Edsy Bitsy

An offline-first low-data learning platform for learners to continue their lessons in byte-sized format through basic smartphones. 

What problem are we committed to solving? 

Edsy Bitsy is committed to increasing equitable access to quality learning opportunities for underserved learners in low connectivity environments.

What solution are we proposing, and what processes and technology does it use? 

We will bring the power of education technology to schools in developing countries through our progressive web application platform and API. 

How could our solution positively change lives if it was scaled to Vietnam, Indonesia, Philippines, Thailand, and/or Malaysia?

This will fast track the next generation’s access to educational resources and opportunities so learning can happen continuously. While equipping teachers, and other stakeholders within the school with the digital literacy and confidence needed to engage meaningfully with education technology and enable capacity-building.

Around 50 million students in these countries have lost access to education during the Covid-19 pandemic due to the digital divide. Without the ability to go back to school on a regular basis, many do not have the guidance or tools to learn at home, causing them to lose about half a year of learning.

With less than 60% internet penetration in Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam, learners do not have access to stable internet connectivity or access to devices to use for home-based learning.

Indonesia - Children who attend school struggle to acquire basic academic skills - half of 15-year-old students achieve a minimum proficiency level in reading and less than one third of them did so in maths. 55% of school leavers are illiterate.

Thailand - Half of Grade 9 students have minimal proficiency levels in maths and reading, and 1/3 of 15-year olds are functionally illiterate. Rates are more acute in rural areas and reach 47%.

Vietnam - Nearly 37% of upper-secondary school-aged students are out-of-school

Philippines - Only 53% of children from poor households attend high school, compared to 81% from the high-income households.

Malaysia - A nationwide survey showed that only 6% and 9% own computers and tablets respectively, and 46% own smartphones

Edsy Bitsy can be used on basic smartphones, which many parents in the region have access to. With our progressive web application, learning on Edsy Bitsy can be done even when the internet connection cuts off.

Target Market

Primary and Secondary schools teaching learners in developing areas.

Target Users

Primary and Secondary school learners living in low to middle-income households are situated in areas with unstable internet connectivity. 

Who are they, and in what ways are they currently underserved?

Learners don’t have access to their own devices due to financial constraints or stable internet connection because of poor infrastructure. Online learning can only be done through parents' smartphones.

Teachers teaching in these schools, don't have the resources to implement remote learning for their students or use technology in the classroom. These teachers are hesitant to implement technology for their students to learn due to low digital literacy and students not having access to devices. 

Understand Needs

We have reached out to over a hundred teachers in our target schools to interview them to understand their goals, challenges and current solutions used. We’ve given teachers use of our solution, to get them using it which they give us weekly feedback for product improvements. 

How We Help?

1. Scale the teacher’s ability to guide students to learn remotely 

2. Provide feedback on students’ answers to increase their depth of understanding on topics 

3. Engage parents to be part of their child’s learning and guide them to learn at home 

4. Byte-sized learning enables learners to use their parents’ phones for a short period of time when their home for learning purposes 

5. Offline-first technology enables students to learn without the need for stable internet connectivity

Problem

Learners living in areas with poor internet connectivity without their own smart devices are unable to learn remotely when they are not in school.

Solution

Edsy Bitsy is a low data, offline-first remote learning platform for teachers to continue their class in byte size format and for students to develop self-paced learning habits with basic smartphones. 

The offline-first technology enables learners to continue accessing questions and answering them without internet connectivity after it's been loaded. 

The bite-sized questions enable learners to learn by borrowing their parents' smartphones for a short time.

Target Population

Primary and secondary school learners living in low to middle-income households are situated in areas with poor and unstable internet connectivity. Many of these learners don’t have access to their own devices or internet connection, they will only be able to learn by borrowing their parents’ smartphones.

Edwin is Edsy Bitsy's founder, a strategy and product management expert. He has founded an education community helping over 250 university students within 2 years.

Edsy Bitsy is innovative because
1. It's a Progressive Web Application that enables users to access learning content on the platform without stable internet connectivity. 

2. It enables learners to exercise independent and critical thinking with their voice explanations. 

3. Edsy Bitsy provides a digital identity to learners in developing areas where they currently do not have one. 

Education 4.0: 
With our world moving into the 4th industrial revolution, students need problem-based and collaborative learning, student-driven learning, interpersonal skills and innovation and creativity. Many teachers we’ve spoken to have shared that their students are unable to exhibit innovative and independent thinking.

Explain how it could be catalytic:

With Edsy Bitsy, students are empowered by having their voices heard. Teachers shared how their learners have become more confident in speaking and collaborating during class. 

With the digital identity every student has on Edsy Bitsy, more educational technology companies will now be able to provide their solutions to learners in developing regions. 

As Edsy Bitsy paves the way for more technology in the classroom of underserved schools. We help to improve collaboration between students, prepares learners for technology in the workplace and helps learners with different learning styles. 

Edsy Bitsy ran a pilot program with a Non-profit Organisation (NPO) that runs after school literacy intervention programmes for learners in over 30 different schools. These programs were cancelled during the pandemic, leaving many students without support.

