Khalmax Robotics Project

Education is the cornerstone of sustainable development as there are currently 1.8 billion people aged 10-24 globally.
Yet over half of this population (900 million+) do not have the skills necessary for the emerging global workforce. 

Studies reveal only 7% of graduates globally and less than 2% of students below 18 years have the adequate STEM skills needed in today's job market.

Our solution boosts STEM education by training students from 8 to 25 years to create and build problem solving robots using electronic waste and other non degradable materials.

This is achieved by establishing robotics clubs within schools and communities through which students can enrol to receive STEM training. 

This initiative also seeks to create employment for hundreds of university graduates who will work with us as robotics instructors, facilitators and engineers; and in-turn train the younger generation of students in the high schools and basic level.

Education is the cornerstone of sustainable development as there are currently 1.8 billion(900 million+) people aged 10-24 globally. Yet over half of this population do not have the skills necessary for the emerging global workforce. 

A 2016 report from International Commission for Financing Global Education indicates education in Africa trails the western world by 70 years. Further studies reveal education in Africa, especially STEM education has been limited to only cramming formulas and passing exams. Very little of classroom lessons is applied in solving real life problems, and as a result you have a generation of graduates unable to fit into the job market after school.

Indiatimes reveal only 7% of graduates globally and less than 2% of students below 18 years have adequate STEM skills required in this digital age.

The UN's (SDGs) clearly recognise that this gap must be closed as STEM skills such as coding and engineering are the forefront of today's workforce. 

Our target population consist of:

• Students (8 to 25 years)
• Parents
• Schools

According to the Ghana Statistical service there are over 14 million people in Ghana from 8 to 25 years. The Ghana Education service reveals there are over 60,000 schools in Ghana alone.

It has become necessary for parents, schools and the governmental organisations to rethink our educational system and prepare students from the basic level to the university by equipping them with right STEM skills to fit into today's job market.

Schools serve as the hub for students. By partnering with schools we easily gain access to millions of students across the continent who can enrol in our robotics club as an extra curricular program.

The Khalmax Robotics projects seeks to solve our education's STEM deficit by equipping students with engineering, coding and technical skills to solve Africa's major socio-economic problems. 

The Khalmax Robotics project solves the STEM education deficit by training students from 8 to 25 years to create and build problem solving robots using electronic waste.

It is implemented in two ways:

• We partner with schools in establishing robotics clubs known as the Khalmax Robotics Club through which interested students enrol as an extra curricular course and undertake training in coding engineering and AI. Currently, majority of our students enrol directly from our robotics clubs in their schools.

• The RoboApp is a mobile application that enables parents register and enrol their wards unto our robotics program seamlessly and digitally. By employing google maps technology, the RoboApp identifies at least 15 to 20 students living within a specific radius and automatically creates robotics clubs for those students living close to proximity.  

The Roboapp will be a solution for interested students unable to enrol from schools that are not covered under our robotics program. It seeks to decentralise the robotics clubs to students at the comfort of their communities and homes.

Through the Roboapp, parents can easily make fee payments online, monitor their ward's performance, track attendance and stream classes seamlessly.

The RoboApp
Many interested parents from schools not covered in our robotics program are unable to enrol their wards due to time constraints and distance from their homes to our training centres. 
This problem in the past years has affected our numbers and the scalability of our innovation.

Our RoboApp will provide a solution for interested students unable to join our robotics program from the school level by extending our robotics clubs directly to their homes and communities. 

By employing google maps technology, the RoboApp identifies at least 15-20 students living within a specific radius and automatically creates new robotics clubs within their proximity. It seeks to decentralise our robotics clubs to students at the comfort of their communities and homes.

The RoboApp will be key in the scalability of our robotics program as it would enable thousands of students enrol and register remotely from different locations.    

Through the Roboapp, parents can easily make fee payments, monitor their ward's performance, track attendance and stream classes seamlessly.

 Building robots from electronic waste.

Our innovation has a policy that atleast 40% the weight of robots built by students are made from electronic waste and non degradable materials. Our goal is to train students to re-engineer and recycle discarded and electronic devices such as spoilt toy cars, pvc pipes, printer parts etc into useful robots capable of solving daily societal problems.

My innovation targets the root cause of education in Africa, i.e lack of adequate STEM education. 

