EduClick
- Hybrid of for-profit and nonprofit
EduClick's goal is to help job seekers, recent graduates, young professionals, and single mothers, especially those from vulnerable backgrounds (refugees, internally displaced people, those from humble backgrounds, and those living in inaccessible rural communities), access their dream jobs by creating an enabling platform where they can access employability skills, job opportunities, and career coaching. We develop education in emergency programs, distance education platforms, and consultancy services. We train, mentor, and facilitate job access or business creation. We have the following services:
I- Distance Education
We're building one of Africa's largest online education marketplaces where subject matter experts can develop learning modules in their areas of expertise and share them on the platform for learners to subscribe to take the course anytime, anywhere. We currently have over 100 courses, 33000 users, and about 500 monthly active paid users. Courses range from technology to local languages and employability skills, especially those that cannot be achieved through formal education.
This platform also offers free secondary school curricula for secondary school students.
II- Talent Acquisition and Career Coaching
Our target audience, for the most part, is eager to get paid jobs and support their families. That is why we built https://educlickcareers.com/, a search engine. It visits the web, picks opportunities for which Cameroonians are eligible, and updates the platform daily. They can check for opportunities and apply for them for free. In case they need our assistance to prepare their application, review their CV, cover letter, LinkedIn profile, or get interview tips, we charge an affordable fee. This service is open to the public.
Finally, we run a technological awakening center for children aged 4 to 17. We introduce them to robotics, virtual reality, 3D drawing, design thinking, basic computer science, scratch, and programming with little or no code.
- Pilot: An organization testing a product or program with a small number of users.
The team lead position at EduClick consists of leading the on-ground expansion of EduClick's projects, which consist of training young people (internally displaced, refugees, disabled, and rural communities) with ICT skills, employability skills, and 21st century skills to help them learn better and thrive. I serve as:
local face for EduClick's representation in key forums and local and international media.
Work to establish strategic partnerships with the government, local and international organizations, civil society organizations, higher institutes of learning, and different other stakeholders.
Develop and supervise the implementation of programs such as STEM bootcamps, e-learning, the Career Hub, and teacher training onsite and online. Distribute tasks among the team, monitor their progress, and report on it.
Our coach at regional leadership centre reminded us often ‘’we can’t pour from an empty cup’’ because building ours is as more important as building others. As an ambitious female entrepreneur who represents a company with expansion objectives nationally and internationally and who wishes to grow professionally and impact communities all over Africa and the world, she is dedicated, with the help of her team members, to doing her best for the Leap Project. Actually, in our organization, we are working on our upcoming summer boot camp, and thanks to our records for the past years, we have volunteers in our team this year that will help us give the best once more. She taught her team how to work on their own and knows she can rely on them for specific tasks. But, as a team leader, she is methodological and rigorous, with a strong team spirit, synthesis, and analysis that help her give the best result. Moreover, she is multitasking and can, with the help of her team members, who will mentor volunteers most of the time and without pressure, dedicate time to working on the leap project. It will be a great opportunity to challenge herself again.
Innovatively equip young people with ICTS and employability skills and facilitate the transition from the classroom to decent job markets.
Digitization rules the world today, yet in several African countries, especially in rural areas, many young people have never touched a computer before. In this growth economy that leads the world, less than 5% of the contribution comes from Africa, and less than 2% of this sector is represented by women. It is therefore a question of moving from this service economy to a growth economy through concrete actions. In the past few years, nearly every African country has been the victim of security crises, from wars to riots and terrorism. When war breaks out, education is targeted, and students, especially girls, are either attacked, abducted, or murdered on their way to school or in their classroom. As a result, schools are shut down in some war-affected regions, and this has kept over 18 million children out of school with no other alternative in Africa. Since 2016, two regions of Cameroon (the North West and South West Regions) have been going through conflicts; schools were attacked, with students and teachers murdered, and, in this situation, schools remained closed for over 3 years. The COVID-19 pandemic that broke in 2020 further exasperated the situation with the national lockdowns. At EduClick, we understand how they feel about being unable to access any form of education and find this unacceptable.
In response to this, EduClick partnered with teachers and many education stakeholders to develop alternative learning methods for these vulnerable communities. The objective of EduClick is to leverage all aspects of the technology revolution to facilitate access to education for disadvantaged communities and prepare them for the future of work through hybrid (online and offline) training programs.
It is with this in mind that we have set up the technological awakening program "EduClick STEM Kitchen" to reduce the digital divide between Cameroon in particular and other developed countries by allowing young children from primary school to become familiar with the computer tool in order to boost their creativity and encourage them to choose STEM courses when the time comes. Ultimately, our objective is to enable the new generation to access the skills necessary to access decent employment or create businesses for the socio-economic development of the country and to increase Cameroon's competitiveness on the international scene.
"EduClick STEM Kitchen" is a program that aims to teach young people aged 5 to 17, and more particularly young girls, the basics of technology. We want to introduce them to learning the different trades and tools related to technology, and for this we aim to: The practical training of at least 100 young people in school or not in technology during the each summer holidays The technological awakening of children through programs adapted to all ages, from 5 to 17 years old; a practical immersion in the discovery of trades related to technology
For children aged 5 to 12, it is a typical discovery program. Each week, we introduce a module. Before the end of the 2 month course, they will discover 3D drawings, the basics of computing, augmented reality, scratch and office automation, puzzles, entrepreneurship, and design thinking. Every end of week duriing the program, we have a special guest who entertains the children for an hour. This one is a STEM professional who helps children discover his job. Sessions can be online or face-to-face, depending on availability and location. The goal is to amaze children and lead them to dream big. We are also considering visits to local businesses.
