Submitted
2024 Global Learning Challenge

SEAL - Strength-Based Living

Team Leader
Tatiana Mohler
Solution Overview & Team Lead Details
Our Organization
The Hyouman
What is the name of your solution?
SEAL - Strength-Based Living
Provide a one-line summary of your solution.
A platform that bridges the gap and accelerates the transformation of 21st century skills for the learning community, making strengths visible.
In what city, town, or region is your solution team headquartered?
Surabaya, East Java, Indonesia
In what country is your solution team headquartered?
  • Indonesia
What type of organization is your solution team?
  • Hybrid of for-profit and nonprofit
Film your elevator pitch.
What specific problem are you solving?

Indonesia has the world’s 4th largest education system, accommodating over 50 million students, facilitated by a workforce of over 3 million teachers spread across over 250 thousand schools. Being the world's largest archipelago, with over 17.000 islands, the education system grapples with significant disparities in educational standards between national and international institutions, primarily due to limited access to quality educational resources for both teachers and students, resulting in a scarcity of qualified teachers.

Over 42% of the population lives in rural regions, where only 54% have a library and 39% of the schools have enough books to support teachers’ and students’ basic development. Being the world’s 6th country with the greatest wealth inequality, it is estimated that over 60% of schools cannot afford professional development, nor curriculums that foster meaningful education that enhances strengths and 21st century skills building. The composition of the teaching workforce also reflects these disparities, with only 34% of the teachers and a mere 18% of the principals possessing qualifications beyond high school, 40% being composed of permanent civil-servant teachers and the shortfall is filled by short-term, contracted teachers.

Indonesia's projected economic rise, where the country is expected to become the sixth-largest economy in the world by 2027, juxtaposed with its poor performance in the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) raises pertinent concerns. A strong economy requires a skilled and innovative workforce, typically fostered through quality education. Indonesia's lagging education outcomes, particularly in crucial areas like mathematics (bottom 12), reading (bottom 11), and science (bottom 15), suggest a potential mismatch between its economic ambitions and its human capital development. Without improvements in education, Indonesia may struggle to harness the full potential of its growing economy, leading to disparities between economic growth and societal well-being.

The absence of social-emotional learning (SEL) in Indonesian schools, coupled with the neglect of well-being and other essential thinking skills in the core curriculum and the lack of focus in understanding each student's strengths, has led to a concerning rise in suicide rates across children, teenagers, and adults. As of 2017, Indonesia ranks as the 14th country globally in terms of suicide rates and the 8th highest within the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) region. The failure to prioritize SEL, well-being, thinking skills and strengths in schools deprives students of essential skills to navigate and manage relationships, societal challenges, and their future pathway. The neglect of the holistic development of individuals, focusing solely on academic achievement at the expense of mental and emotional health, has deteriorated Indonesia's mental health, posing a large risk to the nation's economical growth, not only due to the direct costs of treatment, but also due to a variety of indirect costs such as reduced economic productivity, higher rates of unemployment and other economic impacts.

What is your solution?

We have developed a digital platform which supports schools and teachers in the implementation of strength-based education to bridge the educational gap, named Strength-Based Living (SEAL). This support covers different areas through an initial 3 features:

1. SEAL Compass: a curricula curated to be culturally-inclusive for grades 1 through 12, fostering students 21st century skills, social-emotional intelligence, healthy habits and routines, UNSDGs project management, socialpreneurship and strengths. The curricula is composed of syllabi, frameworks, lesson plans, lesson presentations, worksheets, and hands-on activities, fostering not only students' strengths, but also their social-impact entrepreneurship, with sustainability in mind. Teachers have full access to all content materials which are divided into project stages, allowing teachers to choose what project theme to implement in which term, according to its current relevance;
2. SEAL Dojo: teachers’ courses to upgrade and develop mastery of teachers' skills in areas such as the 21st century skills, social-emotional intelligence, UNSDGs project management, leadership, mindfulness, classroom management, and positive discipline. These courses lower the skill gap between internationally hired teachers and locally hired teachers, ensuring all teachers across Indonesia have access to up-to-date high quality development. Teachers also have access to courses which guide them towards the best teaching practices of the SEAL Compass; and
3. SEAL Identity: skills and strengths mapping that allows for teachers, students and families to understand students' natural skills, focusing on their development and helping them trace a meaningful personalized pathway for their future. This assessment feature is being developed to focus on students' progress and individualized growth pathway towards their metacognitive function, 21st century skills, and unique strengths, rather than focusing on the traditional academic assessment which relies on the memorization of concepts.

