Better Minds Education

We systematically address the key barriers that rural students face in accessing quality online / computer-based learning and career training. We provide the necessary tools (tablets, mobile internet, in-person training and facilitation) that our target market lacks, and we locate our centers within walking distance of our beneficiaries.

Our operating model innovates to keep costs low, using efficient staffing and logistics so that students and schools pay for only what they need, and flexible courses and hours, which makes our program accessible to working adults and students in rural areas.

In addition to improving the education outcomes of students in school, we offer post-secondary courses at our village-based centers that are aligned to the job market and focus on digital skills. Our vision is to establish a digital learning center in every village and small town in rural Africa, offering training opportunities to millions of youth.

Currently only half of primary school children and little more than a quarter of secondary school children are learning basic skills. Out of 650 million children of primary school age, 250 million either do not reach grade 4 or, if they do, fail to attain minimum learning standards.

Very high student to teacher ratios and frequent teacher absenteeism are additional factors that limit the abilities of school systems to provide high quality learning opportunities, and girls and young women are especially susceptible to absenteeism and early drop out.

For those students who do manage to complete school, employment is a major challenge, with 40% of youth unable to find jobs. Young women often face extra burdens of caring for young children and lacking digital and career skills that prevent them from joining the workforce and earning better incomes. Current post-secondary options are not flexible to young mothers and are often expensive and located only in cities. Many students who attend traditional tertiary schools do not graduate with skills that are aligned to the needs of the workforce, and do not receive a good return on that investment, while upending their lives to move to urban slums to seek work.

Our program employs personalized learning technology to tailor content to a students current level of learning, and allow them to learn at their own pace. This content is delivered on low cost tablets at our partner schools and at our learning centers during afternoons, weekends, and holidays. We offer competency based post-secondary training in digital and career skills that is accessible and affordable to rural youth, helping them acquire the skills needed for employment in a flexible learning environment.

In formulating the best model to apply the solution to the problem, we seek to balance 3 key levers: 1) Impact: does it improve people's lives in a substantial and measurable way? 2) Scale: can it grow to reach millions of people?, and 3) Sustainability: can it continue without depending on donor capital? Through our early pilot testing we've seen a high demand for this solution and promising gains in student learning, leading us to believe this is a model that can work.

For graduates of our program, we also offer virtual work opportunities where students who have gained the technical skills can earn a living through data labelling, business process outsourcing and other tech-enabled remote work, without having to migrate.

We are serving low income youth who live in rural towns. The students we serve either attend local public schools, or low cost private schools which have become a preferential option for parents who can afford the small tuition fees, given the low quality of the public schools.

The parents in our target market are aspirational for their children's futures, and willing to invest what they can. Most of them depend on agriculture for their livelihoods, but due to shrinking land sizes from population pressure and the high risks from climate change, they aspire for their children to find work outside of farming.

During our initial market surveys and focus group discussions with parents, it was commonly indicated that they were eager to give their children better educational opportunities, but were unable due to distance and high costs. By locating our centers in rural areas and charging very low fees we are able to match parents aspirations.

We place an emphasis on accessibility to non-traditional students in both our in-school and center-based programs. The location of learning centers and policies support working parents and school drop-outs looking to improve their skills and find meaningful work to support their families.

Our program seeks to build a pipeline for human capital development in rural Africa. We believe there is immense talent and opportunity in rural areas that is unable to participate in the digital economy through lack of opportunity.

We improve student learning outcomes and retention in school through our digital tutoring program. Once students graduate, we offer market-aligned digital career skill training in high demand areas at a fraction of the cost of traveling to urban areas and enrolling in traditional tertiary programs. Our courses are competency based, tech-enabled, and flexible. For graduates we help them find virtual work.

Our program is built around the need to innovate around the delivery model to provide an underserved and neglected population with access to proven solutions that can make a difference in their lives.

Computer adaptive learning and online education have made huge strides over the past decade in the developed world. Students and schools in the US and Europe are able to take advantage of hundreds of learning programs that help target students specific needs and help them achieve mastery over key learning concepts to build the foundation for reaching their full potential. Increasingly non-traditional flipped classroom, blended learning, and online education models are giving new opportunities for market-aligned tertiary education.

These development have largely by-passed rural Africa where under-prepared teachers are still stuck in front of over-crowded classes with chalk boards and conducting rote learning. Students in these classes have little opportunity to develop creative thinking or technical skills needed for the 21st century workforce. While there is a growth in EdTech companies in Kenya, they are serving a wealthier, urban market.

