Kajeet Educational SmartSpots

The way education is delivered is changing, the use of digital tools has increased dramatically, especially since the pandemic and this trend is only going to increase. It is estimated that 9% of students in the UK don't have regular access to the internet. 

The evidence that unconnected students underperform their connected peers is irrefutable. Without access to the internet, homework, course work, research and general education is all impeded.

A Kajeet Educational SmartSpot enables students to access the internet when away from the school site and does so in a safe and secure way. It protects the students and educational establishment from the student accessing harmful or inappropriate material and ensuring their focus remains on education.

The school has control over what websites the students can access, when they can access this and can demonstrate the usage of the students to show value for money.

The Kajeet Educational SmartSpot tackles digital Inequality and is working to close the digital divide. In the UK the problem is vast with an estimated 9% of students not having regular and reliable access to the internet. This adversely affects children from lower socio economic groups, immigrant communities where English is often the second language and refugees. Due to these poor economic conditions these groups can't afford broadband access and as education moves increasingly online and web access is required more frequently these children are becoming more disadvantaged. The knock on effect of this is that it has a negative impact on their education and ultimately their performance in exams. This of course leads to less of these students being able to get the required exam result to reach further/higher education or higher paid jobs and so the cycle continues.

The Kajeet Educational SmartSpot is a 4G (soon to be 5G) MiFi device. You turn it on and connect to it as you would any WiFi and then you're connected to the internet. What's clever is that all the data traffic from the device is routed over a private APN (access point name) and to the Kajeet Sentinel platform. There are 37 patents connected with this technology many attributed to MIT Alumni Ben Weintraub . The Kajeet Sentinel platform is where all the management takes place. There is standard filtering or the ability to create a white list (as opposed to standard black lists), time management controls where educational administrators can set when the device can be operational. There are all the records of device usage, when and how much data has been consumed. There is the ability to check devices in and out and to manage those devices, turn them off, suspend them or turn them back on.

For the students who use the device it's a very simple straight forward process and for the educators it's as simple or in-depth as they want it to be.

The Kajeet Educational SmartSpot Solution serves two main groups.

1) Unconnected Students. By giving access to the internet for educational use it gives students a lifeline. From being excluded from an online world full of information and resources. The simple fact is that with the Kajeet solution they can complete set work and use the same tools as their peers and is life changing.

2) Educators. Schools and colleges are evolving the learning experience and are now taking advantage of the technology available. If 100% of their students don't have the same tools then, not only are the students disadvantaged but so are the schools. This will be reflected in poor attainment in exams and a two tiered education system disadvantaging and in many cases disenfranchising many students.

We are continuing to work with educators to understand their evolving needs and amend our platform to meet those needs.

The problem is that due to Covid 19 the UK school system was forced to embrace digital learning almost overnight. The issues with devices, laptops and tablets was quickly addressed to support this, the issue of connectivity was not. 

Our solution addresses the 9% of the UK student population who don't have the internet when away from school. 

We ensure all pupils get access to the same learning experiences so teaching can evolve unencumbered.

Our solution has been established in North America for some time and supporting a large number of students there prior to and increasingly so since the pandemic. North America has been more advanced in its use of digital tools for education. 

Since the pandemic the rest of the world was required to move to digital teaching and learning overnight. Schools are now continuing to use these digital tools and the use of these will become increasingly predominant. For many educators understanding that online access is so important and not available for all is not yet fully understood. Many educators are building a digital strategy based on an assumption that all student have online access or if they don't then they can somehow find somewhere to get online. This is not offering equal education for all children and and is a serious flaw in the advancement of digital learning.

There are many ways to provide connectivity to unconnected students however, while there are many benefits the internet brings it also comes with a dark side. Our solution protects students from being able to access any harmful content or partake in any questionable activities. It does this by the way it treats the data traffic from the Kajeet SmartSpot device ensuring it all goes through the Kajeet servers where comprehensive filtering takes place to protect the students and the school. This comes with preset controls for different age groups or you can set your own "white list" of websites the school wants its pupils to access. It can also demonstrate how the internet has been used by the children, what they've accessed, what they've tried to access and when. This not only can demonstrate the value that this solution brings but also raise any red flags to non standard behaviour. There is also the capability to fully manage the devices in terms of inventory and also connectivity, they can be turned on/off remotely, access times can be set along with a record of the amount of data consumed by each user. This solution comes with dedicated support so unlike a network operator we can work on individual issues to ensure the correct resolution is reached quickly.   

In the UK the solution current serves several hundred users. Our goal is to have 10,000 in the next year, In five years we'd like that number  be 200,000. In the US there are hundreds of thousands of users being served by the Kajeet solution.

The measurement of progress is very simple, its the number of Kajeet SmartSpot devices deployed and the amount of mobile data being used. Typically one device equates to one student being able to access their work, research and homework. The more devices deployed the more students have the same opportunity as their classmates.

With regards the UN Sustainable Development Goals connectivity is a key element to achieving these goal. Access to information is key, access to the right education is key. A decent education mean you understand these goals and what is needed to achieve them. In turn this affords you access to a proper well paid job where you can influence or make key decisions to support and enhance the UN's goals.

In the UK we have a team of 6.

Technically the solution is complete the team in the UK is about building the business and helping schools understand how important digital equality is in education as the UK education system transforms from one that was almost entirely paper based to one that is increasingly digital one.

Many of the team are affiliated  with a non profit organisation called theunconnected.org (www.theunconneceted.org) who's goal it is to contribute to solving the global issues of digital inequality. 

Two of the team are ex-teachers who understand better than anyone how important an equal education is for all students and are truly passionate about the potential that Kajeet can bring to UK education as a whole. The whole team is focused on bringing the Kajeet brand to prominence in the UK  and to raise awareness about the risks of not addressing digital inequality in UK education and doing this in a timely manner.

We select the best people who apply for any role regardless of the gender, colour, we see only abilities rather than disabilities. We don't write down any goals because we don't feel that we need targets, we are aligned, if you're the best person for the job then you will be hired. We collectively feel that the more diverse the team the more different perspectives and experiences they can bring which will only have huge value for us as an organisation.

Our solution is solving a very new problem and is time critical. We are looking for support to raise awareness, gain credibility and access resources which will help us succeed as quickly as possible. Exposure to media and conferences will be vitally important as will exposure to MIT's network along with mentoring and coaching. New ideas are so valuable and help seeing things from a different perceptive will be key to our future success.

We think we have a good product fit and strategy but would hugely value an independent view of that to ensure we continually improve what we're doing in this area. While our marketing strategy is now bearing fruit this could always be improved but we are really struggling with public relations. For a topic which is so relevant we can't get any exposure in the press which we still find strange. We are looking to rapidly expand our client base and any support in that area would be vital. Getting support in all these areas would be game changing for us.

Our key goal in this area is the UK Government, The Department of Education. This is really their issue and we believe we could solve this problem together permanently. We have had some communications but we're struggling to get to the key decision makers. Our view is that an endorsement from MIT would make a huge difference in that respect.

We don't qualify for this prize.