Edu at Edge

Inequality in the world is the norm that we have allowed to thrive. Inequality also exists in access to education well as illiteracy is universal. The sad reality is, access to education is not universal, but rather it is for a few lucky ones.

According to the World Economic Forum, 3.5 billion people live in last-mile areas and face difficulty in accessing social services. Of these, 500 million are found in Africa. In Uganda, 77% of the population live in last-mile villages and peri-urban areas of the country. Many of these people have to walk distances of over 15 km to reach the nearest social services, a journey that takes 2:30 hours on average. In Uganda over 9 million pupils live in rural villages and refugee camps where access to education is still a challenge, they walk over 15km to access schools every day and at least 64% have dropout of school due to the difficulty in access to education and the prevailing contagious diseases like covid-19, flu & ringworms.  The increasing number of school dropouts has seen a rising number of early marriages and child pregnancies.  According to the World Health Organization Report of 2020, every year, an estimated 21 million girls aged 15–19 years in developing regions become pregnant and approximately 12 million of them give birth. At least 777,000 births occur to adolescent girls younger than 15 years in developing countries. In Uganda, over 650,000 teen pregnancies were recorded by the government between 2020 and 2021 and on average, over 32,000 teenage pregnancies are recorded per month.  In our research, we found that the causes of these child marriages and early pregnancies include but are not limited to failure to attend formal education, lack of information about sexual and reproductive health and rights, Inadequate access to services tailored to young people, Family, community, and social pressure to marry, and Sexual violence.

In addition, failure to access education has led to youth unemployment.  more than 75% of Uganda’s population is below the age of 30, with the country having one of the highest youth unemployment rates at 13.3% of the number of youth actively looking for a job as a percentage of the labor force in Sub-Saharan Africa and at least 40% have resorted to drug abuse and other related evil things because they can’t find paying jobs because they don’t have skills to be considered for the available jobs.  We are still seeing all these challenges in our community because there are injustices in access to education, so EDU AT EDGE is the solution.

EDU AT EDGE is a technology-based initiative that aims at increasing and easing access to education and awareness of the dangers/impact of child marriages, early pregnancies, and Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) for children of 3-15years living in last-mile/ rural areas and refugee camps, young mothers of 12-19 years, and children with disabilities.

Our key solution is to identify village members in the community and train them to uplift their formal and informal education teaching/delivery skills and digital skills. After successfully completing the training, they become EDU AT EDGE Community Educator (CEs) and are deployed in the community with android tablets that contain the EDU AT EDGE application to deliver home-based education to young mothers, children with disabilities, and those living in rural villages and refugee camps. This application provides a Technology Enhanced Learning System (TELS) ensuring the delivery of quality education. In case of consultation from more senior teachers, our Android App offers consultation interfaces between senior teachers and CEs, and students and CEs. Our TELS also provides study/reading materials and pre-recorded lesions on both formal and informal education to the students and teaching materials to CEs.

- children with disabilities who have to walk miles to access education. our solution helps this special category of children to access education at their convinces as we make education(teachers and TELS) come to them at their homes/communities instead of them moving long distances to access education.

- Young/teenage mothers between the age of 12 to 19 years old and their children. our solution is to help children who dropped out of school due to child marriages, early pregnancies, and other harmful practices to access education again and their children directly from their homes/communities as a way of helping them to overcome or cope with the mental health and psychosocial challenges they encounter from their experiences.

 - Pupils between the age of 3 to 15 years live in rural villages and refugee camps where access to education is still a challenge. our solution helps these children to have a chance to access education with ease. our model makes education(teachers and TELS) come to them at their homes/communities and refugee camps instead of them moving long distances to access education. 

- Unemployed local community members who are motivated, high potential people with minimal qualifications as teachers. We put skill set in their hands to earn a living through delivering home-based education to young mothers, children with disabilities, and those living in rural villages and refugee camps.  

The management team for EDU AT EDGE is a diverse group with strong skills in technology, finance, operations, marketing, and sales. Our primary criteria when filling these executive positions was an extraordinary past achievement. For example, our  Executive Director Frank Mugisha has five years of experience in leadership, entrepreneurship, and business management. he is a lawyer and primary teacher by profession, he taught for four years at Faith Primary school Nansana Gganda and current he is the founder and CEO of Akatale on cloud (U) Ltd. our Head accounting and co-founder, Uwinyana Mary Gorret, has seven years of experience in business administration, finance, and banking. she has worked with Orient bank Uganda (Now I&M Bank) in different roles for six years.  our Head of projects implementation and Field services, Solomon Mugume has four years of experience in business management and social/ community work. he is a lawyer by profession and has worked with Bishop Paul Kalanda Foundation  Masaka and Refugee Law Project as head of the project implementation team. our Head Comunity Educators Eria Namakajjo and his co-head community Educators Christine Namazzi are both professionals and experienced primary teachers who have served for four and three years respectively. and our  Chief Digital Officer  Richard Miyingo has five years of experience in software programming and development, computer science, and information technology. being that we are a diverse team with rich experiences, puts us in a better position to execute and deliver this solution. 