Through building the infrastructure for digital learning to reach rural communities, Better Minds addresses the key barriers of affordability, accessibility and know-how. By using low-cost devices, a lean staffing model, and economies of scale, we will be able to offer these services at a price affordable to rural families, while sustaining each centers operations. This revenue model will allow our impact to scale rapidly, until we are able to build a digital learning in every rural community.

Our unique business model leverages several technologies. The first is low cost tablet computers. This hardware has become much less expensive in recent years and has the advantage of being portable, battery-powered, and touch screen for easy use by younger children. For older students we use external keyboards and mice that connect to the tablets and mimic a desktop experience at a fraction of the cost and much higher portability.

We use portable mobile internet modems to periodically update content and sync student data. We also employ an offline server model to deliver some of our content in areas without connectivity. This uses a raspberry pi basic CPU as a server and is able to generate a local network.

For our learning content, we leverage the vast amount of free online learning content, including Android Apps, Websites, videos and other learning activities. This content is curated and matched to specific modules of the Kenyan curriculum in order to provide relevant learning activities for every skill. We use digital assessment platform to regularly benchmark student learning levels and ensure students are studying at the right level.

Many of these technologies are currently employed in schools in developed countries, or wealthier urban private schools in Kenya, but rural schools without devices, internet access, power, or know-how are unable to take advantage of them. By handling all the technical aspects of digital learning, we make this accessible to all learners.

Computer assisted learning has been shown as a highly effective method of improving student learning outcomes in developing country contexts, across numerous studies over the past several years, including:

• Disrupting Education? Experimental Evidence on Technology-Aided Instruction in India
• Remedying Education: Evidence from Two Randomized Experiments in India
• Development of early mathematical skills with a tablet intervention: a randomized control trial in Malawi
• Does Computer-Assisted Learning Improve Learning Outcomes? Evidence from a Randomized Experiment in Public Schools in Rural Minority Areas in Qinghai, China
• Improving Learning in Primary Schools of Developing Countries: A Meta-Analysis of Randomized Experiments

Inputs

1. Tablet-based Learning Assessments of Student Literacy and Numeracy
2. Effective Tablet-based Learning Activities calibrated to the students right level of learning
3. High quality low cost devices that are easily usable by Students
4. High quality lesson plans easily implemented by the Facilitators

Activities

1. School-based lessons implemented by teachers using tablets, assessments, and learning software 

2. After-school lessons implemented by teachers / BME staff focusing on remedial learning 

3. Weekend and Holiday lessons implemented by BME staff focused on remedial learning 

4. Career and Digital Skill post-secondary training offered by BME staff at our digital learning centers

Outputs

1. Students receive effective lessons tailored to their level of learning, teachers understand students level of learning and how to support them. 

2. - 3. Struggling students receive additional instruction to help them catch up to grade level

4. Secondary graduates receive affordable, market-aligned training in key digital skills to prepare them for the job market

Outcomes

1. Increase in student literacy and numeracy
2. More students stay in school, graduate from primary, enter secondary school, graduate from secondary school, receive tertiary education
3. More students gain key career skills and digital literacy required for employment

Impact

Increase in the number of young people with jobs. Increase in earnings and ability to lead a fulfilled life.

We are currently serving 833 people at our first digital learning center. 

Within the next year we aim to open 3 additional learning centers, serving a total of 4,800 people.

In 5 years we aim to scale up to 1,000 centers, serving 1.5 million people. This represents 10% of the total current student population in Kenya.

As we prove the potential for this model to scale in Kenya, we will also explore launching programs in other markets in the region, such as Uganda, Tanzania, and Rwanda, with an aim to become the largest provider of high quality, market-aligned digital education throughout rural Africa.

Within the next 2 years we plan to prove the scalability of our model by opening up 10 learning centers throughout rural Kenya, serving 10,000+ students. We also plan to work closely with the Kenyan Ministry of Education to explore potential partnership opportunities including the integration of our remedial tutoring and school strengthening programs within the existing school system. 

Through proving the market for impactful tutoring and online post-secondary education programs, we aim to establish the potential for a sustainable network of workforce development centers that provide digital training and employment opportunities to the rural population. Depending on the balance of sustainability and impact, there may be potential to spin this off as a for-profit social enterprise for additional capital investment and expansion throughout rural Africa.

