Africa Digital Access Initiative (ADAI)

In the last couple of years, STEM education in Uganda has been on the rise in an effort to get more students, especially girls, taking up science and technology interests in school. Despite these efforts, the number of students taking up STEM courses and education is still very low (at less than 20% of schools have access to STEM Education) across the country and this is even lower especially amongst girls, according to a 2019 UNESCO gender report. OpenStreetMap Uganda (OSM Uganda) plans to change that through open mapping education. 

Current Education curriculums in Uganda and Africa at large are very theoretical and provide limited interaction for students to hands-on learning by doing. With the Africa Digital Access initiative, students will be given an opportunity to access and learn digital skills and technology while contributing to the creation of local information and knowledge. The information added to OpenStreetMap can then be used by a wide range of researchers, developers, planners, and decision-makers who have granular data to evidence their decisions. The ADAI Project, therefore, provides a 360 beneficial ecosystem where the students get to have a more digital and immersive learning environment while contributing to the digital humanitarian and development sector as well. 

Currently, most organizations mainly focus on providing current education content in a digital format like videos or audios of teachers teaching geography, biology, and other subjects. With the ADAI Project, students will be breaking away from the norm and revisiting the current and applicable use of digital mapping tools and technology. This process will provide students a wide-based understanding of their current environment in comparison with the rest of the world.

OpenStreetMap Uganda plans to introduce teachers and students to OpenStreetMap and open mapping through TeachOSM, a program of OpenStreetMap US (OSM US), a 501(c) organization that supports the OpenStreetMap project in the United States through education, technology, and community engagement. TeachOSM was started in 2013 by a group of geography instructors who came together and realized the benefits of sharing resources to enhance teaching and minimize course loads. In 2014 the steering committee formalized the concept and introduced TeachOSM as a volunteer project. In 2016 TeachOSM was officially chartered by OpenStreetMap US, and since then, hundreds of teachers and students have been trained in open mapping methods. 

Through the TeachOSM platform, OSM Uganda in collaboration with OSM US plans to grow the interest in STEM education among students through open mapping by way of project-based learning and human geography curriculum (designed for Advanced Placement in Human Geographycourses). These modules and programs will not only be a natural fit to improve the way geography is taught in schools but also improve the computer skills of students and teachers alike.

The ADAI project plans to introduce the TeachOSM platform, a program of OpenStreetMap US (OSM US), a nonprofit organization that is actively working with the federal government, universities, high schools, and corporations across the United States to support and grow OpenStreetMap. OSM Uganda plans to work very closely with OSM US to adapt and localize the TeachOSM platform to the targeted local schools under this project. The partnership will allow both organizations to build strong working relationships that foster the exchange of ideas and resources to grow the TeachOSM platform across the country and the region. The ADAI project will also open knowledge sharing between US and Ugandan schools by leveraging TeachOSM’s network of US teachers to connect geography students virtually and promote global citizenship.

OSM Uganda plans to start executing the ADAI project in 3 districts: Terego, Madi Okollo, and Arua district. All these districts are found in the West Nile region of Uganda which is a refugee host community for over 1 million refugees from South Sudan, and the DRC

Uganda has over 15 million school-going children across the country. It's estimated that only 5% of these children have proper access to computers.  It's also estimated that close to 60% of students that join universities have not interacted or do not know how to operate a computer. This is a drastically low number that needs to be addressed, to contribute to achieving the Sustainable development goal 4. That seeks to ensure inclusive and fair education and the promotion of lifelong learning quality. 

The government of Uganda has made large strides in the promotion of ICT education in schools through making computer studies an option to study in the O-level curriculum and a subsidiary at A level in secondary schools. This has therefore allowed schools to invest in computer labs where students can learn computer skills together with other subjects. The president has also placed science subjects as one of his top education priorities, this, therefore, making computer studies a major educational component needed in the country.

However, investing, setting up, and maintaining a computer lab in schools is quite a capital-intensive endeavor. It's estimated that only 20% of secondary schools have well-stocked and functioning computer labs across the country. 

The African Digital access initiative seeks to solve this challenge by improving access to ICT equipment, mainly computers (Laptops) to schools and institutions that do not have the financial capacity to buy and maintain computers at their premises. With the ADAI solution, a school does not need to have large capital funds to set up, run and teach computer classes. With only 30 USD per day, a school can start to teach computers to their students.

With the world getting more digital and online the need for computer skills and knowledge has grown dramatically across the world. Most of the jobs today require some level of computer proficiency. Although this is the case, access to ICT equipment especially computers in schools across the country still remains very low. A 2017 NITA-U study found that only 17% of schools had access to computers and only 3% highlighted that the computers they have were sufficient to train the pupils and students effectively. These numbers drastically are lower in refugee and host community settings. This makes it more difficult for recent graduates or students to be marketable in the ever-changing digital job market. A few organizations have set up ICT centers within the settlement for students to come and interact with computers on a regular basis. Although this is a good start, we at OpenStreetMap Uganda believe taking the computers closer to the students (in the classrooms) on a regular all-year basis will provide greater access and ICT learning for the students. A 2019 report by Saving the children and response Innovation highlighted that access to hardware mobility in schools was at 22%, we at OpenStreetMap Uganda would like to increase this value to over 60% to allow for more effective and efficient use of computer hardware and software skills across the country.

Building on the OpenStreetMap in Schools pilot training that OpenStreetMap Uganda and our partners Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team (HOT) carried out in 2018,  across 6 schools within the refugee-hosting communities in northwestern Uganda. These schools include Wandi, Sartori, Ombaci, Ofua, Rhino, and Imvepi secondary schools. The ADAI project targeted 80 teachers and 500 students across these secondary school institutions. 

Also when the COVID-19 Pandemic hit the world in 2019, in Uganda all schools remained closed for 2 years to control the community spread of the COVID-19 virus. We started supporting schools and students to conduct Online classes by ensuring they had access to the computers, our approach become very popular and parents and teachers started paying a small fee for their students to have access to online training, we moved to the home of students and teachers to support them with computers access. Their problem was having access to computers, they had content to teach but didn't have a medium to share the information through, this has popularized our initiative in the community and helped parents and teachers cut out the cost of purchasing computers which would not be affordable for many parents, the computers are provided at a very low cost for students to use. Currently, we are providing computers to schools so that they can train students on how to practically use computers. 

OpenStreetMap is a global project connecting millions of mappers all over the world. Not only will the ADAI Project bring the OSM technology into US and Ugandan classrooms, but it will also introduce students to this vast global network of mappers and potentially lead to a career in geospatial. With 10 chapters of YouthMappers in Uganda, a global USAID-funded program aimed at supporting university students in developing mapping and technology skills, the students will have a pathway for continued learning and skill development in this field in pursuing higher education. Also, this will enable students and emerging young leaders to use and analyze data that can be used to advocate for better services in their communities.

We are excited to get into the ecosystem network of the many amazing MIT Solvers. Also, the funding will help us to develop a school scheduling and laptop distribution mechanism as well as focus on the efficient use and learning of the students in a multitude of computers and IT skills.