DigiKidz
- Pre-Seed
DigiKidz is an ICT project designed to implement a sustainable model of Digital Literacy for underprivileged high school students. Core to its mission is creating immersive and inclusive experiences that inspire lifelong learning, stimulating development of essential life skills, and supporting student passions for digital technologies to reduce inequalities.
Republic of Moldova, in terms of technological readiness, was assessed with 4.4 points out of 7 possible (place 53 of 140). RM faces with increasing ICT skills gap and with a low level of digital literacy.
These drawbacks are caused by the inefficient proper training and even the removing of many citizens from ICT based society and economy. These facts are most seen in educational institutions form the rural areas of the country.
The rate of an inclusive and quality education is limited because of the poor usage of digital tools in the rural high schools which causes inequalities.
We propose to create a learning environment by opening summer camps of Computer Science. DigiKidz was founded on the principle that people can do remarkable things when technology and education is within reach.
It focuses on students who come from underprivileged families or orphanages in the Republic of Moldova. The purpose of this project is to develop a network of digital ambassadors that will become our local agents of change in their communities.
DigiKidz offers students the opportunity to have direct mentorship from professional trainers, hands on new digital technologies, e-learning programs, and scholarships for higher education.
We are targeting to train 320 students from other 11 local high schools in the other regions of the country that later will ensure our project sustainability and promote digital literacy.
We are looking to increase digitally literacy rates in those institutions by 67 % in the next 2 years. Create partnerships with 3 more IT companies to increase employment chances for our graduates or internship opportunities.
Establish a friendly cooperation with 5 local or foreign universities to foster a perfect transition and guidance for our graduates to continue their education in higher institutions in IT field by providing scholarships.
Track students attendance and progress till the graduation date - Get 320 students certified as Digital Ambassadors
Run initial and final tests to compare results in order to analyze the outcome and progress - Increase digital literacy rates by 67 % in the rural educational institutions
Identify and propose drafts for partnership for interested parties to assure our project sustainability - Partner with 3 IT companies and 5 Universities
- Adolescent
- Lower middle income economies (between $1006 and $3975 GNI)
- Secondary
- Non-binary
- Rural
- Europe and Central Asia
- Consumer-facing software (mobile applications, cloud services)
- Digital systems (machine learning, control systems, big data)
- Robotics
DigiKidz is a unique solution because it was found on the principle that people can do remarkable things - reducing poverty and inequalities - when technology is within reach.
Its innovation consists in the ability to create immersive and inclusive experiences that inspire lifelong learning and development of essential life skills – entrepreneurship, collaboration, critical thinking, creativity, character, citizenship, leadership, community inclusion, and computational thinking – and supporting student passions for digital technologies.
It is based on a new digital curriculum related to the world's labor demand to help students acquire the skills they need to thrive in the 21st century.
DigiKidz is not only human centered but also community centered. Students are members of their communities - their educational and personal success and well-being is intricately tied to the place they call home.
DigiKidz programs are taking this into account by designing a curricula which builds upon the existing educational system and activates teachers to upgrade to digital leaning environments together with their students to develop skills.
As DigiKidz increases student´s motivations and skills to continue their education outside of their local school, it´s designed to empower alumni to be ambassadors for the next generation, sharing their knowledge and leadership.
In order to make our solution available for our target communities, we will open Computer Science Labs in local high schools to create learning environments to meet the needs of covering more areas based on the partnerships with local educational institutions.
It will be deployed during a period of 3 months in the local high schools free of charge in the summer time with an extension during the schooling year.
Our local digital ambassadors will be the ones responsible for increasing students' exposure and passion for digital technologies with the target on those that are the most in need.
- 6-8 (Demonstration)
- Not Registered as Any Organization
- Moldova
We believe that we can make our project sustainable by creating local partnerships with high schools, private donors, other IT organisations that are willing to contribute financially or in pro bono services.
Periodically, we run fundraising campaigns and participate in social venture challenges to rise capital or to rise awareness about the existing initiative among other local ongoing projects.
For the next 2 years, we are looking to develop a model of self funding by negotiating with the local high schools authorities to dedicate a percentage from its annual budget to directly fund students that participate in the program.
Also, we are willing to create a network from our alumni that will open a fund to make small contributions.
We consider that there might be some logistics factors that can delay the implementation of the solution.
We might have challenges in this cases:
- upgrading the CS laboratories
- securing enough technological resources to meet the demands
- creating partnerships to cover targeted areas
- providing all beneficiaries with fairs scholarships
- updating existing models in high schools by strengthening communities
There could be other minor obstacles: supplies not delivered on time, volunteers availability for the period, local school activities or laboratories renting during the implementation, any other mechanical issues, however necessary steps will be taken by the board to meet the outcomes.
- 2 years
- We have already developed a pilot.
- We have already scaled beyond pilot.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=76ng1AruBHc
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/quality-education-the-clash-of-educational-system_us_582e8192e4b0eaa5f14d42ed
https://www.facebook.com/loveiskindcharity/videos/1763420313901603/
- Future of Work
- 21st Century Skills
- Lifelong Learning
- Literacy
- STEM Education
We believe that in order to solve the world’s most pressing challenges we have to start local and think global by bringing open innovation and partnerships to local communities. That is where our DigiKidz vision links with Solve community.
We are looking to create more partnerships in order to bring a global view on scaling our solution at the local level. We are willing to fusion our local resources and researches with global innovators and the market places Solve community has developed to ensure equal access and inclusion of all young people to quality education and skills development.
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