctt tweet=”“Write out your content workflow — with the names, positions, content info, and description of the role of each participant at every step in the process — for each piece of content you produce.” — Harry Mackin” username=”toprank”]3 — Make It About Them, Not You
Failure to get content approval usually stems more from communication breakdown than a problem with the content itself. Somewhere, the wires get crossed — either the client doesn’t explain what they’re looking for or the creators misunderstand intent and take the wrong tack — and then when the approver’s handed the document, they don’t know what they’re looking at… or how it helps them.
This failure may not rest with the content, but it does rest with the process. According to a recent Accenture survey, only 19% of marketing leaders felt they had clear objectives when creating new content. According to another study, 43% of B2B marketers only “sometimes” define their content marketing KPIs!
If your own content marketers don’t know what they want to do with their content, how are the people in charge of approving it even supposed to know what to approve it for? Instead, they receive nebulous content that’s disconnected from their business, their goals, and their ideas about how to propel their brand… and they’re not interested in reading it, much less approving it!
It’s not enough for your team to know why they’re producing their content (though, you know, they should) ; your clients need to know, too. What do they want this content to accomplish? Why is that the goal? How will this piece accomplish that? If you want content approval, you have to show your approver why they should care about your content. To do that, you need to show them exactly why your content marketing matters to them.
[bctt tweet=”“If you want content approval, you have to show your approver why they should care about your content. To do that, you need to show them exactly why your content marketing matters to them.” — Harry Mackin” username=”toprank”]4 — Collaborate with Stakeholders From the Jump
In fact, goals are important for buy-in across the board, not just with your client. There are all kinds of stakeholders in any piece of content — from collaborators to contributors to subject matter experts to field sellers. They all should be invested in your content, because it stands to benefit all of them. But, as you’re probably all-too-aware… that isn’t always how it goes.
If the only people who care about your content are the team members making it, you have a big problem. If your client’s team or your approver doesn’t understand why they should care about your content, why would they?
Now imagine if, instead, everyone cared about your content. The sales and marketing teams are excited for the new narrative that informs their own strategies. The clients and approvers are excited to see how the content will move their own agendas forward. Your content producers are excited because they have enthusiastic buy-in and they feel like what they’re doing matters.
This kind of enthusiasm isn’t as hard to achieve as you may think: you just need to get everyone involved. Ask all stakeholders what they want from the content at every point in the process. Figure out what would make them excited to speed the content through to approval, and then provide it! When your content finally hits the approver’s desk, they shouldn’t just know what it is — they should be excited to see it happen.
[bctt tweet=”“If the only people who care about your content are the team members making it, you have a big problem. If your client’s team or your approver doesn’t understand why they should care about your content, why would they?” — Harry Mackin” username=”toprank”]5 — Optimize Your Approval Process
When you’ve got your goals locked-in and your whole team is enthusiastic about making them happen, you’ve laid all the groundwork for the most impactful step of all: re-envisioning and optimizing the approval process itself.
Now that you have goals and KPIs established, you have something concrete to check your content against. Instead of approval being a nebulous process combining pitching, editing, revising, critiquing and a little begging, you’ve given your approver definite goalposts to think about when reviewing.
When your approver collaborated throughout the process, this new approach to approval becomes even more effective. Your approver already knows exactly what you’re going for with this content, so they’re free to critique how effectively they think you’ll pull it off.
Best of all, informed approval paves the way for truly meaningful feedback. Without a clear understanding of goals, feedback becomes nebulous, undirected, and often circular — just like the approval process itself. With goals in place, however, all feedback can focus on how you can better achieve what you’re trying to do, which will make any edits far easier both to communicate and to implement.
For more tips on how to bring your content marketing process out of the Wild West and into the age of business, keep up with the experts at the TopRank Marketing blog.
The post 5 Helpful Ways B2B Marketers Can Achieve Content Approval appeared first on B2B Marketing Blog – TopRank®.
Alfio Bardolla: criptovalute, nuovo asset per raggiungere la Libertà Finanziaria
Alfio Bardolla La società di formazione personale spiega come utilizzare al meglio il trading online per far fruttare i propri risparmi Criptovalute, Blockchain, NFT, Metaverso Oggi sempre più spesso si…
L’articolo Alfio Bardolla: criptovalute, nuovo asset per raggiungere la Libertà Finanziaria scritto da Paolo Brambilla proviene da Assodigitale.












