Better Minds Education

Better Minds addresses the learning gap experienced by millions of students in rural Africa. Lack of resources leads many rural schools with over crowded classrooms and under trained teachers. Teaching at the Right Level is a proven solution shown to help struggling students get back on grade level and back on track to gain the fundamental skills needed to progress in their education. We partner with rural schools to offer a digital learning program emphasizing competency-based learning and digital literacy that helps students get back on track and provides rural schools access to digital learning opportunities that would otherwise be unavailable to them. We provide best in class learning software on tablet computers, which we bring to schools to implement our digitally enhanced lessons. At scale, this program has the potential to help millions of students get back on track and able to gain the skills needed to succeed.

Our target is the very low learning gains for millions of students in rural Africa. 

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. Youth who do not graduate from Primary / Secondary school, or do so while lacking digital and career skills, are disadvantaged in joining the workforce and earning better incomes.

Our solution is based around what has been proven to work to solve the problem of low learning outcomes: Teaching at the Right Level and Computer Assisted Learning, both of which have established a rigorous evidence-base over multiple evaluations. 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 also offer 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.

We are serving low income families 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 to give them a shot at a better life. 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 girls in both our in-school and center-based programs. The location of learning centers and policies support working mothers and school drop-outs looking to improve their STEM skills.

Students in rural Kenya are often taught in a "1 level fits all" manner that leaves any behind, resulting in students falling further and further behind the curriculum. Crowded classrooms and a lack of teacher resources and training contribute to this problem. 

Better Minds helps teachers teach students at their right level of learning by providing the equipment, training, and learning software to deliver personalized lessons that are adapted to students specific needs. Through regular low-stakes competency assessments, students progress is tracked and communicated to teachers, school leaders, and parents to ensure their learning is on track.

We are currently piloting our program in the medium sized rural town of Kakamega in Western Kenya. We are working with 9 partner schools, serving 700 students weekly. Over the next year we aim to conduct a more rigorous evaluation of the impact of our program on students in these 9 schools, and expand our operation to serve an additional 20 schools, serving 3,000 students each term. 

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.

We are currently serving 700 students across 9 schools and an additional 200 students at our first digital learning center. 

Within the next year we aim to open 3 additional learning centers, serving a total of 3,600 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.

Success Targets

• Demand Metrics

  • Primary Student Afterschool, Weekend, and Holiday Attendance -  % places filled

  • Primary School Partnership Courses - % places filled each term

  • Program Sustainability (% of costs covered by earned revenue)

• Impact Metrics

  • Increase from baseline in the EGRA and EGMA for Reading and Math (>1 level)

  • Increase primary level student performance on practice KCPEs (>1 grade)

  • Increase secondary level students performance on practice KCSEs (>1 grade)

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 organizations founding team consists of both international talent with local experience and members of the community we serve. We're currently 2/3 Kenyan, and we aim to bring in additional key leadership roles exclusively from the Kenyan market as having the context, interest, and network appropriate to scaling our program in our current market. 

Long term we intend to invest in majority local leadership for all of our branches and continue to source talent and develop leadership from the communities we operate in.

We seek to create an open and flexible work environment where all voices are heard and listened to through regular team meetings and feedback sessions, and through liaising with other like-minded organizations working in the space.

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.

SILER BRYAN PublishCancel

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• 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.
• 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.