One-line solution summary:
On a mission to empower girls for the future of work, through apprenticeship programs and digital resources starting in East Africa.
Pitch your solution.
To combat issues with university or high school students in particular (girls) not having access to STEM based employment, we created an apprenticeship program and digital learning opportunities where these students would be paired up with a STEM company through their university, that would teach them the skills to pursue STEM careers and help them learn digital literacy.
Modeled after the CO-OP program in western countries, where universities would pair girl students up with STEM companies in East Africa, they would be working there to earn a credit at their university for around 5-6 months
Students choose their top 3 companies to be an apprentice at, and the school would send in requests while setting interviews. If they company agrees the student is a good fit for the program, they train them for whatever tasks they want them to complete and take them in as an apprentice.
Film your elevator pitch.
What specific problem are you solving?
Worlwide, there’s a major gap to getting girls in STEM careers. Internationally we’ve started making efforts to empower girls to pursue STEM careers and have started to educate them. However, in developing communities like in East Africa the gap still needs a lot of work to be closed. In 2010, only one in four engineering students were women. There’s a large disparity in STEM participation in Kenya ranging from 30–35%. Fewer women participate in STEM education and fewer complete their studies preparing them to pursue STEM careers in the workforce.
In East Africa specifically, girls are facing multiple issues having to do with lack of education and transition into STEM based employment, due to the lack of development with technology and innovation due to East African Infrastructure. This prevents young women to pursue STEM based careers and adapt to the current environment of growing innovation in other parts of the world. Research shows that freedom in countries like Kenya are very restricted, and governments are not doing a good enough job to instill STEM education, as their integrity is marked at 28.2%. Companies and schools need to step in more to empower females to pursue & learn STEM skills
What is your solution?
At Sagan, we wish to implement a STEM for university girls apprenticeship program all across East African countries (Uganda, Tanzania, Kenya) to provide STEM mentorship for young girls in university
1. Schools with partner up with STEM companies to do these programs for a duration of a semester. Students will take an "apprenticeship/co op course" given by the school for a school semester
2. Students will be choosing their top 3 STEM companies they wish to be an apprentice at & hand in in their "profiles" (shortened resume). The school will submit the requests from the students and STEM companies will interview the students who's profiles they like best and can add value to their company
3. Students accepted will undergo a one month training time with the company and complete the apprenticeship over the duration. Companies will offer students benefits to ensure proper care such as (counseling services, a feeding program for breakfast and lunch, and possibly even bursaries.
4. Not all companies have to pay students, if they do not have leverage to do that it can be an experience based apprenticeship (for legality issues we've included slide 10 to explain them in our pitch deck attached)
Who does your solution serve, and in what ways will the solution impact their lives?
Sagan is meant to focus on the uproar of young university women in East African countries specifically, as we believed that these are the youth transitioning into careers right after university, so we wished to provide them with efficient training to boost up their involvement in the STEM industry.
Companies will offer students benefits to ensure proper care such as (counseling services, a feeding program for breakfast and lunch, and possibly even bursaries. If the university feels that students excelled in the program, they can give them a bursary reward/pay their tuition for STEM education in school (like a scholarship).
One of our focuses in the early stages of Sagan are to build and maintain good relationships with the local communities we pilot Sagan in and work with local partners to make our project sustainable. We also want to employ locals within the communities we work in, to help uplift the economy and empower the community.
Which dimension of the Challenge does your solution most closely address?
Strengthen competencies, particularly in STEM and digital literacy, for girls and young women to effectively transition from education to employmentExplain how the problem, your solution, and your solution’s target population relate to the Challenge and your selected dimension.
The goal Sagan was aligned with was making young women more competent in the fields of STEM from education to employment. Keeping this in mind, we created a program that allows girls in university within East African countries to have access to digital learning opportunities and mentorship/a proper network to pursue careers within the fields and make them diverse. This program allows girls to understand the demands of the STEM fields and work towards making them competent within them, without having to sacrifice their education and have their school system involved. We believe in quality education for women globally.
What is your solution’s stage of development?
Prototype: A venture or organization building and testing its product, service, or business modelIn what city, town, or region is your solution team headquartered?
Toronto, ON, CanadaWho is the primary delegate for your solution?
Riya Mehta & Adara Hagman
Which of the following categories best describes your solution?
A new business model or processDescribe what makes your solution innovative.
