Adwuma Mbomu

Adwuma Mbomu, a virtual learning platform is committed to solving the problem of lack of employability and entrepreneurship skills by delivering lessons in digital skills that is much needed in today's work environmen.

Digital skills are becoming essential for the jobs of today and tomorrow. From research, we found that its not so much of lack of jobs, but more of lack of skills to take up jobs in the current dynamic workplace.

Unfortunately, these skills are beyond the reach of many young people in Nigeria. Aduwma Mbomu is designed, as part of a blended learning method (physical and virtual) to bridge the skills gap. We are committed to delivering to African Youths the much needed 'good' job and inclusive entrepreneurship.

The solution to provide digital skills via Adwuma Mbomu will help arm the teeming unemployed youths with  employability skills in the dynamic work space and hence, deliver better jobs.

The problem our innovative solution seeking to solve within the challenge is solution that spurs good jobs and inclusive entrepreneurial opportunities. According to the National Bureau of Statistics, adult digital illiteracy rate in Nigeria stands at 56.9 while over 95% of Nigerians do not own a personal computer. On the flip side, most of the population is a young population with 53.2% between the ages of 15 and 65 years. About 55.4% of this young population that constitutes our work force is without work.

This statistic is staggering and indicates a clarion call to create deserving jobs for the Youth as well as prepare them for available jobs. In today's world where technology is fast-paced, people with traditional and conventional skills are even starting to loose their jobs. 

This makes acquisition of digital skills imperative and must be made available to align with present realities. Adwuma Mbomu as a virtual learning platform accommodates learning without physical contact and is much needed in the present and post COVID-19 era.

Our solution Adwuma Mbomu is a Cloud based virtual learning platform, which is basically a platform that contains learning, entrepreneurship and digital skills content. It provides individuals with content to assist in improving their literacy, digital skills and learn how to be better entrepreneurs facilitated by International Partners.

Our solution to the challenge of good jobs and inclusive entrepreneurship provides equal access to a platform that can help individuals learn and stay updated with the changing jobs markets and become successful entrepreneurs.

Our solution leverages Microsoft community learning platform as well as an internally built platform 

Our Solution is primarily directed at teenagers and youths (ages 15 - 35). We also target individuals who are keen on improving their knowledge in digital and business skills to stay relevant in the current and future economic environment of the world. Also we are poised to assist businesses and individuals close the digital skills gap lacking today.

Leveraging Wennovation Hub - our venture development arm where we constantly engage with young small business owners and technology enthusiasts, it is evident that most of these Youths lack adequate digital skills to attract better jobs as well as scaling of their own businesses. To address this, we constantly conduct a community survey to understand what their needs are and how we can address these needs. 

On the other hand, in order to match the needs with opportunities, a survey was conducted to know the relevant skills needed by some companies here in Nigeria, a lot of the responses showed that there are employment opportunities that need to be filled but not enough people with the knowledge and skills to fill them. 

We seek to close the skill gap and deliver to Nigerians better jobs and relevant entrepreneurship skills.

With the COVID-19 pandemic reshaping the world, Countries are adjusting by leveraging technology in almost all facets of their economies. A digital skills gap has been identified as a major problem globally; jobs being available but not enough skilled individuals to do the jobs. 

Hence the reason for our solution - Adwuma Mbomu. This helps to bridge the gap between skills people(youths and workers) have and skills they need to be relevant in a tech-enabled digitized economy. 

The solution seeks to equip workers and young people with the digital skills needed to stay relevant in today's changing market and economies

Our solution, Adwuma Mbomu, is an integrated cloud based virtual learning platform that delivers digital skills & employability skills training, business development support and a job portal accessible via mobile or web.

