GQ South Africa – September 2019

Techentrepreneur

andfounderof

techstart-up

CoGrammar,Riaz

Moolahasbrought

hiscodingskills

tothecontinentto

transformentire

workforcesand

economiestothrive

inthedigitalage

Photogra

Phy by

Markus s

Piske/uns

Plash,

s u

PP

lied by

ria

Z Moola

GQ: You’ve been dubbed the

South African Steve Jobs

• is it a title that pleases you?
  Riaz Moola: It isn’t. Primarily
  because it doesn’t reflect the fact
  that many of the achievements
  attributed to me were the result of
  the relentless efforts of our team
  which has spanned old and young,
  experienced and inexperienced,
  and people from all over the world.  

GQ: What motivated the

creation of Hyperion

[now CoGrammar]?

RM: I founded Hyperion to solve

a problem I witnessed in my first

year of university: high dropout

rates within the computer science

degrees in South Africa because

students were struggling to

master programming skills.

Hyperion was initially

a community of university

students, but after Facebook

partnered with us to become one

of the top education technology

startups in Africa, we realised we

could have a more global impact.

GQ: Can you tell us

about CoGrammar?

RM: CoGrammar is an evolution

of our initial ideas, empowering

African talent to embark on

a career as a code reviewer – like

an “editor” for code. Through

this work, we’re helping to create

new careers in a country with

one of the world’s highest youth

unemployment rates.

GQ: Was CoGrammar’s

operational model inspired

by a video game?

RM: I learnt how people-led

communities could achieve great

things in a simulated world of

World of Warcraft. In this game,

I led two large communities of

players from around the world,

and we took on competitive

tasks in a game played by over

10 million people. When I first

started Hyperion, I replicated

the model for communities at

a larger scale to power a model run

by humans, rather than scaling

with technology alone. Our code-

review-as-a-service model at

CoGrammar is the same – we scale

our service using a combination

of technology and hundreds of

human code reviewers.

GQ: What sets CoGrammar

apart in software

development education?

RM: CoGrammar operates the

CoGrammar Careers Programme,

a coding bootcamp designed to

transition people into a career as

a code reviewer, and HyperionDev,

which operates several coding

bootcamps designed to transition

We’re creating new careers in

a country with one of the world’s

highest youth unemployment rates

people with no tech skills into web,

software and mobile development

jobs. In our last graduate survey,

over 95% of students reported

reaching their career outcomes.

Seventy-three percent of our

responding graduates switched

to a career in tech in under three

months of graduating, and the

average annual salary increase

post-graduation was over

R144 000 in just months.

GQ: Does CoGrammar

place importance on

human mentorship?

RM: The idea behind a technical

educator or coding mentor is new.

We take a long-term view of an

individual’s skill set and relate it

to code review. We believe that

we can build the world’s largest

workforce of technical code

reviewers out here in Africa

• starting with SA – by designing

the training to push people into

being an expert code reviewer.

Our recent CoGrammar Careers

cohort shows that we have more

than enough talent to build

a workforce for this – we had

over 2 000 applicants for 66

places on our CoGrammar

training programme in a space

of two weeks.

GQ: How is CoGrammar

improving career prospects for

students from disadvantaged

backgrounds?

RM: Our CoGrammar Careers

programme is 100% tuition

free and aimed at lower income

demographics. We’ve partnered

with non-profits and grant

funders to make this career

path available to those who may

not have the means to attend

traditional tertiary institutions in

SA. A career as a code reviewer is

valued at an equal level to that of

a software developer. We see this

as an excellent opportunity for

underserved demographics in our

country to get real outcomes for

themselves and their families in

a short space of time.

GQ: Can you provide any

insights into the work being

done towards closing the

global skills gap in the software

development arena?

RM: Education technology

company 2U, which acquired

local startup GetSmarter for

over $100 million (R1.4 billion)

a few years ago, recently bought

Trilogy Education for $750million

(R10.6 billion). Trilogy has

a unique model – partnering with

universities in the US to allow

them to offer and sell coding

bootcamps under their own

brand. This massive adoption and

evolution of the coding bootcamp

model has now spread to the

UK and Europe, and is likely to

revolutionise and set the standard

for university-powered coding

bootcamp education, allowing

universities to play a critical role in

providing software development

education at a larger scope.

GQ: What plans do you

have for the future?

RM: I’m working with our team to

extend CoGrammar through new

partnerships with equity investors,

grant makers, and leading tech

education and recruitment

companies in the US and Europe.

We’re positioned for massive

growth in our code reviewer base

• in under eight months we’ve
  grown tenfold in the number of
  code reviews we process for clients
  weekly, now in the thousands. The
  next eight months are likely to take
  us to similar growth, and we’re
  alwayskeentoexplorenewlocal
  andinternationalopportunities.
  
  
  • Shannon Manuel
  
  
  
  

gq.co.za s eptember 2019 / 57