Our best case scenario would be to provide more opportunities for young women in STEM to fulfill the aspiration of full access to technology skills and training over the next 50 years. This goal was announced by the African Union’s Agenda, which revealed that Africa holds almost 19% of the world’s youth (ages 15-24) . This means it’s even more vital for Africa to produce more women in STEM, and our goal of the apprenticeship program is to do that. There are current platforms such as FLIK (a way connect students and companies for internships) and other slack groups/women driven networks, but since the climate itself in East Africa is different, many of these platforms wouldn't apply due to slow progression, and instead have to be regulated by the school/institution, which is why Sagan stands out. Our approach is introducing these opportunities to young women in East Africa and make it easily accessible to them, so they don't have to seek them out on their own and be regulated by the school is any conflict were to happen (i.e. creating a safe space for digital learning and apprenticeships)
Please refer to our one pager, article, website (linked above) pitch deck & video (linked above) for more information on our solution, goals we are trying to solve, testimonials, our supporters and more (pitch deck has the most information)
Describe the core technology that powers your solution.
The core technology that powers our solutions is programming! We'll be programming our apprenticeship platform and in the future our digital toolbox. Our team has experience with programming and will be growing our team to build out our project over the next couple of months. Both founders also are adept in exponential technologies and always use a technology perspective when problem-solving. If there are other areas in this project that need technological innovation in the future it will be incorporated. For now we're sticking to programming as the core technology to power Sagan (AI & IoT based technology)
Provide evidence that this technology works.
For our solution, this digital platform will serve as an online mentorship community for these girls in STEM; where they can access strong female mentors to help guide them through our website during the duration of their placement. Through school or our website, girls can sign up for the apprenticeship program which includes filling out a profile on themselves or making a resume. Within the western world, co-op placements are usually done manually through the schools, but this is not efficient as technology can not only help speed up the process, but include personalized suggestions just as we are trying to do. For example; the platform will have a way to initially match young girls with institutions based on preferences, questionnaires they fill out, which will help to connect them to companies who might be a good fit.
Girls will put in 3 requests for companies they believe are the best suited for them, and the companies will filter through the profiles to ensure they want to proceed with an interview (check slide 10 on our deck pitch for interview questions). We wish to instill a strong sense of community by connecting girls from different apprenticeships through our platform to interact and have a community of boss women supporting each other in the STEM field for the duration of their apprentice semester.
Please select the technologies currently used in your solution:
What is your theory of change?
What makes Sagan stand out amongst other platforms and possible competitors is our niche and ability to adapt to the East African environment, rather than adapt it to how we operate solutions in our western world. To give some more context, it's important to understand that our climate in America & Canada specifically have been around innovation and harnessing the power of it to make real change, however in countries within Africa, especially East African countries are not as technologically advanced and have different goals than us. Keeping this in mind, we created Sagan to be a community based, technology solution that uses this platform as a tool for enhancing and bridging the gap of young girls within developing countries without interfering in the current climate, rather ease them in with the technology we have.
Apprentices will be hired to companies using Contract Employment, the type of employment used for apprenticeships in East Africa and places such as Kenya. An apprenticeship is the type of employment where a person is learning from a skilled employer, having agreed to work for a fixed period at low wages. It is not considered permanent, so students can work their for a designated time (based on semesters).
According to the Industrial Training Act, minors may work as an apprentice without setting a minimum wage. If companies do wish to pay their apprentices, this gives them the area and legality to do so, which is why the program is modeled under an apprenticeship program.
To give a quick rundown of benefits (more within pitch deck & website):
- Hands on experience: The apprenticeship program modelled after CO-OP, provides experiential learning through hands on tasks given by the company for students to perform
- Guided mentorship: STEM companies often have powerful directors and people in authority who can guide young women by mentoring them during their time at the company (career & personal advice)
- STEM employment: We plan to see an increase of women working within STEM in East Africa, due to proper training according to the mandate of Africa by 2030
Select the key characteristics of your target population.
Which of the UN Sustainable Development Goals does your solution address?
In which countries do you currently operate?
In which countries will you be operating within the next year?
How many people does your solution currently serve? How many will it serve in one year? In five years?
Since we're in the early prototype stage, this solution does not currently serve anyone. We are hoping to serve a couple schools worth of girls in the next year or so after we develop the platform and pilot it with partner organizations in Kenya. As a result of this being an early prototype, we don't have an exact number yet but our goal is to impact as many girls as possible in empowering them and helping to prepare them for the future of work. In the next question, we mention what a target impact number could look like in the next five years. We also hope to help them build the necessary skills they need in whatever areas they wish to pursue with a major emphasis on digital literacy and STEAM. Apprenticeships or internships today within North America serve thousands of people. Both founders of Sagan have done apprenticeships and internships in the past. Those experiences were huge contributors to who they are today and empowering them at an early age.
