"Tusomelive" An Edtech that enables flexible remote studying

Tusomelive education technology (EdTech) platform enables students in both high school and college level to study remotely by accessing livestreamed class sessions as well as pre-recorded class room sessions

In Kenya many students post Covid '19 studying at college level have been forced to defer their studies to due to hard and worsening economic times. Besides this, students in secondary schooling access different quality education (boarding schools/national school's facilities differ from day school facilities) due to the different funding levels that have a strong correlation to quality of service offered. It's also important to note that admission to secondary schools is based on the performance from primary level exit exams which again displays disparities where pupils from the well to do family backgrounds attending equally well funded private academies perform better than their counterparts in comparatively poorly funded public primary schools, where the majority of the pupils from poor backgrounds go.

Public schools and colleges in Kenya also admit many students therefore overstretching available facilities while the private academic institutions admit students based on the available facilities that are considered of high quality and adequate. This situation therefore from an early stage disenfranchises pupils and students from economically disadvantaged households whose parents cannot afford the high fees charged by private academies that are well funded and with better quality facilities.

"Tusomelive" which is coined from Swahili word meaning "Let's read remotely" is a solution that seeks to offer underprivileged students in both secondary schools and college level with an opportunity to access quality education from well funded, high performing institution's allbeit remotely. For secondary School level, a student from underprivileged background may pursue studies from the day school where he or she was admitted, while in the evening log in to pre-recorded classroom sessions from the high performing, well funded school. For college level, Tusomelive will offer underprivileged students an opportunity to access quality college education at their flexible time scheduled while they work to support their parents in raising their college fees. Tusomelive platform is partnering with an already identified internship placement company (m/s Attachment & Internship Placement Services EA Ltd) to ensure that the college going students studying through the Tusomelive platform are placed in fields that would earn them skills relevant to their studies, while they also earn an income to supplement their college fees.

Tusomelive targets both secondary and college level students. The online platform seeks to eliminate barriers to quality education at both levels of education that emanates from the different levels of education access affordability by parents. Underfunding is a challenge that has been identified in public institution's which generally admit the majority of Kenyan students, therefore affecting the quality of education offered by these institutions. Tusomelive seeks to even out access to quality education disperities by providing pathways for students in both secondary and college level to access quality education  remotely and at very low and affordable fees. Tusomelive will also remove the barrier that sees girls study separately from boys in secondary schools. The platform will enable a student to choose from a provided list the school from which he/she desired to study from remotely thereby removing discrimination based on gender, religion or any other identities.

I wasted 2 years staying at home and doing odd jobs after finishing my high school studies and lacking fees to join college. This year, I secured a scholarship to pursue my dream course in software development and I intend to use this opportunity to start this project soon once I join college later this month of January 2023. I am currently pursuing  an online course on software development that have enabled me to gain basic skills in computer and mobile applications development as I prepare to join my already admitted residential college to pursue the same later in January. I have partnered with 2 other experienced developers of my age to help me develop the platform within the next 6 months. I am passionate about developing solutions which are aimed at solving societal problems and I have identified access to quality education a challenge to many in Kenya.

After finishing secondary schooling and staying at home for 2 years due to lack of fees to attend college, the idea of developing a pathways through which potential students and attend live streamed as well as pre-recorded classroom sessions came about, and I have been researching further on the problem and refining the solution proposition. 

I have also engaged several youths who have not managed to attend college regarding my innovation, and in the process obtained very important feedback which I now wish to use in developing my innovation into a working reality.

Imagine attending Harvard University remotely while working in England through livestreamed lecture hall sessions. Imagine at the same time that while studying say for a civil and construction engineering course, you are placed in an civil engineering firm from where you learn the basics engineering skills as you progress, and at the end of the University course, you have secured over 3 years of practical skills training with industry. This is how the proposed "Tusomelive" online learning model will work. 

Due to the uniqueness of our programme, we project that our innovation will disrupt the current education system silently by enabling students to study from highly competitive secondary schools as well as institution's of higher learning albeit remotely therefore eliminating education quality gaps and in the process creating equal opportunity for all. In 2 years time,we foresee a partnership with government in providing affordable quality education for all using our now we'll known and battle tested EdTech platform.

The Tusomelive team is currently working to develop the platform prototype that can be tested in the market with real potential customers through the beta version. We project to have finalized the platform development in the next six months before we start testing the product for a further 6 months. We plan to launch the product officially in August this year, where we intend to populate the platform with partnering institution's courses on offer. In January 2024, we project to hit a milestone of 50000 paying users.

Our product is being developed using software and mobile applications. The deployment of our innovation will be through desktops,tablets and smart mobile phones. The innovation will inculcate livestreaming technology that will form the core structure of the platform as access to classroom content will be through livestreaming and pre-recorded classroom sessions.

We envisage that the platform development will take the next 6 months and thereafter testing will follow for another 6 month. In the next year, we project that we will manage to enlist 50000 paying subscribers, who would start using our services from the beginning of the next academic year that starts in January every new year. This number will be drawn from the cluster that tested the platform and got satisfied with it's high quality learning service offer potential as well as from their referrals.

The main barrier is the lack of adequate livestreaming infrastructure such as strong and fast internet connectivity backbone in several parts of rural Kenya. Another barrier is lack of adequate financing that would help us to set up the highly scalable innovation. 

We are currently developing a working partnership with Attachment and Internship Placement Services EA Ltd, which is an internship placement organization. This company will work very closely with us because it will be tasked to find placement for students studying through the Tusomelive platform. We are also partnering with Moi University in Kenya, which  has tentatively agreed to work with us in providing their courses to be beamed live to students wishing to undertake Moi University courses through our platform. Through the Moi University Technologies Company that is the innovation and technology transfer arm of the University, we are working on a relationship that would see the company providing the livestreaming equipments that would serve in the project as their contribution towards the project partnership.

Tusomelive will be a prepaid platform that will see subscribers prepay a monthly fee to access livestreamed and pre-recorded classroom sessions as well as other digital learning materials. For college going students, they will pay an extra fee for industry placement for skills as they would be earning a stipend negotiated by our partnering internship placement company.

We see Tusomelive growing to be a collossus in Kenya and later in the East African region. With this growth, we will attract more funding through grants and investor interests. With time also, we will be serving over a million students across East Africa earning us billions in US$ annually. We see this platform being the future of EdTech based learning, where the future of education is headed to.