Padayon, Girls!

Lack of access to formal schooling due to poverty need not be a barrier for girls and young women to succeed in this world. With the COVID-19 pandemic, the paradigm shift to remote learning is an opportune time to leverage on innovations to make education accessible for more people.

Padayon will combine open source technologies, advice of subject matter experts, and community support  to create engaging, relevant, and up-to-date teaching modules and videos that will be available for free online or via broadcasts. The solution will be based primarily on the needs, circumstances, and aspirations of marginalized girls and young women.

By making STEM and practical life skills knowledge freely available and readily accessible even in villages and rural areas, Padayon can enable girls to make well-informed decisions, encourage them to reach for better employment opportunities, and empower them to break free from the vicious cycle of systemic poverty.

In developing countries, access to quality education is lacking or limited because of poverty. According to the United Nations, extreme poverty impacts more than 700 million people in the world today. This causes children to miss out on the basic need of education that is crucial for success in life.

In worst case scenarios, children who should be attending school are instead forced by their own families into hard labor, abused, or even trafficked. Of those who do get into schools, a significant number drop out due to financial constraints.  Even those who graduate from public schools are still at a disadvantage, as educational resources are often sub-optimal. 

Girls are at greater risk from the negative effects of limited education. They become more susceptible to early marriage and unplanned pregnancies. Ill-equipped to raise their children, the cycle of poverty is thus unwittingly perpetuated.

The debilitating cycle can be broken, however, by providing girls and young women with high-quality educational materials through freely available and readily accessible means. This is where Padayon*, Girls! aims to come in as a game changer and a catalyst towards a brighter future for these girls.

*Padayon is a Visayan word meaning "moving on despite adversities". 

Padayon is envisioned as a multi-pronged approach for girls and young women to access quality learning. First, online learning management systems will be used to create easily configurable modules with videos on different subjects that cater to various learning groups (for example, middle school, senior high).

Second, education, sociology, and psychology experts will be consulted to ensure the materials are factual, socially relevant, up-to-date, and engaging. Topics such as sex education, mental health, protection against abuse, entrepreneurship, networking, and basic laws will be offered. Users can ask questions and share their experiences via forums.

Third, these learning modules will be hosted in the cloud and available for free online. To increase its appeal to young audiences, female celebrity role models will be asked to volunteer as topic facilitators or endorsers. Instructional videos will be posted on social media platforms such as Facebook and YouTube. Data on user views and interaction will be collated and analyzed statistically.

Fourth, the project team will liaise with local government units such as village leaders to ensure that girls and women in the community can access the learning materials. This is especially helpful in areas with low internet connectivity or where mobile devices are scarce.

The solution will primarily serve girls and women in predominantly poor communities such as rural areas in developing countries like the Philippines. Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, some of the project team members regularly visited such communities and discussed with school-age girls and young women their aspirations for formal schooling. Real-life experiences and feedback from these young women actually sparked the idea for Padayon, Girls!.

Padayon is thus geared to make it possible for them to freely access a veritable treasure trove of virtual training materials. These materials will cover not only the basic reading skills, but also STEM courses designed in conjunction with teachers and professors from reputable schools and universities. Life skills is another area with various topics on sexual health, budgeting, citizens' rights, entrepreneurship, social media, taxes, healthcare, and the like. These are envisaged to equip them with not only technical knowledge, but practical wisdom to deal with situations, opportunities, and challenges in real life. 

The technologies are currently existing. But the way these technologies will be harnessed --- to combine with and make best use of the collective wisdom of experts in educating people, plus the philanthropic support of the community in the local setting ---  is what makes this solution innovative.

The project will make use of best-in-class open source software, internet, and broadcast technologies. Also, expert advice of reputable consultants from the fields of education, sociology, and psychology will be solicited and incorporated into the modules. This will ensure that girls and young women receive factual, up-to-date, relevant, culturally sensitive, and high-quality information that will benefit them in their daily lives and future endeavors.

Additionally, endorsements and participation from exemplary female celebrities will increase its appeal to the target audience. The girls can learn much from the real-life experiences of these female role models, and be inspired to succeed like them, too. 

Last but not least, the project will also engage with local authorities and community leaders to ensure it gets adopted at the grassroots level and across the country. With these groups collaborating together to make Padayon, Girls! a reality, greater chances of success await the girls availing of this alternative method of learning.

Open source learning management systems hosted on cloud servers is the core technology in Padayon, Girls!. Videos, quizzes, courses and the like can be embedded into it.

