Tustawi, build skills for the future of work

Kenya is the fourth largest African economy, but has a 27% unemployment rate and thousands f graduates annually that are ranked as underskilled for the qualifications that they have. A lack of adequate skill is the single largest cause of unemployment and unemployment in Kenya, and by extension Africa, leading to decreased productivity and an inefficient workforce.

Globally competitive skills and lifelong learning are key in achieving productive employment and inclusive growth. Tustawi is transforming learning through customisable mLearning and blended learning solutions that make learning more affordable, accessible, engaging underpinned with market relevant content.

Stark evidence of the lack of inclusivity in Kenya’s growth is evidenced by the millions of unemployed, underemployed, or with employment that does not provide them with a sustainable productive income. Hardest hit have been the youth, women, and those in rural communities. Of the 800,000 jobs created in 2017, only 200,000 were from the formal sector; majority being from the informal “jua kali” sector where income is quite low.

The Word Economic Forum reports 30% of Kenya’s workforce is underskilled, which has contributed to the underemployment and decreased productivity. The situation is stated to be much worse in neighbouring countries, with Tanzania have 40% of unskilled workforce. Lack of resources and adequate incentives have left employers struggling to train their workers to required levels. This has left millions of Kenyans, and Africans, from being able to compete with globally competitive skills standards to access jobs of today, and tomorrow.

In Kenya, little innovation has come about in higher learning, which remains based in traditional classroom training. Those who are able, source materials from Western markets which are not customisable nor are the content relevant for the market. Many struggle to adapt the learning to market reality.  

We seek to input innovation and redesign the methodology and delivery for higher learning; and to transform learning in Kenya to be about consistent and continuous improvement or acquiring of skillsets that will enable the workforce to perform in the most productive and effective manner.

We have built two work streams. The first stream is targeting growing businesses. We first understand their training needs then build bespoke mlearning platforms for internal use or for customers. The content is designed together with a subject matter expert to create case studies that are market relevant and applicable for the level of learner.

The second stream is internally built content, that is sector specific, addressing skill challenges identified. These are both technical skills and soft skills with numerous case studies that take into account the nuance of the Kenyan market, job and entrepreneurial reality.

Our content is designed using microlearning, small and target bursts of content are provided; where combined, meet the learning objectives of the course. In this way, we are able to meet the skills and knowledge gaps while saving time. We also encourage past learners to revisit particular modules and reengage with concepts they have not fully mastered.

Our most important service is in content creation. As mentioned above, content consumed locally has mainly been from Western markets and little of it applicable in the market. Tustawi starts by engaging with either HR managers or local subject matter leaders and charts the career path for the role. Technical and soft skills required are mapped and courses designed ensure learning objectives and needs are met. The content is enhanced with localised case studies that we ensure are market and sector relevant. All content and case studies are adaptable to meet various levels of learners. We encourage learners to “consume” the content is bits, to refresh and reengage with a topic that they may have already seen but have not yet quite mastered. Further

We are cognisant that blended learning is the most effective way to ensure the lessons are fully understood and able to be embedded. In that regard, we offer blended learning where required. We encourage the technical aspects to be consumed through the microlearning and for the classroom to encourage questions and peer2peer learning and sharing. This has been quite effective for lower level learners, women, and those who are not familiar with digitised learning methodology.

The elearning platforms available locally are off-the-shelf solutions from Western markets where content or the platform needs are not customisable. This has presented as a significant opportunity for us because institutions and learners differ greatly based on exposure, accessibility - based on internet and smartphone access, etc. Our solution is customisable, available on all mobile platforms, can incorporate SMS based learning, is available offline and in low bandwidth areas. Using open source software, we have built a custom online platform which includes both a Learning Management System and learner engagement data and analytics module.

Kenya has been lucky in Africa to have become the trial ground for numerous innovative tech solutions. Education has not been left behind. However, many of the solutions have targeted primary to secondary school students, leaving higher learning to remain largely underserved. From the digital age of the 80s, edtech has been propelled to include adaptive and personalised with integrated tools available on multifunctional devices. Many of these solutions entered the Kenyan market in the past decade, with some making headway more than others. Higher learning remains unaffected by these solutions, and has a significant opportunity. Traditional classroom training is inadequate to meet the skills demand of hundreds of thousands in the workforce. Further to that, the growing gig economy has needs that are unable to be addressed by traditional methods.

Tustawi leverages various paths of learning, using adaptive tech to ensure that learners engaging and enjoy learning. We build content that is able to be quickly adapted or enhanced based on the learner levels. Further, we target learners that are at all spectrums, from fresh graduates to entrepreneurs growing their businesses to senior management. All our content is designed with already seasoned subject matter experts in various sectors; healthcare, finance, services industry, etc. We focus on charting the career objects and building skills objectives; e.g. how to build your business, from start-up to achieving sustainability. These various stages have varied requirements and objectives, and this is where we penetrate the market with effective learning tools and content.

