TALKING STICKERS - offline digital education in any language

Attollo's Talking Stickers technology provides offline, K-12 curriculum-based quality learning opportunities for palm oil plantation children in Indonesia

Although formal education is mandated to be free by the Indonesian government, children around the palm oil plantations are unable to access formal education due to accessibility, availability and quality challenges. Communities around the palm oil are hard to reach and in remote areas. Schools in the communities don’t provide adequate national curriculum. Internet connectivity is limited to access online learning. If connectivity is available, children skip the virtual school sessions if they don’t get smartphones from their parents. Child labor and marriages are common in the palm oil plantations and have increased due to the pandemic. An estimated 5 million children work in the palm oil plantations in Indonesia. 

Attollo’s Talking Stickers solution provides formal K-12 education for children in the palm oil plantations. Talking Stickers are audio-based, works offline and the digital content will be curriculum-based in Indonesian language. The technology platform uses printed stickers with QR codes. Using Attollo’s OLLO app, these QR codes can be scanned to playback an audio attached to the QR code. Attollo will partner with Pusat Kajian Perlindungan Anak / PKPA (Child Protection Assessment Center) in Indonesia. PKPA has been implementing informal education for children in three palm oil plantations districts in Indonesia. PKPA have existing relationships with the Ministry of Village and Education department, UNICEF Indonesia and palm oil companies in these districts. Attollo will leverage the existing networks of PKPA to scale Talking Stickers to reach 375,000 children within 3 years in the three palm oil plantation districts of Indonesia.

Indonesia and Malaysia produce 85% of the world’s palm oil, a ubiquitous ingredient in processed foods, cosmetics and biodiesel. There are more than 2000 palm oil companies in Indonesia alone.

The specific problem we are solving is increasing equitable access to formal K-12 quality learning opportunities for the palm oil plantation communities using Talking Stickers technology. The root cause is communities around the palm oil plantation are in remote areas, with no adequate school curriculum and limited connectivity forcing many children out of school. There is a high drop out between primary and secondary schools in the palm oil plantation communities. Child labor and marriages are common in the palm oil communities of Malaysia and Indonesia.  The COVID-19 pandemic has produced more out of school children in Indonesian’s palm oil plantation. These children are now forced to work morning to evening to meet targets and get extra cash for their families,  as their parents lost their jobs.

There are more than 5 million children in Indonesia alone working directly and indirectly in the palm oil plantations, and a majority of these children are out of school children (an estimated 11 million children in Indonesia alone are working in tobacco, rubber and palm oil plantations).

Our solution Talking Stickers provides for the palm oil communities formal quality K-12 learning opportunities that can be accessed offline, anytime and in the local language. The solution provides an equitable learning opportunity for these children to raise out of poverty and have a bright future.    

The solution serves directly K-12 children who live in the villages around the palm oil plantations in North Sumatra district in Indonesia. The pandemic has exacerbated educational inequality, particularly for children in poverty in the communities around palm oil plantations. Not only do these communities lack access to the internet, households lack the devices necessary to participate in online classes. (Jakarta Post, 2020) This situation is devastating effect on children, with potentially far-reaching and long-term negative impacts, such as dropping out of school, lured to child labor to help their parents, and occurrences of child marriages. For example, a child worker (Indonesia Family Life Survey) demonstrated lower growth in mathematical skills over the long term by 0.55 standard deviation.

In partnership with PKPA, Attollo will develop village level formal curriculum-based education sessions for the palm oil plantation children. The PKPA has developed strong relationships and trust of with village heads (councils), ministry of village and education, UNICEF and palm oil companies to provide village level informal education opportunities. The villagers have provided space for PKPA to conduct these activities. Attollo will engage and train PKPA in developing the digital curriculum-based content in the local dialect. PKPA and Attollo will identify, train and engage with a group of villagers to be entrepreneurs in delivery of formal education with Talking Stickers technology during the pilot. Our plan is conduct two pilots in 2 villages to deliver quality learning opportunities for children and develop one or two local sustainable business models for scaling.  