- Women & Girls
- Primary school children (ages 5-12)
- Rural
- Low-Income
- Refugees & Internally Displaced Persons
- Persons with Disabilities
- Level 3: You can demonstrate causality using a control or comparison group.
EduClick conducted formative research to prove the effectiveness of our solution. We set up this method after the organization of our first EduClick STEM boot camp. We then launched an online questionnaire with the participants and parents we had during this session. Thanks to the feedback we received, we were able to understand the solution even more, and above all, it gave us the axes on which to rely to continue and especially to improve our solution, which is a daily challenge. We needed reviews on our selection methods, on the cost, and on what they learned during that program. After that, we extended our discussion to other people who did not take part in the event, and we also discussed with leaders who were already in tech. It was great doing that because we started EduClick without an audit and almost locked it down. We are stronger now, and we have a clear direction.
We took in to consideration the feedback we recieved from our research and added some changes to our solution. Our solution is working; our second summer STEM boot camp was completely free for almost thirty participants due to sponsorship from people who appreciate our work.
- Currently, 5000 users have accessed learning through our platform, either through e-learning or online revision.
- 1375 primary school students from six of the seven regions of Cameroon have accessed the platform.
- Over 1,000 learners have taken national exams and learned on the platform.
- Over 2000 young people have taken EduClick tech courses (Coding, digital marketing, and Design)
- To ensure or facilitate access to the job market, EduClick offers an online job search engine. Users can also subscribe to have their favorite jobs delivered directly to their inbox.
- Educlick has a dedicated team and volunteers who are passionate about making education accessible for all.
- Finding the right model enabled the success of the project.EduClick uses a “hybrid model,” which entails a mixture of “B2B and B2C” at the same time. While targeting households, the project also targets organizations and associations that can sponsor some students.
- EduClick has received support from the teaching community; teachers shared their lessons and worked with us without payment.
- In 2018, the project received an award from the African Union’s Innovating Education Expo (top 10). The funds from this award have contributed to the progress made as well as the support from the community. Our target audience also played a great role, given that they found value in our program and welcomed it.
EduClick’s goal is to build one of Africa’s largest hybrid Educational platform, as a result, we keep developing new initiatives and models to facilitate this. Over the years, we have achieved several milestones, and our plans consist of developing fundraising models and increasing the number of co-founders to scale up and replicate in other countries and regions.
The greatest challenge has always been finding a way to make the program sustainable to cater to the target audience who are unable to contribute financially. This challenge has often reduced the scope of our impact and affected the running of the organization. However, we consistently try to test our models, update them, and redirect the project to better serve communities' interests while considering their challenges.
The leap project is what we need right now because this is the time of year when we carry out most of our activities. It will help us strengthen our program and find ways to develop alternative methods that can help us develop sustainable solutions for young people who are interested in our program.
The practicum will provide a platform to work with larger institutions that are using technology to foster education for youth. The skills and knowledge we will gain will help us understand the challenges that come with a small company and how to avoid them.
How to get more funding for summer STEM boot camp?
Is it possible to develop competition with different tech organizations?
Tech clubs in schools?
- Formative research (e.g. usability studies; feasibility studies; case studies; user interviews; implementation studies; pre-post or multi-measure research; correlational studies)
EduClick wnat to do more, we want to develop the best solution for youths with less or no possibility to have access to formal education. To do this, we need a strong budget to keep our courses free. How do we do that? This is the first part of our work during the 12-week sprint. We will work on strategy and a strong and financially feasible business plan.
We don't just want to stay online or rent a place and gather youth; we want to go directly to them, in schools, for example, to teach them about technology and show the younger ones the amazing world of technology. To do that, we need a strong plan that can be accepted by schools. We might create clubs for them not to forget and to continue the job. Expansion issue
Once we have the clubs, we also have different organizations that work in the tech field, and we can think of a tech competition among them, just as in the program ''Startup Weekend''. Either you come with your project or you join a team that has a project that you think goes with your domain. No matter what problem you want to solve, you should use technology to do so. We might discuss that too. Organize competition
As a growing company with extensions objectives, we hope to gain more experienced and innovative ideas to develop ouur solution. We intend to gain skills like negotiation, risk management, and funding methods. What we will learn from the experts at Leap Project Sprint will help us have a more sustainable solution.
With the help of the leap project sprint, we will have a better overview of company extensions. We are going to put in place diverse and innovative activities that will cover our target and change their vision and mind.
We are going to do a more large and complex competition; we used to do that just amongst our students. It will be a great beginning to meet others and to exchange, and it will help us evaluate ourselves and what we offer as a solution once more.
As short term, we hope to lear from one of the biggest organization that helps not only entrepreneurs to built a better version of their solution but also learners by giving practical courses and mmentors that will help us scale their level so they can attend theiir full potential. In the long term, it will be a great honor if we can get a partnership so that during a summer bootcamp or on our platform, we can showcase and see the great benefits of our partnership. To have a representative that can motivate our students during one of our sessions or to have access to your resources to organize an incredible competition. At that time, we could say that we once submitted an application to be part of the Leap Project Spring. We were chosen; we learned so much from them; we used what they taught us to develop our solution; and today we are partners. It will be a good way to evaluate what you do and what we do.