Tustawi’s activities include building customised eLearning platforms and offering market relevant content designed by a subject matter expert. Our direct outputs include the delivery of the training either through only online or a combination creating a blended learning output. Blended learning offers flexibility, cost-effectiveness, efficiency, and addresses all learning styles. Whilst blended is the most preferred, not all our clients are able to afford this. Where applicable, we offer a trainer-of-trainer package where we train their internal staff to be able to offer the classroom and peer learning aspects.

Short-term outcomes have shown our user-centric design process has yielded very positive results. Tustawi conducted a pilot from August to November 2019 and using the KirkPatrick method, we collected feedback from users and their managers. Tustawi exceed the global completion average of 15% to 40%, with some institutions at 80% competition rates. 64% of our learners found the mobile app to achieve globally competitive standards, 89% stated the assessment were effective and HR managers were 100% likely to recommend us. Post-pilot, we retained 100% of the users and have almost doubled the users.

Long and Medium-term outcomes where learners will be surveyed includes measuring the employee retention, change in job satisfaction, employees promoted or responsibilities increased, improvement in job efficiency, reduction or training costs, changes in customer satisfaction both male and female, and overall NPS score.

Currently, we have 6 financial institutions with 125 registered users, 1 healthcare centre with 26 registered users, and 2 institutions where we have built a customised platform.

In one year, we anticipate having 11 financial institutions with 1500 registered users, 3 healthcare centres with 350 registered users and 5 institutions where we have built customised platforms and content.

In five years, we anticipate having 25 financial institutions with 32,000 registered users, 10 healthcare centres with 1,500 registered users and 25 institutions where we have built customised platforms and content.

The latter (customised platforms and content) is difficult to estimate give the wide reach it can have without our oversight.

Our short-term goals include: 1) transforming learning from a static process, to be viewed as a continuous, engaging process where individualised techniques can be leveraged to enhance the learning experience and make higher learning fun and enjoyable 2) target individuals in Northern Kenya and refugee areas and help them build skills that they can use to help them achieve a productive life 3) increase and enhance the platform that we have to offer gamification and more seamlessly integrate featurephone learners as well as find better ways of using blended learning that does not require an instructor to always be physically available 4) to target the healthcare sector more intentionally, for e.g. using the latest in learning platforms to show surgeons the new techniques in their field; incorporate peer discussions from across the continent, and across the globe; adapt the platform to show how a change in this technique directly affects their work and ways they can incorporate it into their theatre rooms

Our longer-term goals include: 1) to build content for Western and Eastern markets that teaches those learners about the varying economies across Africa, including the challenges and opportunities there are in this continent 2) to enhance learning with state of the art techniques such as VR learning and building a robust and interactive platform where it can be accessible from all devices

Market and cultural barriers are probably the largest contributor in our slow growth. Our activities in 2019 and thus far in 2020 have shown that the penetration in Kenya will take longer than anticipated. Interactions and feedback from clients, particularly the pilot, showed us that: there will be a slow rate of adaptation to include elearning and blended learning in a meaningful way to higher learning; many clients have cited issues of not having budget line items specifically for “online” learning, which indicates the lack of understanding of what elearning and microlearning mean; minute training budgets, unlike Western countries that set say “5% of total staff costs for training”; full benefits realisation takes time and many are quick to want to realise it immediately; online learning aversion by top management who believe in only the traditional learning methods; online training is most effective with the engagement of the HR managers and support from the institutions, and we have found this is not usually the case.

Financially most of our peers and funding partners who do activities in education are mainly focused on primary and secondary school education and there is little support for higher learners. We have struggled with cashflow and have recently needed to cut salaries in order to try and push ourselves a few for months. To enhance the platform to include gamification and other new and innovative eLearning tools, we’d need to significantly increase our funding.

One way we seek in tackling this barrier is engaging with higher education institutions. According to the WorldBank report Improving-Higher-Education-Performance-in-Kenya-A-Policy-Report, there is need to strengthen links between university education and employment market. The WorldBank recommends that universities invest in online course development experts. Tustawi has seen an opportunity to implement m-learning for onboarding of new entry level staff and capacity -building for final year students in the university. We have already begun engagement with 2 institutions and will leverage their expertise and knowledge to develop credibility and show impact of eLearning methodologies. Secondly, we have seen the immense potential in working with social impact organisations such as refugee camps and those who perform customer education campaigns. We believe there is a real need in targeting these two areas and showing the impact that eLearning can have as well as the immense savings that come from a more holistic blended learning.

We are also ramping up our blended learning and are working on expanding our service offering to include 1) only content design 2) digitizing the content and hosting it on our platform 3) providing microsite and whitelabel solutions. These diversified income streams have helped us generate revenue from local companies seeking to enhance their service offering, as well as international companies either seeking to come into the country or are already operating locally. 

Lastly, we are also translating our courses to Arabic and French to widen our customer base potential

There is already numerous solutions for edtech in the ServiceNow countries. The plan to enter these markets for Tustawi is to a) partner and collaborate with already existing companies to enhance learning through an exchange programme. This will be done directly on the platform b) is to enhance the learning through lessons shared across the different markets in a specific industry and added directly to the lesson specific lesson.