Also, the founders and the managing team of EDU AT EDGE come from the communities or categories of people were are targeting to impact putting us in a better position to know the exact challenges of our targeted customers. for example, we recruit and empower community members to Community Educators to teach children within their communities, also  ED Frank Mugisha was born and raised in a village called Kiremba meaning (at end of a rural village) where injustices in access to social service is still an issue. this village mothers and sisters cannot access education and maternal health care due to long distances and indigenous cultural beliefs for example a girl child is not supposed to go to school and expecting mothers are only able to seek help from local birth attendants in the shrines. This kind of treatment to our mothers and sisters motivated him to start advocating for the right to quality education and health care for all. These kinds of experiences put our team in a better place to know and solve the challenges of our targeted population.

We are applying to access the opportunities-

1. Team capacity building support 

2 . financial support and financial management training opportunities  

3.  connection and collaborations with our intended key strategic partners like organizations, institutions, and individuals in the education sector and EdTech. 

4. Training on resilience and sustainable development of the impactful organization/company. 

our solution is innovative in two ways;-

1. we use local community members to partake in delivering education to young generation direct from their homes. we recruit and empower members of the community who are motivated, high potential people with minimal qualifications as teachers to deliver education within their communities using a fusion of both physical and digital intervention. 

2. we use technology in delivering education to children direct from their homes. our CEs are deployed with android tablets that contain the EDU AT EDGE application to deliver home-based education to young mothers, children with disabilities, and those living in rural villages and refugee camps. This application provides a Technology Enhanced Learning System (TELS) ensuring the delivery of quality education. In case of consultation from more senior teachers, our Android App offers consultation interfaces between senior teachers and CEs, and students and CEs. Our TELS also provides study/reading materials and pre-recorded lesions on both formal and informal education to the students and teaching materials to CEs.

To revolutionize access to education with resilient school systems delivering education to 865,000  young mothers, children with disabilities, and those living in rural villages and refugee camps in East Africa.

we plan to  achieve this by working with community leaders, at least 36041 community educators, parents and collaborating with key players in education sector and like minded organizations like USAID, UNDP, UNICEF ministries in charge of education among others.

1. through counting the number of successful enrolled and continuing students in our education system
2. through  counting the number of recruited and empowered Community Educators(CEs)
4. revenue raised and net profit
5. through counting the number of successful collaboration and partnerships gotten  

The core technology that powers our  solution is the EDU AT EDGE application which is a Technology Enhanced Learning System (TELS) supported embedded  with some elements of  Augmented Reality and Artificial Intelligence / Machine Learning technology ensuring  delivery of quality education. In case of consultation from more senior teachers, our  TELS offers consultation interfaces between senior teachers and CEs, and students and CEs. Our TELS also provides study/reading materials and pre-recorded lesions on both formal and informal education to the students and teaching materials to CEs.

The concept of equality, diversity, and inclusion is integrated into our solution as we provide inclusively and equal empowerment and inclusive and equal education for all. This is seen in our venture as we recruit and empower both vulnerable mothers and youths to work as community educators who later educate both vulnerable young mothers, children with disabilities, and unprivileged pupils ( both boys and girls). Also, the founding and managing team of EDU AT EDGE is composed of both males and females, young and old which is also a clear sign that there is a total integration/ incorporation of equality, diversity, and inclusion . 

• Student subscription fees ( USD8 per student per term)

• Subscription to training services and platforms by CEs

• Advertisements on the digitized training platform

• Selling services to humanitarian organizations like UNICEF, USAID, UNDP, UNHCR  among others.
• donations/grants and contributions from partnerships.

• Franchise fees 

1. service subsidization, we are planning to sell our products or services to humanitarian organizations like UNICEF, USAID, UNDP, and UNHCR  to help us fund our social programs of delivering free education to young mothers (12-19 years old), children with disability and other unprivileged children living in last-mile/rural areas and refugee camps.

2. Low-income clients, we are recruiting and empowering local community members to partake in delivering education to their community children. They subscribe to our training services and platforms at an affordable fee of USD8 paid in installments just to sustain the further implementation of our impact on other community members. thereafter CEs deliver education to students direct from their communities/homes using both digital and physical means at affordable subscription fees of USD8 per student per term. 

3. Organizational support, we are partnering with organizations and institutions like Sancta Maria Primary Teachers Collage Nkokonjeru, Faith Nursery and primary school Nansana Ganda, Faculty of Best Advisory South Africa, and Jacobs Startup Competition (JSC) to help us skill set our community educators (CEs) and examining our students taught by our CES. were are also planning to more organizational support and partnerships from local community leaders, government ministries in charge of education starting with Uganda, local and international Primary Teachers colleges, humanitarian organizations like UNICEF, USAID and among others, and youth skill set and mentoring Hubs in Uganda and abroad. 

Organizational support, through this model we have been able to partner with organizations and institutions like Sancta Maria Primary Teachers Collage Nkokonjeru, Faith Nursery and primary school Nansana Ganda, Faculty of Best Advisory South Africa, and Jacobs Startup Competition (JSC) to help us skill set our community educators (CEs) and examining our students taught by our CES.

service subsidization, through this model we have been able to receive support worthy of UGX 18,000,000. the equivalent USD 5000 from  UNDP through its partner NASE AFRICA to help us fund our social programs of delivering free education to young mothers (12-19 years old), children with disability, and other unprivileged children living in last-mile/rural areas and refugee camps.

Low-income clients, through this model we have been able to recruit and empower 28 local community members at an affordable fee of USD8 who are now delivering free education to336 students ( young mothers (12-19 years old), children with disability, and other unprivileged children living in last-mile/rural areas and refugee camps) direct from their communities/homes using both digital and physical means.