BRIDGE

Lack of educational infrastructure has deterred 650 million youths from efficient learning, majorly in developing countries. The predominant barriers are lack of electricity access, expensive data, inadequate learning materials, and untrained teachers. This has led to limited employability skills and rise in poverty. The worlds youngest population needs to be prepared to become productive and innovative members of society. 

According to WEF, unemployment is the biggest risk facing Sub-Saharan Africa in the years to come. Since the COVID_19 lockdown, approximately 72% of university learners in Sub-Saharan Africa are unable to partake in remote learning due to limited/no electricity and internet service. Hence, there is now an urgent need to deploy remote technologies in this regions. 

Our Solution tackles the problem at its core by breaking associated learning limitations via renewable energy. This will enable the youth population of today self-sufficient, preventing them from joining the 750 million illiterate population tomorrow.https://drive.google.com/file/...

The problem we aim to solve is access of quality learning materials in undeveloped areas with educational barriers. There are more than 250 million youths out-of-school today and 617 million non-learners in school with more than 202 million residing in Sub-Saharan Africa and 214 million from central and southern Asia. If this foundational issue is not rectified, these youths will not have the requires skillsets to build on that will make productive members of society in future. Gaining adequate employability is now more than ever essential for the sustainability of the future for these developing area to prevent increased poverty. Lack/unstable of electricity and expensive data, limited trained teachers, and inadequate learning resources are the biggest barriers for access to acquisition of employability skills. Which why we plan to use off-grid solutions to make access of quality learning possible.

Bridge is an innovative device that takes an integrative approach to enable access to quality learning possible. Bridge is a portable hybrid technology that can be used by up to 5 people. She will be powered by solar technology so that electricity access will no longer be a problem. The unique charge hubs will have WI-FI signals for ease of content downloads.

Our target population is the youths population in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia between ages 15-39 who have gaps in employability skills.

The characteristics of our customer target include:

1. Face learning barriers of lack of stable electricity, no grid access, poor educational infrastructure, untrained teachers.

2. Interested in gaining employability skills

3. Low income earner.

4. Maybe a university student relegated to limited resources or outdated resources to meet up with the fast paced evolving global society

To better empathise with out potential early adopters, our team have been engaging them via surveys and focused groups and reaching out to charities and teaching associations within the zone to understand the root causes of the problem.

Our value proposition is customer centric and so taking all these characteristic of our potential early adopters we aim to build our solution to better carter to the limitations common to them. 

Report from investigation carried out by the British council in several African countries including Nigeria, South Africa, Kenya and Ghana show that a lack of adequate employability skills is an issue for youths of these marginalised zones.  In order to gain employability skills, quality learning/training is required for specific skill set. However, there is still the issue of quality resources, affordability of reach, and shortage of well trained teachers. Remote learning can serve as a solution if all the barriers and limitations are addressed. which is what Bridge will do.

 Our solution is unique because we are taking an integrative approach of renewable off grid technology to power clean tech device. We have also put into consideration the affordability, particularly for low income earners, which is why each Bridge can be shared by up to 5 people. We are taking existing technologies and integrating and repurposing their use to deliver a services for quality learning to the marginalised youth population.

The core technology are solar powered hubs with charge facilities to house up to 25 Bridges per vicinity.

We are convinced that our technology works cause it makes use of existing and well proven technology, but integrating and repurposing it to deliver services. Solar technology is well tested and proven, Li-ion Batteries are also widely use. 

In order for marginalised society to access and create good jobs and entrepreneurial opportunities for themselves, they would have to learn to create wealth for themselves. Wealth transcends income. Today issues such as poverty and lack of clean water still prevails in these areas. This is attributed to the fact that there's a shortage of skills set to develop adequate solutions to combat these problems. Hence, wealth could mean access to food, education, health facilities, basic amenities, and infrastructure, enabling societal productivity that could ultimately generate fulfilment and inclusivity. However, our survey results (mainly in Nigeria) so far show that almost 60% of youth in STEM have never applied their skills in a practical way. In order for the marginalised society to meet up with the fast paced global society, its is necessary to equip its population with key skills to foster manufacturing, IT skills, renewable technologies. These are core area, that will ensure economic growth and development through job creation. Unfortunely, the average African youth is short of such skills, hence many are not ready to take on entrepreneurial opportunities. It is therefore necessary to first prepare them to be self-sufficient. This way they can take on modern job roles to suit the innovative solutions.

The more quality knowledge is spread, the more required skills are acquired, the more jobs will be created and thus the more productive these margined youths will become.

Currently , we are in the test phase of our solution. We have developed a website to test the attractiveness of our services by seeing how many people would be interested in opening subscription accounts with us to access their closest Bridge hub in their vicinity for rental of Bridge.

We aim to reach our first 100 customers by December 2020. and our first 5000 customers 1 year after. As a starting point, we plan to commence operations in Nigeria, India and Ghana and using the feedback loop to improve our services as we expand to more countries. Our aim is to be operational in up to 10 countries in the next 5 years with up to 1 million customers. Our ultimate goal is to to reach 6 million youths from marginalised communities across the globe in 15 years and prepare them to compete in the job markets of tomorrow.

Currently our main barriers to launch is funding. We also aim to build partnerships with educational providers such as MOOC platforms. We are aware that the completion rates are low. However, the case is different in marginalised zone where the youth cannot afford to stream educational contents for hours. Thus, one of our motivation for Bridge. We plan to also partner with telecom providers networks and split commission with them in return for data access to download educational content on request.