What are your goals within the next year and within the next five years?
Our goals within the next year are to develop the beta apprenticeship program and platform, secure partnerships with community leaders and organizations in Kenya to collaborate on Sagan with, and pilot our project in Kenya. Within the next five years, we plan to iterate from our pilot and expand to more communities/countries. We also plan to empower at least 2000 girls through apprenticeships and pilot our digital toolbox initiative, which will have action items for other young women around the world to pursue a field within STEM (consisting of mentors, resources and a powerful social network).
For example to compare our efforts to immerse STEM education in East Africa versus developments in South Africa, shows that their government is more receptive to the needs of women and young girls in STEM and has created organizations to spend 1.5% of the payroll to train the STEM workforce. We wish to use these data points to also bring that same effect to east Africa.
What barriers currently exist for you to accomplish your goals in the next year and in the next five years?
The barriers that currently exist for us to accomplish our goals in the next year or five years is funding and a team. We're actively seeking opportunities to address both of these areas however we could use more help. Funding is our biggest barrier as we just started this project recently and have yet to secure the funding we need to successfully support the project. A team would be helpful to organize the program, develop the platform, and implement it as soon as possible. We specifically want to build a team with local leaders and organizations in the communities we plan on bringing Sagan too. It's important to keep in mind that our age could be a possible barrier to others developing this, but strong momentum and a strong team will help to combat that.
How do you plan to overcome these barriers?
As mentioned in the previous question we're actively working on overcoming these barriers by seeking opportunities for funding and to grow a team. We've been more successful in the partnerships area so far and have secured a small grant. We plan on reaching our to more organizations and individuals in Kenya (since we're piloting there) so that we can collaborate with them on this project. For funding we will continue to apply for grants, prepare pitches for funding, and are working on securing partnerships with organizations to fund our project. We wish to gain perspective from travelling to these developing countries and understanding what young women have to face in these industries in other countries; our co-founder Riya has gained alot of perspective working with patients and that empathy/interaction gives a different sense of drive to our project, knowing we can quantitatively and qualitatively see the impact.
What type of organization is your solution team?
NonprofitIf you selected Other, please explain here.
Sagan is a Futureshot Factory project. Futureshot Factory is an organization that Riya and Adara founded to help address the UN's Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Sagan is a project to help make progress towards SDG #4 - Quality Education and #5 - Gender Equality.
How many people work on your solution team?
Due to Sagan being linked to our company Futureshot Factory, we have currently 3-5 interns working under us:
- 2 project managers for scaling & partnerships
- 1 social media/marketing lead
- 1 content lead/developer
- 1 programmer & UI/UX designer
- 2 Co-Founders & CEOs (Riya Mehta & Adara Hagman)
How many years have you worked on your solution?
1
Why are you and your team well-positioned to deliver this solution?
Since Sagan is a branch of our company Futureshot Factory, we work to instill a strong team culture within our interns and our entire organization, practicing mindsets such as anti-fragility, bias towards action, design thinking frameworks and much more through training sessions. We started Futureshot Factory almost a year ago and are currently working with some of the largest companies in the technology industry to help us solve the SDG goals using emerging technology being very young (17).
The project co founders (Adara and Riya), have gotten their start to being involved in STEM, due to internships, apprenticeship programs and access to mentors who helped facilitate their success, where they eventually went on to create a company to tackle the SDG goals of the UN. During their time at the company, they’ve gotten an amazing opportunity to consult for an child ECD company called Kidogo located in Kenya, to broaden women empowerment and access to early childhood education.
Their pitches for the project were heard by the Kidogo team and given amazing feedback. Adara has had the amazing opportunity to venture into climate impact and education, while also having life-changing experiences with internships and apprenticeships. Due to an internship/apprenticeship program Riya has been working at one of the most prestigious hospitals in the world facilitated through her school, The Hospital for Sick Children. This goes to show how much proper mentorship and STEM support can help empower young women to pursue these type of careers.
What organizations do you currently partner with, if any? How are you working with them?
For successful rolling out of our program in developing communities, starting in East Africa community involvement and local partnerships are extremely important. Working with the community helps build trust, ensure cultural considerations are accounted for, and helps to empower the local community which directly correlates with improving STEM education.
