1 Introduction

The recent outbreaks of economic crises in developed countries in the world (North) have given rise to an unprecedented movement towards finding alternative solutions. Small and medium companies from these countries, looked at the exceptional blossoming of the least developed countries (South) as a possible partner to contain their restricted consumption. In the most recent years, the South witnessed a strong migration of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) and specialised personnel.

Mozambique witnessed during this period a rapid economic expansion, a speculative bubble fuelled by increasingly close and accentuated relations of credit and debt by external funding agencies. ICT companies from the South absorbed much of the local grants and ICT personnel, reducing the gap between capacity and demand.

Since the end of the Mozambican financial boom, the long-term players active in the market are large Mozambican Software developing companies and coalition of individuals. The Mozambican Developers’ community (MozDevz) is an example of a coalition of individuals engaged in the development of software solutions for the community, maintaining high levels of engagement backed by an agenda focused on developing the local community. In this paper, we focus on the impact of MozDevz in the capacity-building of personnel aimed at the development of ICT solutions and how it is related to the overall ICT atmosphere in the country.

Our research takes as the founding philosophy that of a designer in the middle, hired by the North to produce solutions for the local government and private agencies of the South.

2 Methods

Data was collected over a 2-month period and consisted of document analysis, semi-structured interviews as well as observations from two training sessions organized by the community and from public forums used by members on social media platforms (Facebook and WhatsApp). Two researchers immersed in the community and engaged in participant observation taking field notes of events, observed interactions and facts deemed relevant in the context of this study. Participants consisted of administrative staff, founding members of the community as well as members in general. Data analysis comprised of a thematic analysis of the data collected from the different sources.

3 Mozambican Developers Community

The Mozambican Developers Community (MozDevz) was created in October 2013, aiming to sensitize and train students and ICT-enthusiasts and connect them to corporate and civil society organizations (MozDevz n.d). The MozDevz coalition soon became a driving force when the Minister of Science and Technology (MCT), in 2014 created conditions for the first hackathon, which gathered a major number of Mozambican developers. The coalition became an informal network of developers, creating sustainable ICT solutions for government agencies and private companies. Currently, the coalition has more than 1200 members, out of which 800 registered, an administrative staff comprised of 8 people. Most of the coalition members are undergraduate students from local and international universities at which most of the learning process is done using formal methods of learning.

During the Mozambican financial boom, most of the coalition members were recruited at the university to work on software development projects for the government. They experienced formal learning methods and provided to such organizations in-depth knowledge of cultural and local practices in usage and adoption of software.

The group promotes community empowerment, working spirit and knowledge sharing as key values to make Mozambique a regional reference in the production of technological solutions through collaboration, innovation and creation of local solutions to local problems.

3.1 When Formal Is Supported by Informal Learning

The MozDevz coalition started from the desire of young developers to gain recognition, establish friendship, discover opportunities and connect with other like-minded. The coalition started developing small applications aiming to become a pro-active consultant body for the community. The early days of the movement were not concerned with sustaining the movement and finding solutions for pressing social problems of the coalition members as the movement was concerned with the transference of knowledge and software development standards and practices.

Most of the members of the coalition are university students, who attend classes delivered using formal learning methods and reported that the process of formal learning delivers structured content in a long time-period.

What we learn at the university is something structured, based sometimes on old development approaches. You cannot ask to be given other type of classes and you are forced to attend even if it is not interesting (Interviewee 1 – Coalition Member).

In the community, members are provided the opportunity to complement what is learned in the traditional classroom. The informal learning process takes place online, in public places and any member of the coalition can seek out learning opportunities and ways in which they can share ideas with other learners. The coalition doesn’t take a solitary learning approach instead it is more like a group which picks a topic and can change or alter during the process of learning.

The programming classes are mainly what we decide it will be, there will be some groups doing something specific we just share in some moments the same physical space but anyone can join at any time, we are all teachers and students (Interviewee 6 – Coalition Member).

Informal learning takes place at the grassroots level in a non-formal school setting, where technologies can be adapted to learning objectives with fewer constraints than formal learning processes at the university.

The above excerpts demonstrate how the community of developers linked both the formal and informal learning. They use the structure provided at the university classes and bridge with the student-centered, interest-guided approach of the informal learning that occurs in the context of participatory media, which offers significant opportunities for increased student engagement.