We envision a future where there is a Digital Learning Center in every small town in Africa, offering a suite of high quality learning services accessible to all. The result will be dramatic improvement in students' performance in school, ability to continue on to higher education, and preparedness for the job market

We recognize that the jobs of the future are not the same as the jobs of today, and that a flexible, tech-enabled network of training centers can help adapt the skills being offered to prepare the rising generation for the jobs of tomorrow

• Financial - We need to raise sufficient capital to grow our network of centers into several new markets to prove the total addressable market. We also need to build a larger leadership team to fine-tune our product offering and streamline our expansion model for future growth
• Technical - our current solution functions well in the mid-size rural town with fairly regular electricity and internet access. However more remote rural areas may require the development of more robust offline solutions for hosting our content and equipping centers with solar power.
• Legal - In order to expand more rapidly, we would like to partner with the Ministry of Education as an approved partner for our content to be offered in the public school system.

• Financial - we are raising an initial investment round of $200,000 to expand our operations, hire key leadership team members, and conduct initial impact evaluations to establish the effectiveness of our model. We are targeting early stage grant applications and fellowship opportunities for this proof of concept stage. As we scale, we will target larger foundations with a focus on rigorously measured, scalable interventions, and will also be able to draw on our earned revenue for operations.
• Technical - we are already exploring off-line and solar powered options, and will invest in developing these further once hiring a technical lead to take this work on. So far there don't appear to be significant barriers, but we will seek to learn from the many innovative solar companies operating in the region and from other providers of offline learning content.
• Legal - we have begun initial conversations with the Ministry of Education and are working with one public school already. We will invest in this relationship building by hiring a specialized government consultant to speed up the process and make key connections with potential government champions who can help advocate for our work.

3 Full Time Staff

Our team brings together a unique mix of early stage start-up experience, experience growing operations in our target market, and deep knowledge of the education space in Kenya.

Siler, the Founder / Director, worked with the Kenya - based Social enterprise One Acre Fund for 6 years, launching the program in new markets including Uganda, Malawi, Zambia, India, and Nigeria. He previously worked at an innovative Secondary School in Somaliland, and has experience with technology in education through One Laptop per Child in Cameroon, and in developing tech-enabled employment solutions through his work with the Grassroots Development Lab in India, including Mobile-Naukri and employment connection app and Source for Change, and rural business process outsourcing entity.

Grace, the Teaching and Impact lead is a former secondary school teacher and university lecturer. She holds a BS in Education Science and an MBA in Finance from the top University in Kakamega. She has extensive experience with the Kenyan education system and in the Kakamega-area where our pilot is operating.

Simon, the Operations lead, has experience in logistics operations with multiple agricultural and transport companies in Kenya. He has also worked in rural credit marketing and training with Equity Bank

Our primary partners include Schools and EdTech companies.

We currently offer locally created education content from Zeraki Learning, E-Limu, Kytabu, Ubongo, MwalimuPlus, and Angaza Elimu. These partners have developed curriculum-aligned education content that is available through their apps and websites. We host this content on our tablets and link them with rural students who would otherwise not be able to access them.

We are currently partnering with 5 schools in the Kakamega area. These schools see Better Minds as providing key services to improve student learning and integrate ICT into their classrooms. They also help advertise our holiday, afternoon, weekend and post-secondary courses to their communities.

We serve students in 2 main ways: directly through our digital learning center  (B2C) and in partnership with schools (B2B). Ultimately our customers are parents as they pay for their students to attend courses at our center and pay school fees that schools then use to pay for our services.

We provide 3 types of service: Remedial tutoring for students in primary and secondary school (B2C), School improvement and digital learning integration (B2B), and post-secondary employment training (B2C).

The revenue we receive from our customers covers the upfront costs of our technology (tablets), and recurring costs of staff salaries, rent, internet etc. Each learning center aims to break even within a year of operation and be self-sustaining. 

Additional capital raised is used to expand our operations and set-up new centers and for additional development of our product offerings.

The revenue we receive from our customers covers the upfront costs of our technology (tablets), and recurring costs of staff salaries, rent, internet etc. Each learning center aims to break even within a year of operation and be self-sustaining. Our fixed costs per center are $7,000 USD/year and our recurring costs are $13,000 USD/year. Our revenue at full center capacity is $23,000 USD/year.