Adwuma Mbomu has the following critical features (modules) that differentiates it from other similar solutions in the Nigerian:

1. Virtual Learning Platform - This delivers digital skills (Software development, Cloud Computing, Virtualization & Cyber-security), Employability skills (Resume writing, Corporate email drafting etc.),  digitized Wennovation Hub proprietary content  in Innovation development (Incubation & Acceleration).
2. Job portal - which ranks participants from different cohorts and matches them to recruiters
3. Business Development Support for entrepreneurs. This includes engagement via integrated chatbox with mentors, legal aid, financial advisers and human resources specialists, automated Concept Notes & Submission Analysis, Business Plans , Input Analysis & Ranking.
4. Central Tendering module - this aggregates procurement processes from different tendering organizations/platforms and assists incubated businesses with their application processes.

Our solution empowers the Nigerian youth and stimulates the growth of the local economy by increasing the number of modern-day, forward-thinking entrepreneurs and employable youths.
 
Our key Competitors are; 
Roducate: Provides content available on school curriculum only. 
ClassNotes: Provides content available on school curriculum only. Only for students in primary to secondary school levels.
WOLO: Provides content available on school curriculum and other business only courses, limiting training on digital skills to almost zero or non-existent.
DoviLearn: Provides independent content, broader skills training. But limited involvement of incubators or an alumnus program to foster a mentorship styled program.

Adwuma Mbomu is a robust, LoftyInc proprietary Virtual Knowledge Engagement Platform (VKEP) which warehouses content relating to entrepreneurship, digital skills and emerging technologies as well as virtualizing the collaborative innovation acceleration and commercialization process. 

The platform leverages Microsoft community learning platform and is accessible via mobile and web.

Our product is currently being deployed to manage the Lagos State Employability Programme co-funded by Lagos State Entrepreneurship Trust Fund (LSETF) and United States African Development Fund (USADF)

Our solution is expected to directly impact over 12,000 Youths and provide them with relevant employability and entrepreneurship skills. 

An Inception report, which includes Industry Engagement Sessions/Industry Skills Gaps Analysis of proposed training courses was conducted to understand technical skills gap currently in the market. 

Our study showed that over 45% of respondents will require skilled individuals in Entrepreneurship which followed with over 33% saying they will require personnel skilled in Cloud Computing while Software Engineering comes in third with 31.25%.

Also,  most recruiters admitted that most graduates lack basic workplace relevant skills such as Corporate email drafting, Resume writing, Business presentation etc.

Our solution was developed to bridge this identified gaps. 

Our product seeks to improved employability of the average Nigerian youth by 20% in the first year and about 45% subsequently. Adwuma Mbomu will also lead to digital skills adoption and upskilling by over 25%.

We envisage the creation of about 200 tech-enabled businesses in 24 months and creation of about 50,000 jobs in 3 years.

Many state governments in Nigeria are looking for plausible media to drive youth empowerment, job creation which lead to a contribution to local GDP. Our Innovation affords them a viable way of strengthening innovation and properly engaging youths within their states. 

Also, a number of tertiary institutions are also keen on providing relevant digital skills to their students. As a result, our innovation has become a sought after solution to achieve these.

Currently, our product is being deployed to Lagos Ministry of Education, Lagos State Employment Trust Fund (LSETF), United States African Development Fund (USADF) while we are in advanced conversation with the Federal University of Technology Akure (FUTA) on deploying our Digital Skills training module.

Within the next 1 year, we our solution would have provided digital and employability skills training to about 50,000 Nigerian youths while also providing jobs to at least 70% of that number.

Over the next 5 years, we would have launched across 10 states in Nigeria and providing training to about 200,000 youths, created about 200 businesses and provide jobs to about 100,000 young people across different socioeconomic spectrum.

Within the next 1-5 years, we have identified some limitations that can hinder the impact that we hope to achieve with our solution. They are as follows:

1. Financial (Impending recession) - The cost of deploying our solution is capital intensive especially in semi-urban areas who require mobile devices, computer systems, internet etc.  

2. Digital Skills Illiteracy - Most youths (especially in low income areas) do not yet have the basic technology skills which are prerequisites to our technology skills due to low digital literacy in Nigeria. 

This high level of illiteracy in Nigeria may limit the impact we intend to make with our solution- Adwuma Mbomu. 

