Better Minds Education

There is a crisis in learning in rural Africa. 86% of primary and lower secondary students are not proficient in basic reading and math, representing 200 million youth who are not prepared to enter the workforce. 80% of the worlds poor live in rural areas.

Better Minds is building a network of digital learning centers to address these challenges. Our model includes 3 program areas: 1. remedial tutoring using proven computer adaptive learning software for students to master the fundamentals. 2. school strengthening through digital analytics and mastery focused teaching 3. post-secondary training through online certificate, diploma and degree courses that are accessible and aligned to the job market.

The impact of our network of digital learning centers will be more students staying in primary school, entering secondary school, graduating and training in the skills needed to find employment and earn sustainable incomes.

Africa has a human capital challenge. The massive youth population is not being prepared for the modern workforce, resulting in high unemployment and low economic growth.

At the root of this problem is low learning outcomes from basic education. In SSA, 86% of primary and lower secondary children are not proficient in basic reading and math. 

Conversion rates from primary to secondary and secondary to tertiary education are low, and tertiary institutions are overwhelmed and unable to equip students for the job market.

Proven solutions to low learning outcomes exist, including the Teaching at the Right Level methodology, and tech-enabled ways of implementing it, such as the MindSpark program, which demonstrated a 2.5X increase in learning outcomes in India through a rigorous RCT conducted by J-PAL. However students in rural areas are unable to access quality tutoring software due to a lack of devices, internet, and guidance.

Students in rural Kenya are graduating from Secondary School without the fundamental knowledge needed to succeed in tertiary education, and they lack access to high quality skills training that adequately prepares them for the work-force, resulting in high unemployment and a skills mismatch with what employers require.

We are working directly with Schools, Parents, and Students in rural Kenya. Our pilot digital learning center in Kakamega, Western Kenya was founded after conducting focus groups with parents in the area and talking with school leaders at local public and low-cost private schools to understand their challenges and what they require to be successful.

Our target customers include students attending low performing and overcrowded public schools, or low cost private schools that lack resources (including technology) to offer high quality learning experiences. The parents of these students invest a significant % of their income in their students education, but are unable to afford the transport costs to send their students to the higher performing public schools in town or the tuition fees for the higher cost private schools. These parents are eager to improve the chances of their students staying in school, passing their primary leaving exam and gaining acceptance in high performing secondary schools and universities.

Since August 2019 we have offered remedial tutoring to 280 students to improve their mastery of fundamental concepts and prepare for the next levels of learning. We have partnered with 6 local schools serving over 500 students to offer digital skills training and promote mastery of key skills, and we have graduated 3 cohorts of our first post-secondary course in Adult Basic Computer skills to equip students with the skills in demand by local employers.

Over the next 2 years we aim to open 10 additional centers throughout rural Kenya to serve over 10,000 of students. Each center requires only 2 staff members to operate and includes 40 tablet computers (with external keyboard/mice) that can be transported to schools for in-school classes, and used by our adult students for online learning. We have developed our own personalized learning system using open source software and are partnering with EdTech companies both international and Kenya-based to offer high quality learning software in-line with the Kenyan curriculum.

In the next phase of our program we are aiming to build onto our adult education offering, including additional certificate and diploma programs in IT, programming, and freelance BPO work that have the additional advantage of unlocking remote work opportunities for our graduates that can allow them to work from our rural based centers. We will also explore the option of offering full degree programs such as the Southern New Hampshire University Competency Based Bachelor's Degree program. Our long term goal is to build a scalable, sustainable network that offers digital learning services at every level of education, building a pipeline for human capital development and economic growth in rural Africa.

Our program is built around the need to innovate around the delivery model to provide an underserved and neglected population with access to proven solutions that can make a difference in their lives.

Computer adaptive learning and online education have made huge strides over the past decade in the developed world. Students and schools in the US and Europe are able to take advantage of hundreds of learning programs that help target students specific needs and help them achieve mastery over key learning concepts to build the foundation for reaching their full potential. Increasingly non-traditional flipped classroom, blended learning, and online education models are giving new opportunities for market-aligned tertiary education.

These development have largely by-passed rural Africa where under-prepared teachers are still stuck in front of over-crowded classes with chalk boards and conducting rote learning. Students in these classes have little opportunity to develop creative thinking or technical skills needed for the 21st century workforce.

Through building the infrastructure for digital learning to reach these communities, Better Minds addresses the key barriers of affordability, accessibility and know-how. By using low-cost devices, a lean staffing model, and economies of scale, we will be able to offer these services at a price affordable to rural families, while sustaining each centers operations. This revenue model will allow our impact to scale rapidly, until we are able to build a digital learning in every rural community.

Our long term goal is to increase the employment and lifetime earning potential of people in rural Africa. Our activities are our 3 program pillars: 1. Remedial Tutoring for primary and secondary students 2. School strengthening and digital content integration 3. Post-secondary training in career-relevant skills and technical knowledge.

The immediate outcomes of remedial tutoring are increased mastery of fundamental literacy and numeracy topics among our primary school students. This improves their ability to stay in school and grasp the higher level concepts in upper primary. Our tutoring in the primary leaving exam and in secondary content and the national leaving exam improves student graduation rates and qualification for tertiary education.

Our school strengthening and digital content integration improves teaching in low performing schools by integrating technology - increasing teacher knowledge of student performance and equipping teachers and students with basic digital knowledge they otherwise would not be able to get. The outcome of this is students who are better prepared to use computers in their studies and to pursue tertiary programs in technology, better preparing them for the workforce.

Our post-secondary training offers tertiary training opportunities for students who otherwise would not be able to afford the tuition, transport, accommodation to attend university in major cities. Students are equipped with market aligned skills such as use of key computer packages like MS Office, basic software development and IT. Graduating students increase their employability and income earning potential.

We are currently serving 833 people at our first digital learning center. 

Within the next year we aim to open 3 additional learning centers, serving a total of 4,800 people.

In 5 years we aim to scale up to 1,000 centers, serving 1.5 million people. This represents 10% of the total current student population in Kenya.

Within the next 2 years we plan to prove the scalability of our model by opening up 10 learning centers throughout rural Kenya, serving 10,000+ students. We also plan to work closely with the Kenyan Ministry of Education to explore potential partnership opportunities including the integration of our remedial tutoring and school strengthening programs within the existing school system. 

Through proving the market for impactful tutoring and online post-secondary education programs, we aim to establish the potential for a sustainable network of workforce development centers that provide digital training and employment opportunities to the rural population. Depending on the balance of sustainability and impact, there may be potential to spin this off as a for-profit social enterprise for additional capital investment and expansion throughout rural Africa.

We envision a future where there is a Digital Learning Center in every small town in Africa, offering a suite of high quality learning services accessible to all. The result will be dramatic improvement in students' performance in school, ability to continue on to higher education, and preparedness for the job market

We recognize that the jobs of the future are not the same as the jobs of today, and that a flexible, tech-enabled network of training centers can help adapt the skills being offered to prepare the rising generation for the jobs of tomorrow

Our key initial barriers include:

• Financial - We need to raise sufficient capital to grow our network of centers into several new markets to prove the total addressable market. We also need to build a larger leadership team to fine-tune our product offering and streamline our expansion model for future growth
• Technical - our current solution functions well in the mid-size rural town with fairly regular electricity and internet access. However more remote rural areas may require the development of more robust offline solutions for hosting our content and equipping centers with solar power.
• Legal - In order to expand more rapidly, we would like to partner with the Ministry of Education as an approved partner for our content to be offered in the public school system.

• Financial - we are raising an initial investment round of $200,000 to expand our operations, hire key leadership team members, and conduct initial impact evaluations to establish the effectiveness of our model. We are targeting early stage grant applications and fellowship opportunities for this proof of concept stage. As we scale, we will target larger foundations with a focus on rigorously measured, scalable interventions, and will also be able to draw on our earned revenue for operations.
• Technical - we are already exploring off-line and solar powered options, and will invest in developing these further once hiring a technical lead to take this work on. So far there don't appear to be significant barriers.
• Legal - we have begun initial conversations with the Ministry of Education and are working with one public school already. We will invest in this relationship building by hiring a specialized government consultant to speed up the process and make key connections with potential government champions who can help advocate for our work.

We currently have 3 full time employees and 1 intern.

Our team brings together a unique mix of early stage start-up experience, experience growing operations in our target market, and deep knowledge of the education space in Kenya.

Siler, the Founder / Director, worked with the Kenya - based Social enterprise One Acre Fund for 6 years, launching the program in new markets including Uganda, Malawi, Zambia, India, and Nigeria. He previously worked at an innovative Secondary School in Somaliland, and has experience with technology in education through One Laptop per Child in Cameroon, and in developing tech-enabled employment solutions through his work with the Grassroots Development Lab in India, including Mobile-Naukri and employment connection app and Source for Change, and rural business process outsourcing entity.

Grace, the Teaching and Impact lead is a former secondary school teacher and university lecturer. She holds a BS in Education Science and an MBA in Finance from the top University in Kakamega. She has extensive experience with the Kenyan education system and in the Kakamega-areas where our pilot is operating.

Simon, the Operations lead, has experience in logistics operations with multiple agricultural and transport companies in Kenya. He has also worked in rural credit marketing and training with Equity Bank.

Our primary partners include Schools and EdTech companies.

We currently offer locally created education content from Zeraki Learning, E-Limu, Kytabu, Ubongo, MwalimuPlus, and Angaza Elimu. These partners have developed curriculum-aligned education content that is available through their apps and websites. We host this content on our tablets and link them with rural students who would otherwise not be able to access them.

We are currently partnering with 5 schools in the Kakamega area. These schools see Better Minds as providing key services to improve student learning and integrate ICT into their classrooms. They also help advertise our holiday, afternoon and weekend remedial tutoring courses.

We serve students in 2 main ways: directly through our digital learning center  (B2C) and in partnership with schools (B2B). Ultimately our customers are parents as they pay for their students to attend courses at our center and pay school fees this schools then use to pay for our services.

We provide 3 types of service: Remedial tutoring for students in primary and secondary school (B2C), School improvement and digital learning integration (B2B), and post-secondary employment training (B2C).

The revenue we receive from our customers covers the upfront costs of our technology (tablets), and recurring costs of staff salaries, rent, internet etc. Each learning center aims to break even within a year of operation and be self-sustaining. 

Additional capital raised is used to expand our operations and set-up new centers and for additional development of our product offerings.

The revenue we receive from our customers covers the upfront costs of our technology (tablets), and recurring costs of staff salaries, rent, internet etc. Each learning center aims to break even within a year of operation and be self-sustaining. Our fixed costs per center are $7,000 USD/year and our recurring costs are $13,000 USD/year. Our revenue at full center capacity is $23,000 USD/year.

Additional capital raised through grants is used to expand our operations and set-up new centers and for additional development of our product offerings.

Great opportunity to raise initial capital for the program to prove the model and prepare for growth.

The chance to participate in a network of like-minded organizations looking to solve bit challenges and to benefit from mentorship around implementing workforce development solutions.

The types of organizations we would be most interested in partnering with include developers of quality market aligned learning content. These included blended learning for workforce development and online skills focused tertiary education programs (such as the Southern New Hampshire University's Competency Based Bachelor's degree program).