Talking Stickers solution is well aligned to both the challenge and our selected dimension, i.e., increasing equitable access to quality learning opportunities with for the underserved communities with low connectivity issues for the following three reasons:

• Talking Stickers is an evidence-based solution for quality learning: Our solution has been piloted and evaluated by external researchers in three countries (Tajikistan, India and Canada). The pilots show that Talking Stickers technology helps children in learning outcomes. In collaboration PKPA, Talking Stickers was piloted with children in palm oil communities, and the EdTech solution has the potential to solve accessibility challenges to successfully deliver education to children in hard-to-reach communities.
•  Talking Stickers is an affordable solution: Our solution is audio-based and developing quality content, and accessing the audio content is cheaper than video-based content. The solution is based on QR code technology which is simple and easy to use for children and communities. The cost of printing the QR codes is inexpensive.
• Talking Stickers is a solution that can work in any language or dialect and is available offline: Talking Stickers can be scaled in any language or dialect to provide quality learning opportunities that is accessible, available and affordable across other South-East countries.  

The team lead for Talking Stickers solution is Dr. Lak Chinta, CEO Attollo SE Inc.

Every child loves to play with Stickers. Attollo uses this simple yet powerful medium to provide quality learning opportunities to children. Aided with yet another easy-to-use technology, QR codes - Talking Stickers brings words to life with the help of Attollo’s OLLO app and the QR codes.

Talking Stickers has been tested in early childhood development, antenatal care counselling, primary & secondary school and among differently-abled children of the deaf and mute children.

Talking Stickers can be catalytic and scaled across multiple markets and deployed by local stakeholders with less training. The positive impacts of Talking Stickers are:

1. Technological Innovation: Talking Stickers provides a low-cost and user-friendly way to scan and playback audio content through stickers and ollo app, without need of an internet connection. The technology platform can be programmed in any language or dialect and in any person’s voice. Talking Stickers can capture data analytics (eg. frequency and duration of use).
2.  Scientific Innovation: Talking Stickers aims to provide quality learning opportunities (and not just basic decoding skills which otherwise represent the sole focus of much preprimary and primary school teaching in Low- and Middle-Income Countries (Bowne et al., in press). It has the potential to provide goal-setting, monitoring and direct feedback information in ways that reflect behavioral economics principles (cf. Mayer et al., 2015,).
3.  Social Innovation: Use of audio and capability to record in local language   removes barriers for caregivers who are less literate. Talking Stickers         empowers such caregivers in supporting their child’s learning at home.

Talking Stickers is an evidence-based solution for quality learning: Our solution has been piloted and evaluated by external researchers in three countries (Tajikistan, India and Canada). The pilots show that Talking Stickers technology helps children in learning outcomes. Our results have shown that an audio-based technology solution helps children in executive functions such as memory, attention and regulation. Talking Stickers has also shown to increase classroom empathy and attention, and children have shown to be less aggressive due to the requirement of active listening.  

In collaboration PKPA, Talking Stickers was piloted with children in a palm oil community to demonstrate the potential to solve accessibility challenges to successfully deliver education to children in hard-to-reach communities.

Our core technology is the use of QR codes, and our OLLO app. The backend Talking Stickers platform includes a content management, a account management and an evaluation management. The OLLO app is the front-end app for the beneficiaries.

The OLLO app has a QR code scanner. Using the OLLO app, the QR codes are scanned and the audio attached to that QR code plays back offline without the requirement of streaming.   

Activities performed

1
Quality digital curriculum-based content in local dialect
2
Training implementation facilitators
3
Provide daily accessible, available and quality learning sessions with Talking Stickers

Outputs

1. Product/Service delivery
2. Service delivery
3. Service delivery

Short term Outcomes

1. Availability of quality digital and culturally relevant curriculum-based content
2. Teacher/facilitator-children interactions improved
3. Children enrolled in alternate quality education with Talking Stickers
4. Increased Talking Stickers usage tracked per week

Medium term Outcomes

1. Parent engagement with children improved due to availability and accessibility of education opportunities
2. Children show learning outcomes
3. Village level impact of children learning realized
4. Children learning from other children 

Long term Outcomes

1. Parents take up education seriously. Reducing child labor and child marriages
2. Improved education outcomes of children at the village level increases overall development
3. Better relations in the community with friends and families

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Specifically, Attollo has been tracking three measurable indicators to measure our progress

