Johannesburg, 26 Nov 2021
Image courtesy of https://www.africanleadershipacademy.org/
Dynamic Technologies’ group company, CloudSmiths, has created key connections for African Leadership Academy’s (ALA’s) alumni to access opportunities to build peace and prosperity across Africa.
An online job portal built by CloudSmiths that connects work seekers with companies is demonstrating yet again the power of technology in making a difference in the lives of individuals and economies.
ALA is an educational institution that seeks to create peace and prosperity on the African continent by identifying, developing and connecting a new generation of young leaders. Students participate in ALA’s two-year pre-university programme in Johannesburg and then go on to enrol in universities worldwide. ALA alumni join one of ALA’s sector communities, which focus on six key challenges and opportunities (health, education, agribusiness, the arts, infrastructure and governance) and work together to achieve pan-African economic and social transformation in these areas.
ALA initially developed a careers portal to connect their alumni with jobs and internships in Africa, but the system became outdated, and the organisation required a new solution. Award-winning Salesforce partner CloudSmiths utilised Experience Cloud to develop a customised portal with a searchable database and online application tools. The portal provided a significantly improved user experience for external applicants and smoother back-end processing for internal co-ordinators.
Ansi Harford, Special Projects Manager, Networks and Institutional Learning Team, African Leadership Academy, says: “We needed a partner who could appreciate the importance of maintaining our brand and credibility, with the technical know-how to deliver a product that was fairly complex, while being one hundred percent reliable and providing an exceptional user experience.”
Following the launch of its new portal, logins for ALA between January 2021 and March 2021 quadrupled from the same period the previous year, while a post-launch survey showed that over 80% of the users “can find opportunities relevant to them”, “like the look and feel of the new portal”, and “agree that it is easy to navigate”.
Jason Timm, CloudSmiths CEO, says his team was proud to deliver ideal solutions for ALA, and adds: “Our team went further and improved the quality of application documents by developing a tool to help applicants build CVs and cover letters. We look forward to seeing the impact that these young leaders have on our continent in years to come.”