InspireIT

Problem: In Nigeria, primary and secondary school students constitute a large and active part of the population. However, few students in secondary schools in Nigeria have access to mentors.

Solution: InspireIT promotes female STEM participation and mentoring through female digital skills empowerment, coding skills and building strong foundation in science subjects. We are developing InspireIT messaging app that is targeted at solving the problem of lack of access to STEM mentors faced by many young girls in secondary schools.

How are we changing the world? With InspireIT, we're changing the way people see mentoring.Our vision is to see a world where girls and women are connected through mentoring. We believe that no matter what language a girl speaks, or where she comes from, she can be successful in her quest for learning and great mentoring relationships can be formed between students and mentors. 

The duration of secondary education in Nigeria is 6 years. So, while students spend more than 65% of their time in school, they have no access to a mentor and have no idea how to get access to one. Mentorship is a catalyst for career success and a facilitator for career selection and advancement. 

Science and technology can be regarded as the cornerstone of industrial development but according to a youth survey report issued by the National Bureau of Statistics, in Nigeria young men are almost twice as likely to have a career in computer science and technology-related fields as women.

We believe that for positive transformation of more girls and women to pursue careers in STEM, girls and women must be digitally empowered, encouraged to build strong foundation in science subjects and learn coding skills. We also believe efforts must be made to get young girls not in schools to learn basic digital and coding skills and encourage men to make efforts to participate in reducing the gender gap in STEM.

InspireIT supports young girls and women studying  or interested in STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics). InspireIT runs various projects to encourage young girls and women to pursue careers in STEM. One of such project is the STEM Club Project targeted at girls in primary and secondary schools. The idea behind the project is to encourage girls in primary and secondary schools to learn digital skills,coding skills and build strong foundation in science subjects.

We are working on developing an intelligent messaging app that uses HTTP + Push Notifications and Extensive Messaging and Presence Protocol (XMPP) protocols to provide personalized mentoring for students in secondary schools. We are targeting girls in senior secondary schools. 

The messaging app will have two major components:

1. Connecting female students with mentors so that they can build trusting, and respectful mentoring relationships

2. Educating the students on how best to get the mentors they need based on personalized content and chatbot-like experience.

We want to provide personalized mentoring experience for both the student and the mentor. 

One of InspireIT’s primary concerns is promoting STEM education for girls in primary and secondary schools.  Many girls in secondary schools in Nigeria interested in pursuing STEM careers do not have access to mentors and we are looking to connect these girls to mentors. We plan to grow to impact at least 1255 girls in secondary schools in Nigeria over the next year, and 10000 girls in the next five years.

InspireIT is looking at facilitating 1 million conversations between mentors, mentees and teachers in secondary schools. Build prototype version of the messaging app with personalized content for students and mentors by refining topics of discussion and personalized content. The plan is to have InspireIT messaging app downloadable on Google Play store (for Android phones and iOs (for Apple phones).

Establish content partnerships between organizations involved in mentoring, organizations involved in STEM education and advocacy for STEM materials.

We will provide personalized messages for students depending on their area of STEM interest, what’s been learnt in the classroom and past behaviors. Students are given opportunity to ask questions and to make suggestions when necessary. However, InspireIT messaging app will operate largely through a user's connection to the internet, and even when they go offline, users will be able to receive all the notifications they missed when they go back online. InspireIT messaging app will also suggest to the student if they would like to be mentored in a certain area and if they would prefer to be anonymous. 

We aim to provide a tech-driven solution to girls in secondary schools by leveraging real time instant messaging technology. We are planning to personalize the mentoring through a data-driven, yet, accessible, and scalable way. We are also specifically building for girls from low-income and middle-income in secondary schools. We have also taken into consideration that more girls in senior secondary schools will have access to smartphones when compared to girls in junior secondary schools.

By contrast, there are very few real time messaging applications built specifically for mentoring.  We also plan to use innovative technology to power our messaging app to be able to translate to local languages, allowing for culturally relevant translations to enable two-way conversations between students and mentors. 

The idea is to match students with mentors in their area of interest as it regards STEM, offer STEM opportunities and STEM resources available. 

Our proposed instant messaging app is a software intended to solve the problem of lack of access to STEM mentors by girls in secondary schools. InspireIT messaging app will be based on TTP + Push Notifications and Extensive Messaging and Presence Protocol (XMPP) protocols, the two main types of connections used in chat apps. The use of this technology will make us highly scalable and accessible to reach a large number of girls in secondary schools in Nigeria. 

We will be developing a real time instant messaging application distinguished by real time delivery of messages and multimedia between two users (student and mentor).

We will be able to provide content in anticipation and continuously improve the content through the process.

The two main types of connections used in chat apps are HTTP + Push Notifications and Extensive Messaging and Presence Protocol (XMPP) protocols. HTTP + Push Notifications are used more for file sharing apps like Instagram, whereby when you leave a comment the user receives a push-notification, and when the app is reopened it then connects to the app’s server.  

