"It's my party..." or whatever Lesley Gore said.

Background

One man’s quest to empower Africa leveraging technology: A lot of people say that Africa is the future. However, there are a handful of people doing the work to ensure that Africa is not left behind. A young entrepreneur working tirelessly to ensure accessibility of employment in technology on the African continent is Favour, founder of TalentMatch Inc, an American startup launching its flagship product - Payday .

1. Early Beginnings

Stanford University (2018)

Favour Ori is a Software Engineer and Entrepreneur born and raised in Abia State, Nigeria. He is a self-motivated, resilient, highly talented, and thoroughbred technology professional keen on building & shipping innovative products geared toward simplifying, automating, and generally improving life.

Southern Arkansas University, Magnolia (August, 2016) - Semester 1

Favour relocated to the United States in 2016 to study Computer and Information Sciences at Southern Arkansas University. He has worked with Turing, OpenTeams, GO Ltd., ABiTNetwork, CultureBase PBC, Saint Louis University, Oklahoma State University, to name a few. In addition, Favour is also a highly sought-after public speaker. He has spoken at several international conferences like the NCHC Conference in Atlanta, Georgia, the United Nations Youth Assembly in New York, the YCBS Conference (Atlanta), 1MillionCups in Tulsa, Oklahoma, NCS. (NG), etc

March 2018 & Random stuff

Prior to founding TalentMatch, he launched a non-profit in 2018 called FavCode54 with the single mission of empowering Africans and helping them launch their tech careers. IBM Canada later backed Favcode54 (Thanks to Leon Katsnelson, Director & CTO and Antonio Cangiano Engineering Manager, IBM Canada.) IBM provided resources (Cloud & Watson) valued at $90 million to enable FavCoders to learn and deploy real-world cloud products.

Was low key waiting for the alert (Feb 2020) - Dubai, UAE

In 2020, Favour launched and sold the College Situation and Tugure to ABiTNetwork. College Situation connects students in Africa to institutions, scholarship opportunities and fellowship programs in Canada, the United Kingdom, the United States, and other countries outside the continent. Tugure, on the other hand, is an app that allows Rwandans to trade new and fairly used items easily. It can be considered the Craigslist or Facebook Marketplace of Rwanda.

2. FavCode54

On a call with Leon Katsnelson (Director & CTO), IBM & Antonio Cangiano (Engineering Manager, IBM Canada) (2018) - ORU Library

Favour's passion is to train and teach Africans primarily how to code and connect them to the right opportunities in technology globally. With FavCode54, he mentors the next generation of African software developers. Supported by IBM, he teaches people to code through FavCode54's online portal, which has pre-recorded classes, quality learning resources, and materials that make the process seamless for the students.

FavCode testing the mic (March 2018)

The students are not required to have any prior knowledge of programming or even a university degree. Instead, they are paired with qualified mentors and trainers who are alumni or current students of prestigious institutions such as Ivy League schools or employees of leading tech companies (FAANG)

Friends supporting friends (2018)

Since its inception in 2018, FavCode54 has produced over 10,000 alumni (including household names like Bolaji Ayodeji), many of whom have gained employment at foreign startups or launched their independent tech ventures. Favour continues to work on his mission to produce geniuses that tech companies desperately seek.

3. WeJapaHQ & Internship

Boredom during the quarantine period of the coronavirus pandemic (2020) inspired Favour to build a talent matching platform promising to help experienced software developers land foreign gigs. He partnered with companies & organizations like Irembo Gov, Quorum Control GmbH, SmartSeal, ABiTNetwork, etc to help fill out their roles.

On a random morning, Japa Internship was launched with an estimated enrollment of ~3000 Africans (same day). Interns chose their tracks, got paired with mentors, learned & built out amazing products & received certificates of completion.

4. TalentMatch / PayDay - Launch, plans, expansion, fundraising:

PayDay's MVP (June 9th, 2021)

PayDay is currently in development/private testing - it is the fastest and most efficient way for tech talent and creatives throughout the African continent to receive payments from their global/foreign clients in minutes, all on their mobile phones or PCs.

TalentMatch’s promising future makes it one of the top startups to watch. You can Join PayDay’s Waitlist and get notified when it’s live. Follow our socials to stay up to date

Twitter: @TalentMatchHQ Instagram: @mypayday.africa