This episode is brought to you by PureVPN; a secure, fast, private, and unrestricted way to access the internet. FULL TRANSCRIPT Narrator: Africa!!! Home to 1.25 billion people, over 60% aged 25 and below. With such a youthful population, it is no surprise that potential talent abounds, especially in cutting edge sectors like tech. And with thousands of tech companies already established and hundreds more coming up, quality is brewing every day. Over the past decade, a variety of tech talent companies have sprung forth on the continent, with the primary aim of connecting said talents to local and international clients. Names like Lagos and San-Francisco based Andela and Ethiopian-based Gebeya come to mind. But for Adewale Yusuf, ex-publisher of Nigerian-based tech publication, Techpoint Africa, these names were just scratching the surface. More work needed to be done. On this episode of the Built in Africa, we put the spotlight on how Nigerian-based startup, TalentQL, wants to build a pipeline of quality African talent for local and international companies. Adewale would better appreciate the intricacies of the market in 2018 when Techpoint Africa held its first African tech talent meetup in Europe. This was done in partnership with US-based seed accelerator, Techstars. Majority of the people in attendance were software engineers who originally plied their trade in Africa but now led dev teams in Berlin and other parts of Europe.   Adewale Yusuf: From the developers that came, one thing I realised is, the only thing Africa has to offer the world is talent. Narrator: That’s Adewale Yusuf.  Inspired by the quality of talent present, he made up his mind to play a part in building tech talent in Africa. Right there and then, the seed for the idea of TalentQL was planted. But it wasn’t until about 2 years after the meetup that the idea began to materialise. To kickstart the project, Adewale first stepped down as the publisher of Techpoint Africa. Meanwhile, he had enlisted the help of professionals in the talent recruitment space: Opeyemi Awoyemi and Akintunde Sultan. Opeyemi is the co-founder of cloud-hosting company, Whogohost; and Jobberman, one of Africa’s largest online recruitment companies. Akintunde, on the other hand, is the founder of non-profit tech accelerator, DevCareer. The organisation is well known for its efforts to equip up-and-coming African developers with laptops and guide them on a path to proficiency. It has attracted the attention of global beneficiaries, such as Twitter and Square CEO, Jack Dorsey.  Together, the trio launched TalentQL in November 2020. A moniker for Talent Quiet Location, its mission is to hire, develop, and manage remote African talent for global companies. But with a plethora of established companies which provide similar services, how will TalentQL stand out from the lot?  Of utmost importance to the team is its intention to source for talent outside of Nigeria’s largest tech city of Lagos.  Adewale Yusuf: