What is the name of your organization?
Dalia's Book
What is the name of your solution?
Dalia's Book
Provide a one-line summary or tagline for your solution.
The school for the jobs of the future where kids and youth learn in-demand tech skills from industry professionals.
In what city, town, or region is your solution team headquartered?
Cluj-Napoca, Romania
In what country is your solution team headquartered?
Romania
What type of organization is your solution team?
Nonprofit
Film your elevator pitch.
—
What specific problem are you solving?
In Romania, 2 in 5 children are at risk of poverty and social exclusion, and more than half of rural 8th graders choose not to attend high school, mainly due to their families’ financial limitations. At the core of this issue is a widening quality gap between public education in rural and urban areas.
Students in under-resourced communities face systemic barriers to accessing relevant education, particularly when it comes to developing the digital skills essential for future employment. Many public schools lack the necessary digital infrastructure and trained educators to deliver technology classes. As a result, these students are left unprepared for the demands of the modern job market, deepening cycles of exclusion and lost opportunity.
What is your solution?
Our solution is an online platform that connects industry professionals with children and youth from underprivileged communities. Professionals volunteer as mentors and teach students(grades 1 to 12) in live online sessions and small groups of 6-8 students.
Our courses are in technology and future-ready skills: game development with Scratch, artificial intelligence, Python programming, Internet of Things (IoT) and smarthome or agriculture automation. We also offer modules in online safety, financial literacy, and entrepreneurship to build broader competences.
Mentors select the courses they wish to teach, and students enroll in classes that match their interests. The platform has an algorithm that groups students based on their age and prior knowledge, with each course designed in progressive modules, from beginner to advanced.
All courses are free for students, made possible through corporate CSR sponsorships. Each sponsored program includes a scholarship component for a set number of learners, and is tailored to reflect the sponsor’s social impact goals.
We’ve reached over 7,000 students nation-wide and from the Romanian diaspora through a community of 1,000+ volunteers.
Latest sponsored program video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dLg5UuSFFz8
Awards: finalist as Best Social Impact Startup at Central European Startup awards in 2020.
Who does your solution serve, and in what ways will the solution impact their lives?
Our solution serves students aged 7 to 18 (grades 1–12), the majority of whom face systemic barriers to education and opportunity. Over 7,000 students have participated in our live online courses, and approximately 13,000 parents have been indirectly impacted.
Two-thirds of our students come from rural areas and small towns, where access to computer science education is extremely limited and there are no qualified teachers. Even in urban areas, we reach children from low-income, single-parent, or Roma families, those who would otherwise be unable to access such courses as they are too expensive.
Most families we serve cannot afford extracurricular learning. In our surveys, many parents expressed that their children need skills to become financially independent after high school, as they cannot afford to support them through college. Some students come from unstable households, where we've even witnessed aggression during lessons. In these cases, our mentors become positive, stable role models, showing that a better life is possible, because many of us, too, come from similar contexts and managed to build successful tech careers.
By providing free access to in-demand skills, our program enables social mobility, equipping students to build sustainable futures, as employees or entrepreneurs, in their own communities.
