Skoole
Since March 2020 all schools are closed in Cameroon. +12 millions students are left at home, the large majority with no access to the internet and with no alternative solutions like test books. According to UNESCO, before the covid 19 crisis, they where only 1 book for 12 students. And I faced the lack of books when I was a young student in Cameroon. In 2019 I first launched Skoole to deliver opensource quality educational content to my two younger sisters in Limbe, Cameroon and to others in this locality. And early this year I partenered with Libraries Without Border (leading NGO for access to culture worldwide) to bring contents like khan Academy or Ubongo to students through an SD card at the price of a textbook and contening all the ressources for secondary school.
check out the presentation of the project on this link.
deck Skoole
The lack of textbooks and quality educational contents for primary and secondary students in African coutries generaly, and Cameroon particularly.
According to UNESCO in Cameroon, just 1 textbook for 12 students and less than 30 % of the population have access to the internet. More important, some parents who don't have enough money for the education of all their children don't send young girls to school. Rather, they send them to sell food, goods to the market, to have enough money for their young brothers.
So reducing the cost of the textbooks or quality educational contents will help girls access schools and moreover, they will have access to this contents even if the can't go to school.
Bringing quality educational content from best opensource content creator like Khan Academy, MIT, UBONGO and moreover, contents created in collaboration with local teachers to young Students. All the contents on an app accessible through the internet and more important, without the internet. Using an SD card, here is how it works :
- The App reads the content of the Card : an SD card
that plugs into the phone and
provides access to thousands
of preloaded content without
requiring any Internet
connection.
-
Infinite sharing of the App and content, without internet
connection.
The user can share their favorite
content with their loved ones, directly
via the App via bluetooth or wifi. Initial tests show that for a card
purchased or distributed 5 people on average receive content from their loved ones
a card sold at a price of 1 textbooks and contening all contents (+videos and audios) for all classes.
The solution solution is serving :
- Students in primary and secondary schools : because they don't have enough textbooks to learn well
- Parents : because with the money saved, they can send their childrens in better schools, send their girls to school if they weren't, their children are learning well
- Educators and Teachers : more students understanding the courses, with complémentary ressources like Khan Academy for mathematics
- Increase the number of girls and young women participating in formal and informal learning and training
First, we are bringing all the contents to students, particularly girls, who are needing this the most.
Second, with the money saved for the cost of the textbooks, parents who are not sending their girls because they don't have enough money could send them.
and third, even girls who are at home, not going to school can use the cards of their brothers and sisters, neighboor, friends, ... to learn effectively.
- Prototype: A venture or organization building and testing its product, service, or business model
- A new application of an existing technology
Access quality educational contents offline.
using an app interacting with contents of specific SD cards, sharing our contents via bluetooth or wifi, with no internet needed.
android
moodle
the technology already used by ulesson in Nigeria for student to access educational content when offline
- Audiovisual Media
- Software and Mobile Applications
Access to quality educational content for everyone is a great step for quality education for all. Our app soon providing basic educational contents will in the future permit student to learn topics of the future (fundament of robotics, big data,...) that will permit us to reduce the gap between developping countries and the others. And the contribute to more equalities.
- Women & Girls
- Children & Adolescents
- Rural
- Peri-Urban
- Urban
- Poor
- Low-Income
- Middle-Income
- Refugees & Internally Displaced Persons
- 4. Quality Education
- 5. Gender Equality
- 10. Reduced Inequalities
- Cameroon
- Burkina Faso
- Cameroon
- Central African Republic
- Chad
- Congo, Rep.
- Gabon
- Côte d'Ivoire
- Mali
- Senegal
We are preparing for a proof of concept on this september (end of the development of our app and sd cards on july) in Cameroon. with a goal of minimum 10000 users. We launched on May an app (internet needed for downloading, then no internet needed for using) for students to prepare for exams, +1000 downloads of the app in the first week.
For the next year (2021), with 12 millions students in Cameroon, our goal at Skoole with Libraries without borders is to reach +100 000 students.
Contents for all subjects and all the classes by 2023
and 2 million users in Cameroon on 2023
Financial. For creating the contents that actualy doesn't exist on the internet and are not open source, like history and Geography for african countries, ...
Partenering with organisations for financing the content creations. Or participate in challenges or events like Solve MIT.
In April of this year, we won a 2000 euro cash prize in hack the Crisis France the permitted us to finance the creation of mathematics courses (to what we will add ressources like Khan Academy's videos) for the first version of our app for September. We also won a support from a VC for investing a minimum of 100 000 euro of funding.
Please check out our speech on 01h37 of this videos HTC2020 and the prizes from 2h09
- Hybrid of for-profit and nonprofit
We Skoole have 8 Teachers with who we are working, a communication manager, grahist, and advisors (all of them contractors) me as the CEO
And we are working with Libraries Without borders (+100 staff) and Capgemini for the dev of the app and cards
in Skoole we are most from Cameroon and studied there. Personaly I have my family there and realy know the problem. I took all the year 2019 to realy study it and search for the best way to solve it.
Then we partenered wit Libraries Without border a leading worldwide NGO in access for education for all. And Capgemini a leader in NTIC , to implement the solution
Library without border
Ubongo kids
Capgemini