Addis Coder

What Addis Coder does

AddisCoder is a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt nonprofit organization (AddisCoder, Inc., US-incorporated with Federal EIN 83-2581871) that operates a free, intensive 4-week residential summer program in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Founded in 2011 by Prof. Jelani Nelson of UC Berkeley alongside co-organizer Naol Duga, the program teaches Ethiopian high school students in grades 9-11 Python programming and university-level algorithmic concepts including order of growth, recurrences, induction, memoization, greedy algorithms, graph algorithms, sorting, and numerical methods. Course delivery uses Python with Jupyter notebooks, supplemented by custom teaching tools such as the 2023 SimpleImage module authored by Alexander Krentsel; the syllabus has been refined and publicly published across seven iterations (2011, 2016, 2018, 2019, 2023, 2024, 2025). Class meets 8-8.5 hours per day with roughly two hours of lecture and the remainder devoted to hands-on lab work; all costs (housing, meals, transportation, registration) are 100% covered for participants.

The business model is donation- and sponsorship-funded rather than revenue-generating: AddisCoder is fully supported by individual donors, crowdfunding (GoFundMe), and institutional partners including the Ethiopian Ministry of Education, the Meles Zenawi Foundation, MIT MISTI-Africa, the D. E. Shaw Group, UC Berkeley College of Engineering, Harvard Office of Career Services, Ethiopian Airlines, and the Royal Ethiopian Trust. Recruitment is community-led, relying on an online application portal, organic social media (Twitter, Instagram, Facebook), word-of-mouth, and government partnerships to reach students across all Ethiopian regions. The alumni base exceeds 800 students, with graduates placed at MIT, Harvard, Princeton, Columbia, Stanford, Cornell, and Seoul National University, and working at Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Netflix, and ARM; alumni frequently return as teaching assistants and have organically spawned offshoot programs such as AddisCoder Beta in Bahir Dar.

Name

Addis Coder

Legal name

AddisCoder Inc.

Website

https://addiscoder.com

Company type

Private

Founded year

2011

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

1–10 employees

Short description

AddisCoder is a US-incorporated 501(c)(3) nonprofit that runs a free 4-week residential summer program in Addis Ababa teaching Ethiopian high school students Python programming and university-level algorithms, supported by donations and partnerships.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Computer Science Education

NAICS

Educational Services (611), Computer Training (61142)

SIC

Services-Educational Services (8200)

akta.pro primary industry

Text-Based Programming (Python, Java, C/C++) (EDAMACAB)

Keywords

• Computer science education
• Summer programming program
• Algorithms training
• High school STEM education
• Coding bootcamp

Headquarters

HQ city

Addis Ababa

HQ country

Ethiopia

HQ region

Africa

Offices2 records

Markets served

GTM type

B2C

Offering type

Services

Cost components

Personnel, Operations, Marketing or Sales, Technology or R&D, Infrastructure

Revenue model

1. Donations and Sponsorships: As a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt nonprofit organization (Federal EIN: 83-2581871), AddisCoder is funded entirely through donations, sponsorships, and partnerships. The program provides free education, housing, meals, transportation, and registration to all participants.

Pricing tiers

Go-to-market motion1 record

Distribution channels1 record

Marketing channels6 records

Core offering

AddisCoder runs a free, intensive 4-week residential summer program in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia that teaches Ethiopian high school students (grades 9-11) Python programming and computer science algorithms. The curriculum covers university-level topics including order of growth, recurrences, induction, memoization, greedy algorithms, graph algorithms, sorting, and numerical algorithms, delivered through daily lectures and hands-on lab exercises.

Product overview

Addis Coder operates a single unified educational program - the AddisCoder Summer Program - which is a free 4-week intensive residential course in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia for Ethiopian high school students. The program teaches Python programming and computer science algorithms. Course materials and syllabi for various years (2011, 2016, 2018, 2019, 2023, 2024, 2025) are publicly available through the website. There are no separate software products, modules, or add-on offerings.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Products and services

• AddisCoder Summer Program A free, intensive 4-week residential summer program in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia that teaches Ethiopian high school students (grades 9-11) Python programming and advanced computer science algorithms. The course covers topics including order of growth, recurrences, induction, memoization, greedy algorithms, graph algorithms, sorting, and numerical algorithms, with 8-8.5 hours per day including 2 hours of lecture and the rest devoted to hands-on lab exercises. All housing, meals, transportation, and registration are provided free of charge.

Quantifiable outcome

• Over 800 students have completed the program and gone on to attend elite international universities
• +1 more outcomes

Segments1 record

Ideal customer profiles1 record

Technology focussed No

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Feature2 records

Partnerships

Seven partnerships are on record, tiered core and minor.