Online learning systems have been used since the latter part of the last century. With the advent of internet and cloud services in recent years, these have become progressively ubiquitous.This is a testament to their increasing application and usefulness.

None served currently, as the project is yet to be launched. 

In the first year, it is estimated to serve at least 5 million girls and young women in the Philippines.

In five years, the project can be scaled to make it available online to at least 100 million.

The goals for the first year are:

1. To apply feedback from MIT Solve for improving the effectiveness and efficiency of the project;

2. To progressively increase the number of girls and young women using Padayon, Girls!;

3. To incorporate customer feedback into subsequent releases of the software for better user experience; 

4. To consolidate lessons learned after the first year of implementation;

5. To reach project milestones as follows:

• initial launch in Los Banos town;

• gradual extension to the rest of Laguna  province;

• expansion to the adjoining provinces of Cavite, Batangas, and Quezon in the same region;

• application to Metro Manila in the National Capital Region.

The goals for the next five years are:

1. To engage with more partners from the corporate sector to support this philanthropic initiative;

2. To enlist government support for this educational venture;

3. To replicate the success of the project across the Philippines;

4. To add configurations to cater for other countries in Southeast Asia;

5. To add configurations required for successful extension to countries in Africa.

Limited funding for hardware costs to support the required technology

• Limited brand exposure to promote the initiative

• Need to enlist additional female celebrity role models as endorsers

• Government backing is vital for expanding project across the country

• For funding, we plan to put up the project on crowdfunding platforms and actively solicit donations from other grant-giving organisations

• Once we have successfully launched the pilot in Los Banos town, we plan to leverage on that to increase promotions for the project and request volunteer appearances from female celebrities who are well-known in the country for their exemplary conduct, achievements and philanthropy

• With the additional funding and endorsements, we can then present our case before the appropriate government agencies for their crucial backing

• Of course, winning the Solve challenge will help in all the above aspects and push the project to greater heights

40 full-time staff

Key Activities: 

• Creating well-designed bespoke web and mobile applications 
•  Deploying secure network solutions

Key Partners: 

• Cloud computing vendors
• Network hardware and accessories suppliers
• Franchise businesses

Key Resources: 

• Highly-skilled technical team
• Professional business managers
• Open source technologies
• Collective experiences from past and present projects

Value Propositions: 

• Produce high-quality customized solutions at less cost
• Promote social equity through technology
• Friendly and helpful technical support available on 24 hours 7 days  basis

Cost Structure: 

• Technological Infrastructure
• Human Resources
• Marketing

Revenue Streams: 

• Monthly subscription fees for Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software, Franchise Management, and Advertising applications
• Development and maintenance fees for customized business software
• Fees for design and installation of network solutions
• Fees for outsourced Information Technology support

 Channels: 

• Website
• Mobile apps
• Direct sales 

Customer Segments: 

• Manufacturing companies
• Logistics companies
• Government agencies and organizations
• Non-government agencies and organizations
• Healthcare companies
• Hospitality industry companies
• Franchise business owners
• Utility companies
• Online retailers

Customer Relationships: 

• Free 14-days trial for ERP and franchise software (customer acquisition)
• Professional presentation of products and services (customer acquisition)
• Technical support (customer retention)
• Maintenance services (customer retention)

• Increase revenues through maintaining mutually beneficial relationships with current clients; engaging with more customers through client referrals, business partnerships, direct sales, and advertising; producing more e-commerce solutions

• Decrease costs by lessening time-to-market for software products thru automated processes, effective knowledge management, and increased use of open source software

The technical and business knowledge of the MIT Solve team will be invaluable in our efforts to pursue this initiative. The funding, of course, will be helpful.

Padayon, Girls! will be geared towards increasing the availability, affordability, and quality of education for girls and young women. It will equip them with life skills by providing them information on topics such as reproductive health, abuse protection, entrepreneurship opportunities for women, and the like. Also, it features female role models as volunteer endorsers for the girls to learn from their real-life experiences, and be inspired by the success they achieved through education.

Since our solution will be hosted on the cloud, we will use the Innovation for Women Prize to defray the costs of cloud infrastructure such as servers, data storage, and data analysis among others. In turn, these will expand the capacity of the solution to accommodate more girls and young women accessing information.

Padayon, Girls! will include learning modules on STEM designed for senior high girls. Since girls in rural areas may have limited access to mobile devices or internet connectivity, the GM Prize can be used to provide the needed gadgets and technological infrastructure to promote online learning even in the poorest communities.