Solution

Edsy Bitsy provided a guide for over 60  parents during this 1-month pilot program to teach their children through our voice-based questions. The NPO would send out an online book each week to parents. After reading to their children, parents would access questions about the book on the Edsy Bitsy platform for their children to answer. The voice-based questions guided parents in having a discussion with their children to answer the questions.

Parents shared 3 main improvements in their children during this program
1. Improved confidence in speaking English
2. Better reading ability and understanding of instructions
3. Learners are able to understand the message of the story better

Edsy Bitsy was built on a Progressive Web Application (PWA), which takes advantage of the latest technologies to combine the best of web and mobile apps. A PWA is a website that looks and behaves as if it is a mobile app. PWAs are built to take advantage of native mobile device features, without requiring the end-user to visit an app store, make a purchase and download software locally. Instead, a PWA can be located with a search engine query and accessed immediately through a browser.

PWA makes use of background sync which limits the time spent waiting for data and delivers a smooth and responsive online experience. Background sync allows you to store data locally on the user’s device to access them while offline. If the user is connected to the internet and sends a request, the app will send the request, if not it would wait till the user is connected. 

Edsy Bitsy enables students living in remote areas to continue learning remotely, without the need for stable internet connectivity or their own devices. As the platform can be accessed even after the connection cuts off. Byte-sized content enables learners to learn in shorter periods using their parents' smartphones.

Teachers can continue their lessons outside of the classroom. Through voice-based questions, teachers can guide parents to teach their children or guide learners remotely. Learners are able to apply their knowledge by explaining answers with voice nrecordings. Feedback from teachers through the platform can increase the interactivity of remote learning for underserved learners. 

Dr Tania, an associate professor of psychology at the University of California, Berkeley proved the explaining oneself is a powerful mechanism for learning. 

Activities

Teachers we're helping aim to help their learners think innovatively and exercise independent thinking. This is done by students applying the foundations of learnings in classrooms to questions to learn something new. Using Edsy Bitsy, teachers prompt students to explain their answers to questions posed. According to the research done by Dr Tania, explaining affects learning by leading people to discover and favour hypotheses that support simple and broad explanations. 

Outputs 

Teachers shared about students referring back to foundations taught in class while answering questions. Edsy Bitsy has enabled students to think in a structured manner to explain their thought processes. This is aligned with Dr Tania’s study which states that evaluating or seeking explanations can trigger useful processes, such as comparison and abstraction, and can help us recognize when a prior belief should be abandoned

Outcomes

Students have improved cognitive development in classes as they are able to answer the same question posed in class with different answers. Aligned with Dr Tania’s study that shows learners who engage in explanation go beyond the obvious to look for broad and simple patterns underlying what they’re trying to explain, and in so doing they often make useful discoveries about shared properties or causal structure. That’s why explaining is so important for cognitive development, education and for scientific advance.

Edsy Bitsy is working towards UNSDG’s Goal 4 of Quality Education. Currently, 103 million youth worldwide lack basic literacy skills, and more than 60 percent of them are women. 6 out of 10 children and adolescents are not achieving a minimum level of proficiency in reading and math.

Edsy Bitsy's progress is measured by the number of learners using the platform to learn.

We onboard students through a teacher-led innovation model, by giving them accounts and training them to use the platform. Between the end of July 2021 to September 2021 we have a total of 40 teachers using the Edsy Bitsy platform. 

Our impact on learners is dependent of the number of students teachers are using the platform with. With an average class size of 30, when Edsy Bitsy rolls out all student accounts in October we aim to have an impact on over 1000 students. 

We look to increase equitable access to quality education by scaling our offline-first model to serve learners in poorly connected areas, in the Southeast Asian region.

1 Year Plan

Edsy Bitsy will be aiding 100,000 students in Southeast Asia.

3 Year Plan

Edsy Bitsy will be used by students in public schools and non-profit private schools in Southeast Asia. 

5 Year Plan

We aim to ensure that at least 50% of youths of the 103 million that lack basic education around Southeast Asia.

Aim to Aid Youths

1. Achieve basic numeracy and literacy skills.

2. Acquire the knowledge and skills needed to promote sustainable development, including, among others, through education for sustainable development

Scaling Successful Beta Phase to SEA

In the African region, we are running our beta testing phase with close to 20 non-profit private schools and public schools. We plan to take the positive results and feedback from stakeholders as a proof of concept to schools in the Philippines and Thailand we are in talks with to run our beta phase. 

Within Southeast Asia, we have partnerships with 2 Singaporean Edtech companies already helping underserved learners in the Philippines and Thailand. Through this partnership, Edsy Bitsy will be running our beta phase with schools in the region. Further expansion would be through state unions in charge of schools. 

A reliable and credible local partner to help us navigate the field.

Top 3 Barriers

1. Difficulty Finding Credible and Suitable Key Local Partners

The importance of a reliable local partner goes beyond making sales but also building trust with the local schools. As a 'foreign' company in the eyes of the school, they may not trust us enough at the early stage to implement our solution. 

