KAINO

The Spirit of Innovation...

Having studied and lived all our lives in Africa, we noticed how many teachers in Uganda lack good academic content like school notes and textbooks, have poor lesson plans and many don't even teach according to the lesson plans which in turn  causes children to have poor subject notes and learn very little even though they are in school. Many teachers are still paid very low salaries and are not accountable to the school administrators. Today, many children are still highly inconvenienced by carrying school bags with many heavy text books to and from school causing several health issues.

Because of this, KAINOafrica has developed an EdTech solution which uses the E-Ink KAINOtab E-Book reader, Web and Mobile Apps to empower teachers by aggregating academic content like; Curriculum aligned lesson plans, class notes and digital textbooks from primary and secondary school teachers, book owners, publishers and academic bodies. This will in turn enable us to leverage this content so that teachers, students and other users can use this platform to easily access content using mobile money at a fraction of the price one would require to get this content conventionally.

Our model is simple and based on George Couros's philosophy that "Technology will never replace great teachers, but technology in the hands of a great teacher can be transformational" and now with the KAINOtab in the hands of a teacher in Africa bundled with training and support, education will be transformative, making their lives easier and better. Once our system is accepted and implemented in a school, teachers will receive FREE KAINOtabs and the school will be required to pay a user fee per child, per term depending on the location of the school, rural or urban. The system has been built to run on both online and offline modes because of the poor internet infrastructure in many parts of Africa and users will not have to subscribe to any internet data packages to access our system because it's designed to run a reverse data billing model.

The school management systems' market in Africa has no dominant player because even the most effective systems can't transform the education sector without; customizable timetables, curriculum aligned lesson plans and good class notes. Our transformative solution gives teachers a self-assessment progress bar and real-time access to curriculum aligned lesson plans in sync with government syllabuses and well prepared notes crafted by the best educationists.

1. Schools, who are our target customers receive well prepared teachers and a cost effective administration system.
2. Teachers, who are our primary product users will learn the best teaching methods from each other using the KAINOtab together with training and support making them more effective and productive.
3. Students, who are our primary beneficiary receive value in form of proper academic content available anytime, anywhere and reduced weight of school bags since the KAINOtab gives access to digital textbooks.
4. Parents, who are the end beneficiaries in turn get a higher civil society participation, affordable digital textbooks and class notes for their children.

At a button click, parents and school administrators can now know the progress of teachers using the self-assessment progress bar in our web and mobile apps.

Our well crafted class notes can be accessed by users in urban or rural areas. Users don't need to subscribe for data and the system also works online and offline.

Students no longer need to carry heavy loads of textbooks in their school bags because users can have access to any textbook of their choice at an affordable fee charged on a subscription basis using the KAINOtab which is an E-ink tablet.

Our users will use the KAINOtab, Web and Mobile Apps to access content like; Curriculum aligned lesson plans, class notes and digital textbooks from primary and secondary school teachers, book owners, publishers and academic bodies using mobile money at a fraction of the price one would require to get this content conventionally.

The system is being built to run on both online and offline modes without a need for internet data subscription.

The KAINOtabs will be manufactured, distributed and sold across the country by a leading telecom company ensuring product relevance and repeat sales. Once our system is implemented in a school, teachers will receive FREE KAINOtabs and the school will be required to pay a user fee per child, per term depending on the location of the school, rural or urban.

We are currently testing the MVP prototype of the KAINO system which we plan to complete and cover the development as our proof of concept, conduct pilot/ experiment tests in four schools in Uganda with over 4,000 students.

Increased student-teacher contact hours with technology empowered teachers impacting over 30 Million lives of school going children in Africa.

We desire to see more teachers and students using technology to access academic content at any time or place of there convenience without limitations of internet connectivity.

Students from rural areas should be able to access the same academic content like their counterparts in urban schools at low and affordable costs.

With a successful product launch and awareness campaigns by our sales and marketing teams, we intend to carry out several pitches in schools and academic related events within the country targeting primary and secondary school owners and administrators. Once a school implements our systems, every teacher will be given a free KAINOtab which they can use to upload their notes and also access notes and textbooks from other teachers and academic bodies. The KAINOtabs will also be distributed and sold across the country by a leading telecom company for market penetration and repeat sales.

Since we are developing and updating our prototype, we have a very limited number of Beta users of about 200 users, but we intend to do a pilot test in the same school here in Kampala with over 4,000 students impacting over 10,000 lives with this test. The users will be able to have access to all books in our KAINOlibrary anytime, anywhere of their choice at a very affordable cost. Administrators are able to follow and keep track of the teachers' progress using the self assessment progress bar indicating how much and what teachers have covered in real time.

Within 12 months, we intend to be implementing our system in over 50 schools in and around Uganda with over 50,000 students impacting over 150,000 lives within our fist year. The users will be able to have access to all books in our KAINOlibrary anytime, anywhere of their choice at a very affordable cost. Teachers and administrators will also be able to follow and keep track of the teachers progress using the self assessment progress bar indication how much and what the teachers have covered in real time.

In 3 years, we expect to have over 1,000,000 active accounts.

Alfred Opio, Founder & Chief Executive Officer [Bachelor's degree in Industrial engineering and management, Lean Six Sigma, Quality and Process improvement]

Lyndah Kembabazi, Co-founder & Chief Creative Officer [Bachelor's degree in Tourism, Former Creative Director]
Meshach Moiti, Chief Technology Officer [Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Applications developer]
Cedric Namakoola, Chief Administrative Officer [Bachelor's degree in Education]
Marylyn Karamaga, Chief Marketing officer
Sharon Nyafamba, Administrative Assistant & Ag. Chief Financial Officer
Samuel Omoding, Chief Digital Officer
Innocent Tugumisireze, Chief Legal Officer
Hillary Tusiime, UX/UI Developer
Jeff Businge, Business Administrator
For more information, visit: https://kaino.africa/index.php...

Our revenue model entails that once the KAINO system is implemented in a school, all teachers will each receive a FREE KAINOtab and the school will be required to pay a user fee per child, per term (3 terms a year) of between $1 to $5 depending on the location of the school, rural or urban. The KAINOtabs will be manufactured, distributed, sold and repaired across the whole country by a leading telecom company ensuring product relevance and repeat sales which can now be purchased by any parent, student or teacher by simply walking into any MTN shop in any district in the country. The digital KAINOlibrary will be accessed for a very affordable user fee per user, per term on a subscription basis using mobile money transactions. All transactions on our platform will be done using the mobile money platforms as the preferred transaction channel which is also readily accessible throughout the country at over 90% of the Ugandan population as opposed to bank accounts or bank cards which is at less than 30% of the population.

We here at KAINOafrica are applying to SOLVE so as to get a chance to learn the best EdTech startup business techniques of success and implementation from world industry experts at MIT. We also strongly want to be funded and mentored by the SOLVE team whom we shall have to once we are given access to the SOLVE community. With a successful partnership with MIT SOLVE, we will gain entry into the SOLVE market place connecting us with several innovators whom we can greatly learn from and share ideas.

Our major key barrier has been funding to act as a runway till the MVP launch. This is a huge problem to us in that the founder and co-founders have had to give up some of their extra income to facilitate the employees ans smooth running of the company which is still not close to enough.