Additional capital raised through grants is used to expand our operations and set-up new centers and for additional development of our product offerings.

Solve can be a catalytic opportunity for an organization at our stage. Having proven product-market fit and developed out MVP, we need to build a strong foundation and readiness for scale. The experts at MIT and the opportunity to learn from other organizations that have undergone this process can be a game changer in addressing the key barriers we will face during this next stage of growth.

We are looking for funding expertise to grow our pipeline of grant capital and get us through the difficult early stages of fundraising to where we are operating at a scale and budget attractive to larger foundations.

We are looking for technical expertise to advise as we build version 2.0 of our product, addressing issues like full offline functionality, user experience, and smoothing our tailored content delivery.

We are looking for legal and govn't relations expertise to build our initial non-profit board, and build relationships with the Kenyan Ministry of Education to discuss potential partnerships for scale.

And in addition, we are energized by the prospect of going through the Solve process, where we will be challenged to clarify our objectives, explain our goals, and increase our ambition to build a better organization for impact.

• Solution Technology - We are looking for support in automatizing this process and streamlining our content deliver, as well as expanding our offline solutions for low network areas.
• Funding and revenue model - We need connections to get our foot in the door, and advise on where our fundraising effort is best spent.
• Board members and advisors - we will be looking to build out our operating and advisory board with key figures in the Education and Technology spaces and develop a platform for bringing together thought leaders and experts to inform our program evolution.
• Legal and regulatory - we need support in navigating the regulations around a non-profit with a revenue model, and connections between our US and Kenyan entity.
• Monitoring and Evaluation - We would be interested in working with researchers who have experience in EdTech in low resource settings and designing an RCT evaluation of our impact.

• Content partners who are creating high quality learning software, in particular that is tailored to the African / Kenyan market. Examples include OneBillion, Enuma, Ubongo, Elimu, Curious Learning
• LMS / Assessment platforms, in particular that can be used offline and include student profile tracking, easy student sign ons, and skill or standard alignment to assessment questions. Examples include Moodle, Quizalize, MasteryConnect, Canvas
• Certified Career Skill and Digital Higher Ed providers that have online tertiary ed and workforce development programs. Examples include Southern New Hampshire University and Moringa School.
• Remote / Virtual workforce platforms, such as CloudFactory, SamaSource, and RemoTask
• Offline learning hardware / software experts, such as Learning Equality, World Possible, Raspberry Pi, Open Learning Exchange.
• Networks of low cost private schools interested in affordable tech solutions, such as Bridge International Academies, Omega Schools, Rise Academies

Our solution is designed to help girls and women in low income rural areas access high quality education and ultimately gain employment and lead fulfilling lives. 

While the majority of girls in rural Kenya enroll in school, a high percent will drop-out by the end of primary due to failure to master the key competencies needed, or the effect of early pregnancy or other social issues. Our program works with young girls from the age of 4 and above to master key skills in literacy and numeracy and help them all the way to secondary school and beyond.

We also offer post-secondary career training in digital skills, helping young women up-skill and find jobs in their local communities. Our career skills trainings are offered at our rural based digital learning centers, within walking distance of people's homes, and in a flexible learning environment where young (and old) women can bring their children and learn on their own schedule. We start with teaching basic computer skills to establish digital literacy, and then offer tailored career courses aligned to the local market.

With this prize, we will be able to expand our number of learning centers from 1 to 4, serving 3,000 additional girls and women, and developing 2-3 new courses to develop skills for specific jobs like business process outsourcing and data-labelling. 

Our program seeks to build a pipeline for human capital development in rural Africa. We believe there is immense talent and opportunity in rural areas that is unable to participate in the digital economy through lack of opportunity.

We improve student learning outcomes and retention in school through our digital tutoring program. Once students graduate, we offer market-aligned digital career skill training in high demand areas at a fraction of the cost of traveling to urban areas and enrolling in traditional tertiary programs. Our courses are competency based, tech-enabled, and flexible. For graduates. we then help them find virtual work opportunities in emerging high growth fields like data labelling and business process outsourcing. These jobs can be done from our rural-based digital centers, allowing workers to earn a decent wage without upending their lives to move to urban slums.

With this prize, we will be able to expand our number of learning centers from 1 to 4, serving 3,000 additional youth, and developing 2-3 new courses to develop skills for digital career opportunities.