Afrilearn

Education forms the most critical part of any human's life because whatever goes into our minds determines the quality of our lives.

Nigeria currently has over 200 million population base. Of this number, 80 million (40%) can't read or write. 120 million (60%) can't engage beyond religion and metaphysics. 170 million (85%) can't build or create anything meaningful.

Yet, we all know that large uneducated population is dangerous liability for any nation as whatever goes into our minds determines the quality of our lives. Unfortunately, as I write, over 263 million young Africans are out of school while, in Nigeria, 83% of the West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE) candidates fail the exam due to unavailability and unaffordability of quality education. Education systems across Africa are in critical crisis; it’s an emergency!

At Afrilearn, we believe Africa’s greatest need is quality education. Most times, we only invest in addressing the symptoms of poor leadership in Africa: we give palliatives, food, and handout to those impacted by disease, poverty, and illiteracy. But these efforts will never stop unless we democratize quality education to produce entrepreneurs who create jobs, and innovators who develop lasting solutions to the root causes of Africa’s problems.

In the United States, the teacher-to-student ratio is about 1-16. In India, it’s 1-19, and considered bad. In most parts of Nigeria, our teacher-to-student ratio is 1-70, and in many cases, the available teacher lacks the competence to deliver quality education.

If we are to stick with the brick-and-mortar system, it would take us centuries to deliver quality education across the African continent. Even if the government were super-efficient, it could not catch up with the swiftly increasing educational needs of the populace. Therefore, the best opportunity for us to deliver affordably available world-class education is through technology.

To solve this problem, Afrilearn integrates genius tutors, animators and developers to provide affordable, world-class education for Africans anywhere. Afrilearn offers richly animated and curriculum-relevant video lessons, class notes, practice tests, live classes and a personalized learning dashboard that empower high/secondary school students (Ages 6-18) to study at their unique pace in and outside classroom via Web, App and data-free Dongle subscription services.

Every day, the Afrilearn studios host expert tutors who teach different subjects in front of cameras. These seasoned tutors basically simplify difficult subjects and topics in entertaining ways, resulting in thousands of engaging video lessons covering the government-approved curricula. This helps learners to assimilate easily because whatever we learn with pleasure, we never forget.

These video lessons are then developed into engaging animation and deployed for users’ subscriptions through App, Web and data-free Dongle services at highly affordable rates for primary and secondary school students (between ages 6 to 18) across Anglophone West Africa, a market of effectively over 300 million people.

Some children learn best by watching videos, some by reading class notes, some by solving practice problems, and some by social collaboration. Beyond blending storytelling, social learning and supplementary tech skills content, Afrilearn gives every child access to personalized learning using the unique method that works best for them.

In addition to Afrilearn’s powerful and iterative profiles for Students, Teachers, Schools and Parents, our vast and culture-specific education video library is also synchronized for compression optimized video streaming, offline download and playback on any device, with affordable monthly, quarterly, and annual subscription packages.

Easily the Netflix of Education for young Africans, Afrilearn’s social impact cuts across SDGs 1, 4, 8 & 17.

While our target population are middle-class Parents, Teachers and Schools of primary and secondary school children, between ages 6-18, across Anglophone West Africa, our target users are primary and secondary school students and out-of-school children between ages 6-18, across Anglophone West African countries (WAEC countries) including Nigeria, Ghana, Sierra Leone, Liberia and The Gambia.

Their pain points include poverty, illiteracy, incompetent teachers, low school grades, exam failure, lack of access to education, unaffordability and inaccessibility to quality education, and poor engagement methods.

Afrilearn comes free, highly effective and life-changing for this target audience. 

For the West African market of effectively over 300 million students, Afrilearn aims to capture 10% (30 million users) of this audience with its widely loved and immersive learning experience. Upon achieving full penetration in the Nigerian market through strategic partnerships and integrated marketing, our next focus is to replicate the Afrilearn product across Ghana, Sierra Leone, Liberia and The Gambia.

The global ed‐tech market is projected to reach $404 billion by 2025 and Afrilearn is well positioned to be a catalyst fueling this growth across Africa. Therefore, an investment in Afrilearn is an investment in Africa’s future.

Our visionary team has over 29 years of collective experience and expertise across the technology, education, and media sectors.

I have over 10 years of experience in Education and Media. My Co-founder, Gabriel Olatunji-Legend has over 9 years of experience in Video Production. Our CTO, Chijioke Okwuosa has over 10 years of experience building habit-forming products and leading successful tech teams.  Our Lead Designer, Feyikemi Alaka is passionate about designing impactful products that excite users.