Our ecosystem focuses on holistic development, encompassing metacognitive function, 21st century skills, social-emotional learning, healthy habits and routines, socialpreneurship, and personalized strengths, contrary to the academic-focused deficit approach taken by traditional education.

SEAL has been developed with the local education community and ESG in mind, making it accessible, easy to use, culturally-inclusive, while including the sustainable future of the world at the heart of the curricula. The implementation of SEAL can be done immediately, and the school community starts harvesting its results within its first year of implementation.
SEAL serves as an accelerated systematic solution to the current efforts of the Indonesian Ministry of Education to bridge the educational gap, supporting all government efforts to bring its education to the next level.


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Who does your solution serve, and in what ways will the solution impact their lives?

SEAL focuses on two main target populations: teachers and students.

The general teaching population in Indonesia is currently underqualified and overloaded. With SEAL Compass, teachers have access to not only the curricula framework, but all its necessary documentation in accordance with the requirements of the Indonesian Ministry of Education. With that, teachers focus can shift from preparing hundreds of pages of formal documentation, to using the ready materials to prepare themselves to guide students through meaningful and impactful lessons. With more time on their hands, teachers can also dive into our SEAL Dojo courses, further upgrading their skills, equipping themselves with top-tier professional development.

Students, on the other hand, not only harvest the results of teachers being able to better prepare for the lessons and have access to teachers with a higher skill levels, but also have access to meaningful and holistic education, placing a focus on the 21st century skills while understanding their own strengths, much needed in order to strive in life.

How are you and your team well-positioned to deliver this solution?

For the past four years, our multidisciplinary-background team, including dedicated educators, psychologists and members of the community, has worked to develop a solution to revolutionize the educational landscape in Indonesia. Comprising of individuals with diverse backgrounds, our team ranges from individuals who have firsthand experience as students, teachers, and school leaders within the local educational system to those who have benefited from top-tier education.

Driven by a shared passion for education and social impact, our journey has focused on collaboration, innovation, and a deep desire to address the multifaceted challenges facing Indonesia's education. Drawing upon insights from direct interactions with government officials, stakeholders involved in the current standardized curricula, and community members struggling with the daily challenges of education, we have cultivated a deeper understanding of the pain points education in Indonesia faces. Our team's commitment to community engagement, through actively soliciting feedback, ideas, and concerns from a diverse array of stakeholders, has allowed us to gather a variety of perspectives that serve as the foundation for our innitiatives and innovations.

Which dimension of the Challenge does your solution most closely address?
  • Provide the skills that people need to thrive in both their community and a complex world, including social-emotional competencies, problem-solving, and literacy around new technologies such as AI.
Which of the UN Sustainable Development Goals does your solution address?
  • 3. Good Health and Well-Being
  • 4. Quality Education
  • 9. Industry, Innovation, and Infrastructure
  • 10. Reduced Inequalities
What is your solution’s stage of development?
  • Pilot
Please share details about why you selected the stage above.

We have fully developed the SEAL Compass, which is our curriculum, and it has been piloted in one school with an average of 300 students for the past 4 years. We are on the process of furthering developing the SEAL Dojo, which is our teachers' training courses, currently composed of 7 courses. These courses have been administered both online and offline to more than 100 teachers. We have also built the SEAL Identity (strengths' mapping and metacognitive function mapping), having piloted it with 20 students, and our online platform, currently being used by the pilot school.

Why are you applying to Solve?

Our main barrier at the moment is to enter the market in a sustainable manner while further advancing our technology, keeping the dream alive. Further understanding of the strategies to present our solution to a very traditional market is key for the sustainability of the company, therefore, overcoming that barrier will allow The Hyouman to continue working towards innovative impactful solutions in education.

In which of the following areas do you most need partners or support?
  • Business Model (e.g. product-market fit, strategy & development)
  • Financial (e.g. accounting practices, pitching to investors)
  • Monitoring & Evaluation (e.g. collecting/using data, measuring impact)
  • Product / Service Distribution (e.g. delivery, logistics, expanding client base)
  • Public Relations (e.g. branding/marketing strategy, social and global media)
  • Technology (e.g. software or hardware, web development/design)
Who is the Team Lead for your solution?
Tatiana Aline Mohler
More About Your Solution
Your Team
Your Business Model & Funding
Solution Team:
Tatiana Mohler
Tatiana Mohler
Lilin Rahardjo
Lilin Rahardjo