1. Increase access to quality education for children with Talking Stickers application ( measure, number of schools & number of children using Talking Stickers)

2. Validate target markets and the business viability of Talking Stickers (measure, # of schools and organizations converted from pilots to revenue generating (B2B channel) and  # of parents/caregivers converted from active users to paying customers (B2C channel))

3. Validate market virality of Talking Stickers platform (measure, # of transactions/week on the Talking Stickers platform)

In the pilot project in Indonesia, we will measure number of children using Talking Stickers per village in the palm oil plantation communities. We will also track how long Talking Stickers has been used per week, which will give us a measure of uptake in the palm oil communities and implementation challenges.  We have developed evaluation instruments and tools for Talking Stickers, however, we believe impact studies will require an external researcher and enumerators for data collection, which may not feasible given the budget for the winning team. 

Our impact goal in the next 1 year is to successfully execute a pilot project in 2 villages in the palm oil communities of North Sumatra district. We hope to impact ~3000 children during the pilot project which will give us a solid proof of concept to engage the government and palm oil companies to scale to other districts in Indonesia. 

In the next 3 years, our impact goal is to reach 1 million children in the palm oil communities and in the next 5 years, we will aim to reach 2 million children in Indonesia and Malaysia's palm oil plantation communities. To scale successfully, we require continued support, mentorship and partners in the region and we look to also have a permanent presence in Indonesia within 3 years.  

If Attollo is a successful in the Octava Challenge, we hope to leverage other external funds for evaluation of Talking Stickers in the region. This is crucial especially to scale with the government and private sector where local evidence is always mandatory before replication in other districts. 

From business sustainability point of view, Attollo will partner with PKPA (Indonesia) during the pilot and learn from the experience before developing a strategic partnership plan for other districts and Malaysia. 

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Access to local talent: It is critical that we have access to local talent to develop digital content, implement and monitor the pilot of Talking Stickers. Attollo will engage in partnership with PKPA for the pilot. In addition, Attollo will locate part of the winning prize money for development of digital content, implementation and monitoring of the pilot. 

Financing and Legal: Attollo will look to understand the local accounting practices in Indonesia, and allocate some funds from the prize money in filing local taxes if any. Attollo will also have develop their due-diligence organizational matters, legal documentation required by local and international investors, government and in contracts.   

Market Entry (Access): Attollo will require to engage with the local government and palm oil companies in Indonesia. Attollo believes this will be a barrier and we look forward to our partners to provide support, assistance and advise during the pilot and after the pilot.

Culture: The local culture on how business is done is always underestimated by many, we believe hiring local talent and seeking strong partnerships locally will help us in overcoming this barrier. PKPA existing relationships wit the government and palm oil companies will ensure the stakeholders are engaged during the pilot.  

History: Attollo was founded through participation in the 2015 Hult Prize Challenge, which challenged student entrepreneurs to provide quality early childhood development to 10 million children. Attollo competed with 21,000 global teams and finished runners-up to the $1M Hult prize after a tie with the winning team. Our motivation of Talking Stickers was to develop a solution to solve word gap in underserved children. How do we feed words to starving minds? We came up with a solution which was play-based (every child loves stickers) and a smart way to use technology to solve the word gap. 

Since piloting in 8 countries, Talking Stickers is known today as the Top 100 global innovations in Education. Today, Talking Stickers is used in K-12, maternal health, child nutrition, early childhood education and COVID-19 applications. Attollo has worked with governments, private sectors and NGOs globally.  

Structure: Attollo SE Inc. is a for-profit social enterprise incorporated in May 2015 in Canada.  Attollo’s advisory board includes academia, global civic bodies, and private investors. 

Attollo's vision is to leave no child behind in education.
Our mission is bringing words to life using play-based learning, bringing quality accessible K-12 education as a learning tool for children and hard to reach communities. We accomplish the mission by our three pillars: driving innovation in education, prioritizing children, families and teachers, and transforming institutions.

Attollo currently has 7 full-time and 5 part-time staff. 

Full time include

a) CEO

b) Business development Associates - 2 nos

c) Content developers - 3 nos

d) Graphics designer 

Part time staff include

a) CTO

b) Application developer

c) Quality control

d) Project Manager

e) Consultant - content specialist

Team Attollo aspires to have a culture of diversity and inclusive. The team possess varied skills, background and experiences that help us to take up and execute challenging projects. The team is cohesive, compassionate and passionate to make a difference. We believe in innovation, thinking outside of the box to get things done. The team comprises 70% women and 30% men. 