It has been reported the US alone will require over 1.6 million STEM skilled employees to its work force in the next 5 years (Business Roundtable & Change the Equation, 2014).

It has become necessary for parents, schools and colleges to rethink our educational system and prepare students from the basic level to the university by equipping them with right STEM skills to fit into today's job market.

The Khalmax Robotics projects seeks to tackle the root cause of Africa's educational STEM deficit by training students with engineering, coding and technical skills to solve Africa's major socio-economic problems. 

Students are made to appreciate team work by working in groups through our robotics clubs and trained to create robots from e-waste.

1) Currently we have close to 120 students enrolled in our robotics program across 5 schools.

2) As parts of our scale up plans, our goal by December 2020 is to scale the robotics program to 1000 students across 10 centres using our RoboApp platform.

3) By December 2025, We intend to expand to 50,000 students across Africa and the world using our RoboApp platform.

1) By Decemeber 2020, our goal is to complete and launch our RoboApp mobile application platform to enable millions of students globally enrol and register on our platform.

2) As parts of our scale up plans, our goal by December 2020 is to scale the robotics program to 1000 students across 10 centres using our RoboApp platform.

3) By December 2025, We intend to expand our initiative to 50,000 students across Africa and the world at large using our RoboApp platform. 

We also intend to create over 2000 direct and indirect jobs by employing college graduates who will work with us as robotics instructors, engineers and facilitators and in turn train the younger generation of students.

1) Inadequate governmental policies in incorporating STEM education in its teaching curriculum.

2) Lack of acceptance of STEM initiatives and programs by schools and universities.

3) Lack of access to funding and support by startups in sub-Saharan Africa.

RoboApp

The Roboapp will be a solution for interested students unable to enrol from schools that are not covered under our robotics program. It seeks to decentralise the robotics clubs to students at the comfort of their communities and homes so students will not be restricted from the school level.

Robotics Competitions

One key step in overcoming these barriers is to raise awareness of the benefits of STEM education through inter-school robotics competitions, as they are an effective means of promoting healthy rivalry amongst schools and students.

 In 2018 and 2019 we organized our maiden robotics competition event dubbed RoboCompetition amongst schools who run our robotics program.

This event saw over 600 students, parents and schools participate as the students displayed robots they had created from our program such as seed planting robots, fire extinguishing robots and rubbish collecting robots.

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We are a team of 4 consisting of three full time members and one part time member.

My team consist of the following skill set:
1. Bsc Physics(Electronics)
2. Bsc. Computer Engineering
3. Bsc. Information technology
4. Bsc. Computer Engineering

• As the team leader with over 8 years experience in software development and over 4 years experience in building robots as well as training kids in robotics I believe my wealth of experience has been relevant to the success of this startup.

•  In the early days of my startup my resilience despite the challenges in starting a company and my ability to perform multiple roles in my startup has been critical to the growth and survival of my business.

Our technical and engineering abilities as well as our experiences over the last three years puts us in pole position to scale this startup with the right resources and exposure. Running a startup in Africa is not easy and therefore the qualities we posses such as vision, perseverance and passion would be critical to the success of the started.

We primarily partner with schools and other student organizations as these organisations serve as a hub to reach millions of students.

In the past we have worked with over ten schools and trained over 500 student's on both full time and part time basis.

Parents make a monthly payment of $25- $30 for their wards as training fees in our robotics program. This means with a student population of 10,000 we can generate up to $300,000 monthly and $3,600,000 annually in training fees alone.

We also generate revenue from the sale of teaching aids known as educational robots and micro controllers.

Our startup have been bootstrapped from day one. We generate revenue from training fees paid by parents for their wards and the sale of educational robots as teaching aids. Through this model we have generated over $40,000 in the last 3.5 years.

Parents make a monthly payment of $25- $30 for their wards as training fees in our robotics program. This means with a student population of 10,000 we can generate up to $300,000 monthly and $3,600,000 annually in training fees alone.

I believe partnering with ServiceNow will be important in our scalability across the world. Through this program, I would be able to receive mentorship and business development training especially from their experience in the technology and employment sector which will be critical to our expansion.

At the moment 100% of my team are engineers and though this is helpful we lack some amount of business development skills. We look forward to developing our business model and financial and employment skills through this program.

Currently our RoboApp is still in development phase. Access to the grants will go a long way to finance its development.

ServiceNow

UNICEF

Apple

MIT

Microsoft