Beyond our rich track record and high-potential, my team is incredibly passionate about leveraging technology to solve Africa’s complex education problems towards achieving global good.

We conduct school outreaches and hold conversations on the digital space to understand the needs of our audience; and such outreaches and conversations have led to the implementation of a free model of the Afrilearn App to children in poor communities.

The key costs associated with developing and distributing our solution are Content Production, Software Development, and unconventional marketing.

Currently, our team of software engineers has delivered a well-loved product experience with great organic traction. We have also produced about two thousand video lessons, most of which are NOT ANIMATED, due to the unprecedented cost of animation, and this has been our major drawback in delivering and scaling the solution.

Though Afrilearn has a studio where our video lessons are recorded, we are currently unable to afford enough animators to process recorded video lessons into full animation. Animation of one video lesson costs an average of $50 to $100, depending on the animator's skill, and we are to produce 5000 video lessons, hence the need for the right partnerships and support.

Afrilearn offers education through gamification, class notes audio lessons and video lessons, which are highly required and demanded products for students’ engagement and particularly teachers’ use.

It also entails culture-specific content needs of the African students like Afrilearn currently does.

Our competitive advantages also include leveraging gamification and storytelling to deliver our video lessons for increased mastery at a most affordable price.

At Afrilearn, we are infusing peerless education innovation through technology in the creation, production and delivery of our animated video lessons, class notes with fun exam practice, because whatever we learn with pleasure, we never forget.

We believe our solution is catalytic especially because beyond integrating expert tutors, animators and developers to deliver thousands of curriculum-specific video lessons, we’re also adding free premium-tech skills content to our library, delivering them via App and Web subscription services leveraging technology.

Beyond our strategic focus on customer experience, our strength unique value proposition also lies in the uniqueness of our vision, team and culture. Our young, energetic and passionate team has over 24 years of collective experience and expertise across the tech, media and education sectors.

1. Personalized learning features on the App through Artificial intelligence.

2. Reach children in underserved communities with the Quality Education on the App for free; without the company going bankrupts.

3. Ability to scale partnerships with federal and state governments in order to accelerate learning through technology across Africa.

4. Sourcing and recruitment of human capital to provide services such as animation of the unanimated video lessons and more genius tutors that can be assigned to only one child to ensure that personalized learning is well-delivered.

1. 200,000 users on the Afrilearn App in the next three months in order to achieve education for all.

2. Personalized learning features on the Afrilearn App to aid education in primary and secondary school.

3. Reduced statistics of school drop-outs in underserved communities.

Since inception, the Afrilearn e-learning platform has garnered 6201+ Registered Users accessing its vast library of content covering the West African Primary and Secondary School curriculum. It has also reached over 237,601 directly with its free practice questions and trial contents which are accessible for new learners, at zero cost.

Between March 2020 and June 2021, these numbers were majorly attracted organically via Google Search as learners, teachers, parents and schools searched for educational terms, and Afrilearn was referred based on its rich, curriculum-relevant and SEO compliant content. Many others also registered through word of mouth and referrals by those who have experienced Afrilearn.

When my co-founder and I struck out to build Afrilearn in late 2018, we observed that for most young Africans, quality education is largely poor, inaccessible, and unaffordable. Having seen the impact of illiteracy on our childhood friends, we quickly resolved that technology presents the best opportunity to sustainably solve this problem for generations to come.

Months after Afrilearn went live, the overwhelming acceptance and feedback, like the ones below, show that we are on to something revolutionary.

“I always had issues with Economics but after discovering Afrilearn, my class performance and confidence literarily skyrocketed.” – Chika (SS1 Student, Ogun, Nigeria)

And

“Since I began using Afrilearn to teach my Basic Science classes a few months ago, some of my students who used to score 25% now score over 75%. It’s been extremely exciting for them and for me!” – Mr. Idris (Teacher, Kano, Nigeria)

• Open-source technology
• Artificial Intelligence
• Mobile Applications
• Software
• Virtual reality
• Audiovisual media
• Machine Learning

Our team can be divided into two: the Nigerian team and the Saudi Arabian team. All members are included in the project; and no one feels left out in spite of the cultural barriers. For example, the Saudi Arabian team are not able to join during the Friday start-up meetings due to prayers; and by addressing this disparity, the management shifted meetings on Friday to a latter time convenient for the Saudi Arabian team.