3.2 Negotiation as a Key Component in Achieving Shared Goals

As a social learning system, one of the defining characteristic of a community of practice is the ability of members to establish a sense of identity (Wenger 2010). By being allowed to take part in the goal-setting and decision-making processes, members foster a sense of ownership and participation. At MozDevz, this was enabled through collective decision-making. Although there are roles assigned to the administrative staff, there is no established hierarchy. This allows a greater flexibility and inclusion of member’s opinions in the decision-making process. An example is the decision of what not to include in one of the member forums on social media. Members ask whether certain topics are suitable to be shared and others reply. There is no single authority who makes a decision, relegating all remaining members to lesser roles. Consensus is clearly achieved through open-dialogue and active participation of community members in the decision-making process.

3.3 Community Reach

The MozDevz community benefits from the usage of social media platforms to reach their target audience. Members actively use the forums on social networks Facebook and WhatsApp to engage with each other, exchanging links to tutorials, news articles and most noticeably asking questions and providing answers. Questions range from broad discussions regarding trends in the programming field to troubleshooting and suggestions for tools and services to use. Members also disseminate information regarding job opportunities, both long and short term.

Another avenue explored by the community is its Ambassadors program. Students who are members of the community can serve as the community representatives in their respective educational institutions, relaying information and providing a point of contact and physical presence of the community in the campus.

3.4 Partnerships as a Cornerstone for Progress

The establishment of the community was a result of a collective effort and well-supported intentions. However, growth and alignment of the community with the interests of prospective members and demands of the job market were out of the reach of the administrative staff. To achieve this goal, the coalition established strategic partnerships with public and private sector institutions, securing event venues and resources to conduct their events. This partnerships also provide an opportunity of members to reach prospective employers and vice-versa, which benefits and interests both.

4 Opportunities for Participation: Mozambique National ICT Policies and Digital Inclusion Goals

Approved in December 2000, Mozambique’s ICT policy prioritizes, amongst other objectives, the ambition of making the country a producer and not merely a consumer of ICTs, listing Education, human resource development, health, universal access, national ICT infrastructure and governance as the priority areas (Isaacs 2007; Muianga et al. 2013) (Table 1).

Table 1. Some of Mozambique’s education and ICT indicators
Full size table

ICT initiatives deployed in the Education sector so far were mainly geared towards providing access to the internet and delivering computer skills to students, teachers, and school administrative personnel.

A project denominated SchoolNet (FMFI 2007) was launched in 2002 to introduce computer literacy into secondary schools, to enhance learning and teaching. By July 2006, the project facilitated the establishment of Computer Labs in 75 schools, with 25 estimated to be connected to the internet. eSchools Mozambique (Farrell et al. 2007), is an initiative funded by the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD), implemented from 2006 on 6 Secondary schools, in cooperation with Hewlett Packard (HP) and Microsoft. In this project, each school was fitted with a lab comprising approximately 20 Personal Computers (PCs), a Server, a Printer and a Media Lab. In addition to the resources, teachers received training and learners were provided hands-on experience with the PCs. Another initiative launched in 2006 is the Mozambique Research and Education Network (MoReNeT) which links 25 education and research institutions in an attempt to improve the speed and quality of internet access between such institutions. The list of implemented initiatives aligned with the country’s ICT Policy and Education sector objectives extends further but a common ground is the provision of computers and peripherals, access to the internet and capacity building.

However, although praised for the development that took place since its inception, the policy has been deemed outdated, no longer meeting the reality of needs and current development in the country as well as in the state of technology (Gaster et al. 2009). Gaster et al. (2009) also suggest the need to involve citizens in the discussion of ICT policies and strategies that will affect their lives.

5 Conclusion

The community of Mozambican software developers is a promising collective with a growth being catalysed by strategic partnerships and an ability to adapt to the medium, interests and resources available to existing and prospective members. Through the implementation of training programs and job-placement initiatives, MozDevz in effect contributes to achieving the goals set by the Mozambique’s government national ICT policy by providing capacity building and opportunities for integration of its members in the job market.

We identified negotiation, community reach and strategic partnerships as the foundational and defining characteristics that drive the success of MozDevz as a software development community in Mozambique. With a growing user-base and increasingly positive reputation amongst public and private sector institutions, we project that MozDevz will continue playing a key role in complementing the government efforts in the ICT sector due to its ability to deliver learning in environments and through processes out of the reach of public policies.

A limitation of this study comprised of its duration and the number of training sessions attended. A larger time period of observation will allow a richer description of the community and its members, detailing their interests, motivations and perceptions of both members and outsiders of its effectiveness.