While much of Africa’s tech narrative remains dominated by mobile banking and crypto experiments, one founder is quietly reshaping the continent’s digital backbone by investing in its most critical asset: human capital.
Khadijat Abdulkadir is a Nigerian social entrepreneur and the founder and CEO of INGRYD Academy, a Lagos-based training and talent solutions firm focused on software engineering, cybersecurity, and cloud computing.
She also serves as the Executive Director of Digital African Woman (DAW), a nonprofit through which she has trained over 600 grassroots entrepreneurs across Sub-Saharan Africa and Europe, empowering women with technical and business development skills.
Abdulkadir holds dual master’s degrees in Business Engineering and Management Science, and is a certified SAP Software Analyst with prior roles at prominent firms including Accenture, Aramark, Microsoft, and Candriam.
Before founding INGRYD, she held leadership positions as a Senior Special Adviser on ICT to the Nigerian Police Force, Chief Technology Officer at Africa Prudential Plc, and CEO of Xerde Ltd.
Since launching INGRYD Academy in 2023, Abdulkadir has led the organisation to train over 8,500 learners across Nigeria, Europe, and the US, with more than 4,500 receiving professional certification and over 1,000 graduates finding placement in global digital roles through partnerships such as the one with ISACA.
Her work highlights a focused drive to bridge Africa’s digital skills gap and promote inclusive access to global technology opportunities.
From her office in Lagos, Abdulkadir is building what she calls Africa’s “digital bench strength.” Her company, INGRYD Tech, runs an academy that trains young Africans in high-demand areas like software engineering, cybersecurity, cloud computing, and enterprise IT architecture.
But more than a bootcamp, INGRYD positions its talent for global competitiveness through curriculum tied directly to job placement and outsourcing-ready skills.
“Africa has the youngest population in the world, yet we’re still importing digital talent or outsourcing jobs outside the continent,” Abdulkadir said in an earlier industry panel. “This is not sustainable.”
Why It Matters
Her approach is part education, part infrastructure, and part advocacy. INGRYD not only trains engineers but also partners with governments, telecoms, and private firms to deploy these talents into real-world projects across banking, energy, and telecom sectors. It’s a pipeline model, not just a classroom.
More importantly, INGRYD’s model is inclusive. It champions women in tech, supports low-income learners, and emphasizes cloud-based infrastructure to eliminate the need for costly physical labs. For many in the tech space, Abdulkadir’s work represents a shift from flashy apps to the often-ignored plumbing that powers the digital economy.
Africa’s digital revolution, many argue, will not be won by platforms alone but by the engineers who build, secure, and scale them. In this regard, Abdulkadir is preparing an army.
Still, challenges remain. Funding for talent development startups is notoriously scarce compared to fintechs. Government buy-in is often slow. And brain drain threatens to sap the very workforce INGRYD trains.
But Abdulkadir remains undeterred.
“What we’re doing at INGRYD is not just education it’s sovereignty,” she once remarked at a digital economy summit. “If Africa cannot build its own digital infrastructure, it will always rent its future from others.”
As policymakers continue to debate how to make Africa competitive in the Fourth Industrial Revolution, founders like Abdulkadir are already laying the bricks.
And she’s just getting started.
Talking Point
Africa doesn’t need more fintech startups; it needs Engineers who can build them. Let’s be blunt: Africa is overrun with fintech clones. Everyone wants to build the next Flutterwave or Paystack, but who is training the backend engineers and cloud architects needed to sustain that ambition?
Khadijat Abdulkadir’s INGRYD is tackling a foundational issue that doesn’t get as much press: technical skills development. We celebrate digital platforms without asking who’s building and securing the underlying infrastructure.
Let’s stop chasing unicorns and start building institutions. The tech ecosystem is obsessed with unicorns and valuations. But real transformation comes from institutions that endure, evolve, and empower.
INGRYD may not be on the lips of Silicon Valley VCs (yet), but what it represents, a systematic, scalable approach to digital talent, is far more valuable in the long term.