3. Poor Data Access & Low Digital Penetration - Data in Nigeria is currently expensive and only concentrated in Urban centers. This limits access to our learning platform in peri-urban cities and also affordability by poor communities.

Financial - We would be able to deliver our solution by leveraging partnerships with state governments, corporate organizations and development agencies who share in our mission.

Awareness creation on digital skills - through the use of social media platforms and interactive conversations via other communication channels, our target population can be engaged thereby creating awareness to different available and relevant digital skills needed in today's technology driven economy. This raises education levels, reduces the rate of illiteracy among the Nigerian youth, therefore producing the needful solution to a gaping problem in the Nigerian economy. 

Access to Data - We are leveraging partnership with mobile data providers to providing specialized bundles to youths signed up on our platform. This specialized bundles will be affordable.

Our solution team consists of innovators and passionate people and are part of a larger organisation called LoftyInc Allied Partners Limited. Our team is made up of innovators and experts across the world with one common passion - Social Impact. 

LoftyInc Allied Partners Limited is an innovation development company that leverages innovative technology solutions in the development of impact projects and businesses in Sub-Sahara Africa. Our focus is across Education, Agriculture, Healthcare as well as innovative solutions for businesses and project development.

This solution is led by our Product development and Project delivery team and have on it the following breakdown of staff.

• Full time Staff - 8
• Part time Staff - 3
• Contractors - 0

Leveraging our partnerships with renown software engineering organisations, our team is well positioned to deliver the solution and impact the lives of thousands of Youths.

LoftyInc has always sort for a platform to complement our multi-location (Abuja, Lagos, Kaduna, Ibadan) in-class program and thus started up with the Wennovation Virtual Incubation Platform (VIP) in 2012. This platform digitized mass incubation process, incentivized virtual co-working and use of digital content in blended learning environments.

In 2015, LoftyInc lunched, Wennokick - a 6week long virtual pre-acceleration and idea validation program that helps idea stage and early stage startups quickly test their ideas using appropriate business tools for analysis. This introduced the body of knowledge component to the VIP, by introducing robust content co-developed with Kick Accelerator, in Seatle WA USA into the program.

Just a year later (2016), LoftyInc in partnership with Afrilabs (A community of African Hubs) Launched www.manjaro.co and manjaro.vlp (now offline) to provide access to content and skills for hub managers and to allow for showcase of available skills. Manjaro as such introduced the continued education module for innovator enablers – hub managers, advisers, facilitators and enabled digitization of locally relevant content.

All the learnings over the years has led to the development and deployment of Adwuma Mbomu – which is a robust, LoftyInc proprietary Virtual Knowledge Engagement Platform (VKEP). 

LoftyInc is proud of the partnership we have made in the development of Adwuma Mbomu®;

Content development and training facilitation partners;

• Microsoft
• IBM
• VMware
• Wennovation Hub

Entrepreneurship, Incubation & Job creation Partners

• Wennovation Hub
• Disrupt Recruiting Limited

Venture Capital partners

• LoftyInc Capital Management (Afropreneurs Fund)

Our key customers are:

- State Governments who adopts our platform to deliver digital skills

- Tertiary Institutions who adopts our platform to train students

- Individuals who want to access training

Revenue is generated from;

- Payment per person enrolled to platform

- Profit margins from graduates matched to jobs via our job portal

Our sustainability plan is described below;

- Revenue streams from individual subscriptions to the platform

- Revenue generated from graduates who access jobs through our platform

- Revenue generated through grants from sponsor organizations such as State Ministries of Education, and other Donor organizations.

We are applying to Solve to provide visibility on our work in Africa which will ultimately lead to access to funds needed to deploy our solution to more underserved communities in Nigeria.

Also, Solve will provide the necessary access to potential partners (technology, technical and human resource).

Our solution currently needs funding in grants/equity to expand her reach and be able to serve multiple communities in Africa.

We would like to partner donor organizations such as Acumen etc

Also, we would be pleased to leverage Faculties from companies such as Oracle, MIT, Google, Udemy etc to deliver core Technology contents on our platform.