Attollo was co-founded by four co-founders: 2 engineers with a MBA and 2 neuroscientists with a MBA. Currently, we have a CTO who brings experience in designing the technology platform for the first cloud bank. The business development associates and the content development specialists work in tandem to execute on the projects. We have a dedicated application developer to maintain the technology platform, a project manager to manage operations and a quality control team member to rigorously test the application, product and content before going live. 

Team Attollo speaks 8 languages and has international experience both in public and private sector, negotiations, government relations and working with diverse implementation partners. Although, we are a small team, we have always raised up our game to "get things done".  

Team Attollo led the design, development and launch of a prototype application in 42 days that provides economic recovery from COVID-19 while prioritizing health & wellbeing of front-line workers and their families in Peru.   

Problem: There are about 7.5 million people in the informal economy in Peru contributing 19% of Peru’s GDP.  How might we create the conditions for informal workers to stay safe, while still protecting their families, prioritizing their wellbeing and that of their communities and still access income during COVID-19?

Team's solution: Social Circle app helps in identifying safe social circles around you. It creates multiple social circles that makes the informal workers safe and access income during COVID-19. Social Circle app is a simple, fast and empathetic health and at-risk status app available for Android phones (download the Social Circle app https://bit.ly/2YGBAk8). Social Circle app creates sustainable income for the users through financial transactions made on the social circle platform. Social Circle app further provides micro-investment opportunities within the social circles to invest on local real-estate, regional stocks, buy group insurance, and re-vitalize the local SME sector with micro-loans. The social circle app could bring formality to the informal sector in PERU. 

Attollo currently partners with low resourced private schools and the government sector in India. 

With the low resourced private school, Attollo has been delivering Talking Stickers application to more than 2000+ children (K-10) for the past 4 years. Attollo has worked closely with the school to develop the curriculum for Talking Stickers, and built capacity at the school to develop the content for Talking Stickers. 

In the government sector, Attollo works in two domains using Talking Stickers: a) preschool education in mother tongue and b) antenatal care counselling in the local language. This is for the first time in India, Talking Stickers has brought convergence in health and education (a difficult and challenging proposition for governments) using a simple solution.  

Attollo's partnership with Octava Foundation and MIT Solve will add tremendous value to our solution. Although Attollo has had some experience in piloting in new countries, we relied on our networks to establish support in market access, understanding the local culture and people, and more importantly on how business are done in that country.  

Attollo believes accessing the palm oil plantation communities requires support and a thorough need assessment in collaboration with Octava and MIT Solve. This will help us to be ready for market access, and iterating our likely business model, and plans for scaling. The mentorship and networking connections with the local governments and private sector will be crucial for the success of the project in the palm oil plantations. 

Attollo will also reply on the partners in building our impact measurement practice, a key short-term outcome for scaling the project in the long term in the region. 

Attollo will also benefit with the peer-to-peer network in the region to seek support, advise and collaboration in the region. This will in term help us to seek good practices in legal structuring of the business in the region, and seeking legal opinion in MoU, contract and on other legal matters 9such as local investment etc.)  

Business Model: During our proposed pilot, we will seek partners and mentorship in developing a sustainable business model which leads to a product-market fit. We will iterate in collaboration with the mentors and advisors on the components of a localized and scalable strategy with a sustainable business model. 

Financial: We will rely on mentorship and advise on local accounting practices in Indonesia and being investor ready by the end of the pilot. 

Network connections: We will engage with the government, palm oil companies and implementation communities during the pilot and for discussions in scaling Talking Stickers in other palm oil plantation communities. Advisors and partners in the region will be our goal during the program. 

Monitoring & Evaluation: We would like to conduct impact studies of our solution in Indonesia. Local research partners and think-tanks will be beneficial to be part of the consortium which can lead to policy decision making for the government in Indonesia. 

Product/Service distribution: We would like to engage with different distribution channels during the scaling of the solution in other countries. Partners and mentors will be engaged actively to help us in reaching more underserved communities in the region.