2 full-time staff, 2 contractors, 2 part-time staff, and 1 contracted organisation for the technical platform customisation.

Our team is comprised of two co-founders. The first has over 22 years of experience in the financial sector in emerging markets, rising to senior management roles. He has extensive experience in business development and in motivating and managing teams to deliver on objectives. 

The second co-founder is a project management and strategy design expert with over 11 years of experience in financial services and financial inclusion. She is an expert in designing and implementing projects using the Making Markets Work for the Poor approach, ensuring inclusive economic growth.

The Chief Learning Officer is a passionate professional experienced in education design learning and instructional design with prior experience in institutions such as Nova Pioneer, AMI and Spire where she spearheaded the learning initiatives. 

Our lead Finance content developer is an experienced analyst in corporate strategy, analytics, financial modelling, and market research. She is passionate about financial economics and translating numbers into reality. 

There are two instructional designers that are contracted with experience in designing storyboards and using various tools to animate the content developed.

Tustawi has partnered with Financial Sector Deepening Kenya. FSD Kenya is a donor funded organisation with an aim to improve livelihoods of Kenyans. FSD Kenya's work in improving the products and services available to growing enterprises in Kenya, found the organisation with a trove of information that they were struggling to disseminate to the wider market. Tustawi took on the information and with our lead content developer enhanced it with local case studies and split it into micro portions creating a 4 course SME lending expert course for the Kenyan market. 

Tustawi has also entered into an agreement with Africa Guarantee Fund to provide access to their Partner Lending Institutions in AGFs capacity building initiatives using Tustawi's internally built content.

Currently, our business model is B2B or B2I. As part of our strategy to shift the paradigm of higher learning from traditional methods, it is important that we engage directly with HR managers and institutional partners to get their buy-in and support. The business or institutions either a) subscribe x amount of users for our internally built content and are charged an annual fee per user and/or b) digitising of content that Tustawi has built for them or their own internally designed content and/or c) build an eLearning platform with Learner Management Systems. B2B also includes higher centres of education such as universities or TVETS to enhance their curriculum through an interactive platform. We have thus far engaged two universities to build an educational design course as well as curriculum for continuous learning for primary school teachers.

B2I clients are where we target marginalised communities; youth, women or rural communities. These learners have different needs than professionals who are employed and have different life realities. Most of them also have much lower skill levels and their learning needs differ. We use these clients to enhance our platform to offer SMS based learning, offline learning, as well as translation to include Kiswahili and colloquial language. We also leverage institutional partners as an “endorsement” to businesses in their networks. These partnerships are crucial for us as an early-stage business to boost credibility and push us towards the transformation of higher learning.

1) Diversification of the sector from focusing on financial sector services and targeting higher institutions of learning and healthcare 

2) Partnering with institutional partners such as Mastercard Foundation to design projects that target marginalised communities and learners, teaching skills that matter for the future of work

3) Raising commercial capital investment, either in convertible debt or equity 

4) Partnering with international institutions of higher learning to offer learning exchange programmes

The future of work is here, but unfortunately millions are left out of the picture. Skills required now, are likely to change, and change quickly, to prepare for tomorrow’s demands. The challenges Kenya grapples with are numerous and must leverage technology and innovation if they are to be tackled in a meaningful way. We must significantly accelerate the skills and capacity building process if we are to compete with the global workforce. A global PWC survey of more than 1,300 CEOs in 68 countries found that 96% of CEOs in Africa are concerned about the lack of skills in the workforce, despite the fact that half of the organisations surveyed aimed to hire again. “Emphasis must b e put on lifelong learning, as a key difference from traditional education and training systems, as skills required today may become obsolete for tomorrow’s jobs”, Moustapha Kamal Gueye, head of the International Labour Organisation.

We realise it will take us a lot longer to achieve our goals and push the envelope if we don’t get help. We are applying because we need help to 1) ensure our business model is sustainable while maintaining impact 2) access to expertise to enhance and communicate our value proposition as well as media and communication to assist us in our communications strategies and opportunities that will put us out there 3) experts in edtech innovation to assist in enhancing our platform to include gamification, online blended learning, data and analytics, predictive and adaptive learning, VR learning, etc.

1. HP - HP's Brain Candy has pushed higher learning to another level with a very interactive and engaging learning platform, peer2peer sharing models, engaging learners at all levels in the organisation. 

2. Pathgather - all about the future of learning and transforming learning to keep up with the demanding skills required for tomorrow's workforce. 

3. Big data companies that have managed to capitalize on analytics to create collaborative, adaptive and engaging learning experience

4. Gamification companies that have made serious lessons and assessments come alive by engaging the user and increasing engagement and collaboration. Gamification offers adaptive and enhanced personalized learning experience, increasing comprehension and adaptation.

5. MIT learning - to learn how to enhance and integrate various learning methodologies to ensure quality and consistent high quality in learning