2. Navigating the Developing Markets

Edsy Bitsy was founded during the Covid-19 pandemic to aid learners whose education has been disrupted by school closures. However, many schools in developing nations do not have any online presence. Making it difficult for us to locate and reach them. 

3. User Learning Curve

Teachers and students in underserved areas are used to physical copies of textbooks and assessments. They require guidance on adopting technology and implementing it into the school's curriculum. Onboarding our users around the platform would require more offline support.

Edsy Bitsy was founded in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic because we saw how Singapore's education system was disrupted - transiting from the traditional classroom setting to home-based learning.  

Edwin saw the struggle Singapore's educators and learners were experiencing and thought to himself, "If Singapore was struggling, I bet the less developed countries are having it worse." That was true.

Edwin was also a FinTech geek, he was researching financial inclusivity and the problem of the digital divide. The data suggested that more than 40% of the world doesn't have access to stable internet connectivity. But here's the thing, more than 80% of the world has mobile data with at least 256 kbps. However, the majority of the education app available in the market were designed for developed markets like Singapore, Hong Kong, and Australia alike.

We matched the qualitative and quantitative facts and began our mission of making learning easier everywhere. 

Our motivation stems from our belief in quality and engaging education for all, regardless of location or economics. With the world moving towards a predominantly remote learning environment, it’s more important now than ever to ensure that every child globally has access to proper education.

The philosophy behind the development of our solution is to be generation focus. We hope that Edsy Bitsy will grow and help raise generations of leaders in every field.

1. Edwin Ho - Business Strategy Lead
2. Deevak s/o Premdas - Sales & Customer Success Lead

Edwin - Business Strategy Lead

With almost 4 years of tech entrepreneurship experience - Edwin has always been experimenting with applying various technologies to tackle problems. He was a product manager in China - equipped with product management and stakeholder management skills. He was also a business development lead in a consultancy firm that helps post series B startups expand into Asia to hone his business acumen. 

Deevak - Sales & Customer Success Lead

The mentality of a hustler combined with the curiosity of an entrepreneur. Deevak has over 2 years of experience as a startup guy. He was previously in the finance industry for over 2 years serving and managing commercial relationships with enterprise clients. He later joined a consultancy as a market research analyst to deepen his understanding of the macro landscape of the world.

Before we built our first prototype, we had to validate for problem-solution fit. Edwin was faced with the challenges of executing the experiment with limited resources and users based in South Africa. 

While others may feel discouraged by the limitations, Edwin saw it as a clear opportunity. He conceptualised the experiment idea around what our target users have instead of what they don't. 

He designed the validation experiment with only WhatsApp and PowerPoint - with his plan and our effort, we conducted the entire experiment with only these two products. 

The results were positive! We gained new paying customers after it as well as validated the problem-solution fit without spending any money and managed to serve our end users while both of us were based in Singapore. 

We currently do not have any local partners to support our Go-to-Market strategy. 

However, since the launch of our first prototype in mid-July 2021, we have been working with 15 educational institutions - comprising schools and NGOs - across 4 different countries. 

We hope to scale the growth of Edsy Bitsy through reliable and credible local partners across South-East Asia through this social challenge by Octava. As we have learnt that earning trust from management or principals in the rural areas is one of the biggest challenges we need to overcome. 

I believe we will be able to look further and grow faster if we have the opportunity to sit on the shoulders of titans like Octava and MIT.

1. Access to Resource Partners Across Industries and Sectors

With Octava and MIT Solve's network, this would help us overcome the barrier of sourcing for reliable key partners in the regions where we wish to accelerate our impact.

This value adds by bringing only credible partners to our operations. Reducing the risk of Edsy Bitsy taking chances on unvetted self-proclaim local experts as we attempt to navigate rural areas of the developing markets.

2. Assessment of Appropriate Support and Resources to Scale

At this phase, we could identify the limitations faced by our end-users who wish to make a change in their current environment but we are experiencing difficulty assessing what kind of support we should provide to overcome limitations that are beyond our product's capability. 

For instance, despite keeping our UI/UX simple, some parents of the students are still not sure how to log in to Edsy Bitsy and experience the full benefits. How can we shorten this learning curve and concurrently raise their digital literacy?

This support and resources are necessary and worth the investment, however, how much is appropriate and which methods are most effective? These are areas we believe that Octava and MIT Solve's could value add to our mission.

Human Capital

As an early-stage startup, sourcing for passionate and competent individuals to join the mission is tough with little capital to attract talents. The goal is to have a smart company - not a team of smart consultants. We hope to hire smart people and train them enough so they start telling us what to do.

Network Connections

Leads are best kept warm - but it'll be even better if they are warm from the start. Making the right connection in a warm network could shorten our partnership cycle - this would also mean accelerating our impact on the schools and children.

Public Relations

Perception through the eyes of the public is important as it helps the company build credibility. Earning the trust and inspiring more to join the mission.

Monitoring & Evaluation

The goal is to make data-driven decisions to scale efficiency and make prudence decisions rather than speculative ones.

Technology / Technical Support 

To reach people that haven't been reached, we need to try things that others have not. Technology is meant to solve problems and make life better - we want to make radical changes to education for generations to come.