The Children's Scrappy News Service

The Children's Scrappy News Service is a makeshift news service run by kids for kids solving the world's biggest problems as kids see them with design-thinking & scrappy skills. Scrappy TV is primetime TV, digital, APP & an on-the-ground schools project powered by junk & once-loved things.

The world is a mess, kids are growing up in the middle of it. The poorest kids have answers to the biggest problems we face. We just have to ask. The Children’s Scrappy News Service TV, online, schools, solves for the fact that kids aren’t learning the 21st Century-problem-solving skills they need at school to change their lives or the world around them, kids from low-income groups are offline = TV reaches everyone (especially parents), kids have answers to the problems we face offline, online, on the ground, we all just need to be be scrappy.

300,000 kids in Grade 9, high schools in Bihar, India showed in an evaluation that kids learn creative-problem solving skills in one academic year. Scrappy TV pilot tested by a market research agency with 1,000 kids/parents was given 1,000 enthusiastic thumbs up, voted as being better than the prime time family comedy show on a major TV channel, & our scrappy school newsrooms showed that 2,000 kids met and valued sustainable entrepreneurs, found solutions to problems they wanted to solve and local stars, such as the Mayor, even came out to see scrappy news in action.

Beginning with Grade 8, 9 moving/adapting with them until they complete Grade 12 and choose to get a job, become an entrepreneur/start a sustainable enterprise and/or go to university. Deployed at school through content: graphic novels about entrepreneurs, scrapbooks made of recycled things, board games to learn skills, skills-challenges that completed off-line in their communities, with an online scrappy challenge portal to submit/upload projects, designing solutions to solve local problems, all while learning how to code. Their own scrappy news service invites entrepreneurs and communities to school to be on their new-talk show.

Number of projects uploaded on portal, quality of skills projects to assess kids skills acquisition - 10,000 kids in Grade 8 and 9 will learn skills at school

Number of b-plans completed, quality of plans, number funded to action at school - 10,000 kids in Grade 8 and 9 will pitch new design-thinking ideas to solve problems

Number of completed skills shows uploaded, number of problems solved, number of skills challenges completed - 10,000 kids in Grade 8 and 9 run their own local children's scrappy news services

Scrappy works offline, online, enabling kids from low-income groups to make something out of nothing, to invent, problem-solve, design-think, create solutions that are not pre-determined by online formats. Scrappy then gets kids online to complete their challenge, learn how to code and open more digital resources, run their own news program. The offline-online component is made in/for emerging markets where kids who lack resources, share, work in teams, enabling them to be resourceful and not lose their resourcefulness as they move online to learn, building with local cultures and designing solutions for communities. 

Scrappy is made by kids for kids, it’s designed with kids to enable them to learn through a series of offline challenges (and steps) to make something new to solve a problem, to design and test it with their peers and communities, to remake the solution based on feedback, to finally export, upload on the digital platform, where more back and forth through the human centred design process ensures kids self-teach/explore 21st Century skills and values such as fair play, empathy, always testing with their communities to rework and finally design and action a solution.

Deployed at school through printed graphic novels, stories, games, action projects, and online monitoring, skills resource platform. For kids not in school, there’s an APP with weekly skills challenges, resources, movies. For schools with technology, there’s a digital channel with challenges run across platforms i.e. ’design/action a solution for climate change’. On national TV everyone can watch the weekly skills, enterprises and participate in weekly scrappy skills challenges, campaigns i.e. #noplacetoplay. Cost: online free [kids complete scrappy challenges to apply]. Offline print-materials, games, important for creativity, communities that are offline, provided through grants to schools.

Scrappy TV rights will be sold to new countries earning a revenue stream that will be used to make more Scrappy TV formats for new territories. Digital rights will be sold to other partners such as Amazon Prime, Netflix. Schools that can pay to play on Scrappy’s Portal will do so. Venture investors a mix of for-profit and impact capital will enable the global scrappy news service, brand, platform to scale to new markets. 

To think that only digital technology should be used to deliver, scale & therefore discount this offline/online school solution. In emerging markets we know the value of working offline with kids with all of the pieces they need to make something out of nothing: it enables undefined problem-solving creativity. Online formats restrict/define for user simplicity, what’s often left out is the ability for kids to remake, repurpose these platforms so they can become more human, flexible, true to life with the ebbs and flows of conflict and resolution, and be remade by human-centered design.

https://www.facebook.com/Going-to-School-182762388418417/?ref=bookmarks

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL1ue9VzrTsihQXw0X4UouHKPFDOqchqyq

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.goingtoschool.mats

We'd love to see what other countries/emerging markets think of our offline/online scrappy skills design delivery for kids from low-income groups. Does the format, approach work in other emerging markets, or have to be adapted and changed. What can be adapted, what needs to be changed? For other first-world countries, does the scrappiness, inventiveness, resourcefulness of kids in emerging markets have a voice, way, to remake assumed 'universal' digital learning platforms? How do we create open learning platforms that do not assume culture, language or understanding and are remade by all to be diverse, and yet understood?

Gida, The IKEA Foundation, Government of Bihar, Oracle, MacArthur Foundation, Colors, HCL foundation.

Sesame Street, Khan Academy