Our plan is to engage in pitch competitions to showcase our solution. We believe this will give us an avenue to meet potential investors. We also plan to build a sense of brand awareness and reputation with out end-users by hosting weekly short webinars on entrepreneurial skills. We believe this will make the end-users build a sense of trust in our brand before be officially launch.

At the moment we have two co-founders and a third member with IT skills.

Our team have varying backgrounds in terms of professional and personal experience from India and Nigeria. In the past, organisations and companies would bring their business, solutions etc to these marginalised zones without consideration of the barriers peculiar to them accessing these area. For example the issues with MOOC reach or affordable data for smart phone users in Sub-Saharan Africa. Our team, takes into account the educational barriers and we have spoken to several experts and began conducting surveys to better design a solution that would be sustainable. Our value proposition is cantered around minimising the limitations of access.

Our team have backgrounds in Renewable energy, electrical engineering  and currently working with a contract staff equipped in machine learning to fill the weakness of our team. We not only bring our professional experience but personal experience as well since we have seen first hand the impact. Tackling this problem requires people who are passionate about it. Our team understand the problem from a personal perspective and know just how essential solving it is to ensure sustainability of the Africa youth population in future.

Ensuring sustainability of our environment is among our team's value, which why use of clean solutions in tackling the problem is paramount to us. 

At the core of our business model is our value proposition to our consumers. This is simply the provision of access to quality learning materials. Our customer segment are marginalised youths of Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia between ages 15-39. Out intervention is the enhancement of employability skills to better prepare them to become innovative and productive member of their societies tomorrow. Out main channels of reach is via our ground agents or self service through our unique website for members to access our directory. Upon selection of a skill that interest the customer, they can locate the nearest Bridge hub in their vicinity or school campus, and pick up their Bridge with the pre-downloaded materials. Revenue stream is mainly by a daily rental-subscription system. Key resources include solar briefcase (2KW, easy to set up), Bridge charge hubs with inbuilt Li-ion battery, Wi-Fi antenna and powered by solar energy (25 bridges) and Bridge. Our main partners would be manufacturers (for key resources), Telecoms partner (via commissions for internet access and money money payment options for areas without banking facilities), educational content providers. Main cost structure components include: ground agents, website, AWS cloud space (for Bridge library directory). Surplus will go on marketing mainly via social media platforms such as YouTube and Instagram.

We plan to create visibility for potential investors by engaging in pitching competitions. We also plan to apply for government grants for start-ups and reach money via crowdfunding websites. Our revenue model involves rental subscriptions. At this stage we assume $0.35/ rental per day. Assuming 50% total yearly rental of 25 bridges, this amounts to $63 total rental per bridge per year. Based on our cash forecast, that would give us a payback period of 1.5 years. In addition to this we plan to equip each Bridge hub space with additional charging ports (3 ports per hub space) for alternate source of revenue for mobile charging in these vicinity. This would make this more attractive to our ground agent and the money can be used for operational cost. 

Our team decided to apply to Solve because of the available opportunities in terms of funding, partnering opportunities, networking and investor visibility. After going through the Solver page, being a part of the Solver community is something we hope for. As Solve is more inclined to social enterprise solutions, we feel that this is closely aligned with our values. Our solution involves tackling some SDGs and being given the opportunity to present our solution at the UN assembly would be s unique experience for our team. Also, we believe the unique mentoring opportunity would help us build on our current business to improve it model and fill in the gaps for our weaknesses. We know that the Solve team is well equipped with IT and tying this together with our knowledge of renewable technologies would develop Bridge into the solution we envision.. Having access to the lab would enable us perfect the technological aspects for Bridge.

Considering the SWOT analysis of our team, we feel that having board members or advisors would be beneficiary to us since our team does not have years of experience in enterprise development. As we are in the early stage, we are yet to raise any funds. For us to be able to prototype and test our full solution, we would require funding. We plan to begin with pilot schemes of Bridge hub stations in serval university campuses for a feedback loop to redefine/modify where and when required. In achieving this. funding is needed.

We would like to partner with organisations such as UNICEF, Global partnerships for Education and the World Bank so we can incorporate our solution into their educational projects. For educational contents, we hope to partner with MOOC platforms such as EDx, Future learn and Khan Academy for free learning contents as well as any other willing platforms. We also plan to partner with telecoms provider for ease of connectivity and mobile mobile facility in case of areas without banking facilities.

Bridge is in general for marginalised youth with limitations to accessing quality learning materials and the includes the female population. Today two thirds of the 750 illiterate adult population are women. Of the the 250 million out-of-school children, more than 42% are girls who face barriers peculiar to them. These barriers include safety and security, distance from schools,  and limiting social norms that discourage girls from education. With Bridge, the female children in these zones can access education from the  her home without these barriers as hindrances.

In order for youth population to be eligible for good jobs and inclusivity, they would need to gain adequate skill set to meet requirements. However, the current educational standards in these zones are flawed with many on a stand-still refusing to evolve with the fast paced global transition. Untrained teachers, lack of educational infrastructure and upgraded resources are the main problems. Remote learning can be a solution. However, barriers such as access to the grid and affordable internet are also barriers. Our solution uses off grid renewable technology to make access to quality learning materials possible and thus enhancing employability skills. 

Today, there exist 750 million illiterate adults globally with two thirds being women. However some adults may fell to old to return back to school for a formal education. However Bridge ensures that anyone can learn any employability skill at the comfort of their home without worrying about barriers or limitations.