• Meles Zenawi Foundation (MZF)coreStrategic or Co-development Partner · 1 January 2016MZF collaborates with AddisCoder to handle all logistics including funding travel for teaching staff and high school students, securing room and board, and working with the Ministry of Education for student selection. MZF has also created spinoff programs for younger high schoolers.
• Ethiopian Ministry of EducationcoreStrategic or Co-development Partner · 1 January 2011The Ethiopian Ministry of Education collaborates with AddisCoder Inc. to select top public school students from all regions of Ethiopia to participate in the program. The ministry provides institutional support and helps ensure program legitimacy and reach.
• Addis Ababa Institute of Technology (AAiT)coreStrategic or Co-development PartnerAAiT campus of Addis Ababa University has been the primary venue for AddisCoder programs. The Electrical Engineering department provides facilities under the deanship of Dr.-Ing. Getahun Mekuria.
• Addis Ababa Science and Technology University (AASTU)coreStrategic or Co-development PartnerAASTU served as the venue for the 2018 program and graduation ceremony. Provides campus facilities for the intensive summer program.
• Afro FMminorGTM or Marketing PartnerProvided free advertising for the 2011 AddisCoder course to spread awareness.
• Sheger FMminorGTM or Marketing PartnerProvided free advertising for the 2011 AddisCoder course to spread awareness.
• Institute for International Education (Yodit Beyene)minorGTM or Marketing PartnerYodit Beyene at IIE helped with free advertising for the first AddisCoder program.

Scale indicators5 records

Recent moves5 records

Expansion highlights4 records

Direct peers

• ALX Africa: ALX Africa runs tuition-free or low-cost software engineering and tech training programs targeted at African youth, including learners with limited prior coding experience. Like AddisCoder, it focuses on producing job-ready African tech talent through structured curricula and career outcomes, though it operates at significantly larger scale and across multiple countries.
• Moringa School: Moringa School is an Africa-based coding bootcamp offering full-stack and software engineering training to youth across the continent, with career services and partnerships with employers. It is comparable to AddisCoder in its mission to skill African students in programming, though it is a for-profit, year-round, fee-based model rather than a free nonprofit summer program.
• Re:Coded: Re:Coded (formerly Iraq Alchemy) trains conflict-affected and underserved youth in the Middle East and Africa in software engineering. Its mission to use coding education as a development lever, free or subsidized model, and pipeline into tech employment align closely with AddisCoder's approach.
• African Leadership University (ALU): ALU is a higher-education institution focused on training African youth for leadership and technology careers. While it is a degree-granting institution rather than a summer program, its mission to develop African tech talent and its use of African partnerships make it a peer in the African talent-development ecosystem.
• CodeYourFuture: CodeYourFuture is a nonprofit that provides free, structured software engineering training to refugees and disadvantaged learners, similar in mission and free-cost model to AddisCoder. Both rely on volunteer instructors and donations to deliver programming curricula to underserved populations.

Broad incumbents

• Code.org: Code.org is a large nonprofit that works to expand access to computer science in schools globally, including in Africa. Its mission to broaden CS access aligns with AddisCoder's, though its delivery model (K-12 curriculum integration, online) is materially different from a residential summer program.
• freeCodeCamp: freeCodeCamp is a free, donor-supported online platform that teaches full-stack web development and computer science fundamentals. It shares AddisCoder's free-to-learner, nonprofit approach to coding education but differs in being self-paced and fully online rather than residential and instructor-led.
• Andela: Andela trains and places African software engineers into global tech roles. Although its business model is a talent marketplace rather than education, its role in skill development and African tech talent sourcing overlaps with the outcome AddisCoder drives (placing Ethiopian students into Google, Microsoft, etc.).

Regional players

• HyperionDev: HyperionDev offers coding bootcamps with a significant presence in South Africa and other African markets, focused on producing job-ready developers. It overlaps with AddisCoder's target of African learners but operates as a paid bootcamp with employer-placement guarantees rather than a free summer nonprofit.
• BAOBAB Computing Program: BAOBAB is a Pan-African university-level computer science training initiative run across partner African universities, focused on producing world-class African CS researchers and practitioners. It is comparable to AddisCoder in the quality-over-quantity African CS talent development mission, though it operates at the university rather than high school level.

Market position

Strengths5 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat4 records

Key risks6 records

Key highlights7 records

Customer concentration

• Xx.com/AddisCoder
• Facebookfacebook.com/addiscoder
• Instagraminstagram.com/addiscoder
• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/addiscoder

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles2 records

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about Addis Coder