One of our focuses in the early stages of Sagan are to build and maintain good relationships with the local communities we pilot Sagan in and work with local partners to make our project sustainable. We also want to employ locals within the communities we work in, to help uplift the economy and empower the community.
- One partnership we’d love to do is with WE Charity’s schools in their WE Villages. One of their five pillars of Sustainable Development is Education, which includes various school locations, teacher accommodations, and libraries.
- WE Schools focuses on primary and secondary schools. They recently (Summer 2019) opened their first ever College - WE College. We’re looking to partner with their secondary school for girls - Kisaruni and WE College to pilot our apprenticeship opportunities and digital education.
As a result, Adara is also a former WE entrepreneur from their first-ever cohort of their social entrepreneurship incubator and has utilized their resources to help us construct this idea & bring it to light.
We've also applied and won a $250-300 grant from Rising Youth, a Government of Canada organization to invest in building out our digital platform for Sagan & purchasing necessary means/logistics.
What is your business model?
As of now, Sagan is a non profit organization as a branch of the social impact sector education for our existing non profit Futureshot Factory. The way Sagan works as mentioned before is providing our services through partnerships with schools in East African countries and other institutions which we feel is the best way to pilot this solution with existing organizations already helping to tackle education around the area and introduce an extra step beneficial for girls in university & high school. Our project/organization (both Futureshot Factory & Sagan) are both mission driven, rather than revenue driven at this point, but we are looking to explore options in the future that can possibly make it a profitable business (i.e. having upgraded resources for university students with purchases).
Do you primarily provide products or services directly to individuals, or to other organizations?
Organizations (B2B)What is your path to financial sustainability?
For the funding part of our business model specifically, we mentioned within who we wish to partner with to make this solution work in another question (Bill & Melinda Gates, J-WEL, etc) to recieve funding from them through MIT Solve or possibly writing proposals as another method. Since Sagan is a branch of our overall company Futureshot Factory, we raise funding for our overarching organization and have a set amount of money dedicated to Sagan (like with winning our most recent grant), and the way we do that is by filling out applications, sending proposals or doing collaborations that insinuate we do something for the organization in return of the money. We also plan to pitch to investors (as we are connected to many large networks of female driven investors)
Why are you applying to Solve?
Ever since my co-founder me and Adara were young, we've always envisioned making big impact through the intersection of emerging technology and social impact, much like education. As we grew older and started to build our business, we realized very quickly that we needed resources to make that change and gain exposure/partnerships to construct solutions. Through MIT Solve, we hope to gain more exposure through funding and development in partnership opportunities and iterating feedback constantly by mentors/advisors. As two seventeen-year-olds in the technology industry, it's hard to start out and create an efficient plan for change when others see your age as a barrier, rather than an agent for change. With the MIT Solve award, we hope to prove that notion wrong and empower women around the globe (especially in East African countries) with opportunities to immerse themselves into the fields of STEM.We chose this challenge for MIT Solve because we're highly passionate about the United Nation's Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This challenge works towards SDG #4 - Quality Education which is one of our primary focuses and aligns with both of our interest areas.
In which of the following areas do you most need partners or support?
Please explain in more detail here.
For partnerships specifically in marketing & media, we would need help getting exposure especially to those in East Africa (UN based organizations) and institutions in Uganda, Tanzania & Kenya to start, for launching this program with a few WE Schools as a pilot. In terms of the technology itself, we have a developer on our team, but might require more extensive developing depending on how well the platform will connect others and the reach. With the service distribution, like we mentioned it would all start with partnering up with our WE schools and a few institutions to preform operations manually and then on the digital platform (all of these steps would require funding for recruitment, media exposure and more).
What organizations would you like to partner with, and how would you like to partner with them?
- We would love to partner up with the J-WEL (and meet the director Vijay Kumar) as they approach education in a multitude of ways and can possibly help fund us, give us guidance as to how to target the African Demographic and give us more exposure within different institutions/have a greater reach
- In terms of community partners, we already listed WE Schools for piloting our organization along with STEM based institutions within East African Countries open to helping launch this program as well
- We would love to partner up with Bill & Melinda gates foundation as they do so much social impact work for equality rights and education is one of the most pressing matters, so we would love to discuss how they can help either fund us or give us guidance on approaches to the developing world since it is a new space for us to venture into
Solution Team
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Riya Mehta Co-Founder Sagan | Futureshot Factory , Futureshot Factory
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Solution Name:
Sagan