Digital mobility For Children

300 000 students do not have a personal computer or other equipment to study online (Ministry of Education, Kazakhstan).2/3 Kazakhstani schoolchildren have not even reached the minimum level of computer and information literacy (ICILS, 2018). The lack of computers, stable internet, and digital skills to study online is a social exclusion that prevents young people from gaining education and ultimately worsens social disparities. COVID-19 exacerbated digital inequities in Kazakhstan and around the World.

Connect-Ed is the first organization to bridge the digital divide in Kazakhstan. We're working to bridge the digital divide by:

1.Collecting and redistributing used equipment (laptops, computers, devices)
2.Teaching digital literacy courses for children, adults and seniors from low-income communities
3.Policy Advocacy to create systemic change

We take a holistic approach to solving the challenges of digital inequality. We not only help students to reach resources but also encourage responsible consumption and reduce the carbon footprint, through the reuse of computers.

Our target audience is children who do not have access to digital goods and/or have a low level of digital literacy. These are usually children from low-income communities and families with low economic income. It also often happens that they are not residents of central and big cities. The lack of equipment and digital skills increases educational and social inequality. Children cannot receive all the information that would help them in their studies and future prospects. Our project gives a child the opportunity to unlock their potential thanks to the Power of digital goods and skills. The child will not be hindered by these obstacles in achieving the goal.

Connect-Ed is a community-centered and driven, agile organization with an unique understanding of the digital inequities in Kazakhstan. We have designed courses on digital literacy for children, parents and elderly people of Kazakhstan based on available tools and resources, as well as their daily needs. We use accessible platforms, such as YouTube and WhatsApp and deliver programs for low-income communities, especially kazakh speaking communities, who are in most need. We create our digital literacy courses based on community needs, by conducting interviews and focus groups, therefore, our training is always relevant and accessible, in both kazakh and russian languages.

Our team wants to strengthen its participation in solving systemic digital goods and skills issues in the country and the world. We feel that the ecosystem and politics strongly influence the child, so we would like to have more influence in this direction. We have created several models of replication and scaling of our methods, and we have recommendations for the government, but we must learn how to interact with them and with international organizations for cooperation.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, many organizations were involved in the distribution of laptops to children in need, however, these were only one time campaigns. There are organizations in Kazakhstan such as One Plus Elon Musk - which only distributes equipment, while Connect-Ed takes a holistic approach of giving both access to equipment and digital literacy skills. While there are companies that provide computer and programming training, those are often expensive courses that are not accessible for low-income communities, whereas we teach basic digital literacy skills to help low-income communities to reach independence in the use of technology. 

Short Term
Community members will have resources to study and find jobs and companies recycle their equipment responsibly with us. We are also piloting communities of practice approach to create self-sustainable impact. We're conducting user interviews, pre and post surveys to identify community needs and progress on digital literacy skills. We're also doing focus groups with companies to improve their customer journey.

Long Term
We envision that all schoolchildren will have access to equipment and KZ citizens have improved digital literacy skills. Moreover, quality of lives of people from rural, low-income families will be improved as they have skills and opportunities to study and work. Policies on bridging digital divide implemented: every student have access to equipment, students are taught digital literacy skills systematically.

1- 147 children and parents attended the digital literacy courses and 243 pieces of equipment were provided to children

2 - We have permanent stakeholders who support our activities and trust us:

- a business that provides equipment on an ongoing basis - - individuals who support us financially

- social organizations that help form a list of children and adults from remote regions who need to take courses on digital literacy

-  schools that are ready to provide their own platform for digital literacy camps and cooperate with us.

3 - Connect-Ed shapes awareness about digital inequalities in education. We achieved significant traction on digital inequity issues in Kazakhstan, such as policy level of discussion on having access to equipment for all students in Kazakhstan such as:

-The Ministry of Digitalization plans to provide tablets to 1st grade students. They plan to issue 400,000 tablets with an Internet tariff in 2023.

- November 4th, recognized in Kazakhstan as a Digitalization Day starting from 2022. 

We believe that the digital benefits and skills that children will receive will unlock their potential and help them enter higher education and be confident adults in the labor market in the future. It is also worth noting that they will have skills for security in the digital world.

COMPETITIVE LANDSCAPE

Digital Education: There is a growing number of companies offering coding courses for younger children however very few of them target basic skills such as media literacy, digital safety, etiquette and etc. which is our first competitive advantage. The second advantage is that we offer our programs in Kazakh language which only a handful of companies do.
Recycling: There has been a growing awareness regarding the importance of recycling and a few state and business organisations work on offering easy recycling solutions for various types of waste except for the tech waste. There are no organisations offering eco-friendly solutions to discarding digital devices and redistribute it to communities in need.

Our team respects the personality of each person, to see first of all in the members of the team of professionals. One of the values of the organization is diversity and inclusion. We strive to practice this every day.

Our beneficiaries in digital literacy courses are representatives of different segments of the population: children from low-income and rural communities. 50% of all schoolchildren in Kazakhstan study in rural areas, with less resources and access to quality education, including digital literacy skills. 

We collect used laptops from companies, organisations, and individuals that would otherwise be disposed of. Companies on average update their equipment every 2-3 years. Connect-Ed offers companies a sustainable way of recycling their machines through offering collection, repair and donation to the families who could benefit from the device. After collecting equipment, Connect- Ed distributes equipment to families from low-income communities. We have an established partnerships with local communities who can communicate the needs of the families.  We have designed courses on digital literacy for children, parents and elderly people of Kazakhstan. Unlike many existing global digital literacy courses, Connect-Ed Digital Literacy program is designed to respond to local needs and is available in both Russian and Kazakh, which if often underrepresented in the digital space. We use accessible platforms, such as YouTube and WhatsApp to deliver programs for low-income communities.

Additionally, we take part on accelerator and fellowships programs that support social impact ventures, such as Social Innovation and Change Innitiative, UNDPs BOOST accelerator program. We are trying to create a sustainable business model that will include multi-year financial modeling and growth plan for our organization. We want to create a diversified portfolio:

- a crowdfunding model using local platforms such as Start Time and global as GoFund.me in order to leverage small donations, which also helps to create awarness in a broader level. Regular individual patrons will also receive useful information about digital literacy, equality and education  on a monthly basis.

-an established system of partnerships with companies that support us through in-kind donations in a long-term basis

- Lastly, we are developing a business model so that we can offer our services for a fee. This would be an integral component for us to become a sustainable and independent organization:

1.Paid courses on the basic level of digital literacy for relatives of company employees (for their children and parents). A company can buy a package of digital literacy courses for the families of its employees. It can also be done by individuals.

2. International partnerships with companies and organizations that have presence  in Kazakhstan to create seamless in-kind and financial contributions.

50 000$ from grants and donors