The messaging app will use Erlang which is the programming language on which massive popular chat apps Whatsapp and WeChat are built from. However, we also looking at PHP and Java as alternatives.

InspireIT messaging app will include features such as user registration, school address, user profile, message exchanging and message notification.

Instant messaging app is being built to be cost effective, to enable fast and effective communication both one on one and in closed member groups. Also, people can send unlimited number of messages and there is a sense of privacy which promotes confidentiality relative to other means of communication via social networks.

The idea is to encourage and train students to know when to draw upon their different skills and strategies to solve problems and address challenges while being mentored. Students gain STEM competencies in various aspects of critical thinking, problem-solving, leadership, team building and analytical skills.

By having an app that they can engage with a mentor, students can demonstrate the ability to tackle problems in their communities and proffer technological solutions to these problems. 

Students can mentor and train other students who may not otherwise have access to mentors, and who may not be financially buoyant to own smart phones or have access to the internet.

Since 2014 when InspireIT started, we have reached out to more than 3255 girls in secondary schools, mentored  more than 450 girls and women and  inspired more than 3500 girls to pursue STEM careers and attracted more than 6000 girls to choose STEM.  Through our STEM Club project which we started in 2017 targeted at girls in primary and secondary schools, we have reached out to more than 14 schools in Nigeria, 2255 girls and 650 boys. 

This year, we are planning to reach additional 24 schools and 1255 girls in Nigeria. 

In the next 5 years, by 2025, we are targeting 10000 girls in senior secondary schools in Nigeria.

Our goal within the next year is to reach at least 1255 girls in secondary schools in Nigeria. 

Our 5 year vision is to help connect at least 8000 girls in senior secondary schools in Nigeria to STEM mentors, help them build strong foundation in science subjects, learn coding skills and digital skills as well as teach other girls and women in their various communities. We plan to create a ripple effect (directly and indirectly) through our STEM Club Project. 

We plan to do this through:

1) Growing the number of schools and partnerships involved in STEM education

2) Connecting more girls interested in pursuing STEM careers across different states and countries

3) Growing the number of girls who can volunteer to be agents of change and great innovators in the society as well as making positive impact in their family, community and the nation at large.

1. Poor digital skills: Many girls in secondary schools in Nigeria especially rural areas lack basic digital skills and as such this affects their will to learn computer programming skills.  

2. Multi-Ethnic Groups: Nigeria is a country with multi-ethnic groups, diverse cultures, and more than 25 local languages. We have taken this into account in planning. 

3. Funding: We currently do not have enough funds to reach the number of girls in secondary schools that we would love to reach and mentor. We will need funding to be able to develop this InspireIT messaging app and reach our planned target number of girls in secondary schools in Nigeria.

1. We are planning to train more girls in secondary schools on digital skills.

2. We plan to achieve do this by reaching out to more girls in secondary schools  through massive campaigns (in various local languages) in various schools, on mass media (radio, magazine, newspaper), social media (Facebook, Twitter and Instagram) and grassroots mobilization in rural areas in local languages.

3. Learning more about funding strategies, applying for grants and reaching out to organizations with similar interests.

InspireIT instant messaging app has the potential to scale massively in Nigeria and Sub-Sahara Africa in general. It would be great to explore this through Solve.

Not applicable.

We currently have 6.

3 full-time staff and 3 Part-time staff.

Adanna first got involved in mentoring in 2011 while she was studying at Anglia Ruskin University in United Kingdom. She was the only female student in my master class, and she was worried that she was the only female student in my class. She did some research, and she found out that there few young women in STEM in the world too.This was when she knew she had to do something. So, in 2014, she started InspireIT, an initiative to support young women studying or interested in STEM.
She has been actively involved in mentoring and volunteering with World Pulse, a U.S. based social network dedicated to accelerating global changes that women speak, encouraging and supporting women to speak up and amplifying women’s voices by using digital communication tools and strategies. She has more than four years experience volunteering with World Pulse and in 2018, she was selected as a World Pulse story award winner and honoured as a World Pulse mentor.

InspireIT is currently partnering with Mary Justina Foundation, a nonprofit organization empowering girls and women from marginalized and underdeveloped communities on how to support girls from underdeveloped communities with STEM resources and digital skills training.

We've grown InspireIT in the last 5 years through word of mouth, social media platforms (Facebook, Twitter and Instagram), online mentoring, organizing workshops and through women led platforms such as World Pulse. We've also grown InspireIT through the support of grants received from international organizations such as The Pollination Project USA, Open Knowledge Foundation, World Wide Web Foundation USA, World Pulse and CapeTown Science Center in South Africa.

We have reached out to more than 2255 girls in primary and secondary schools in Nigeria and we believe that we can reach out to more and grow our solution significantly in the next 5 years through a clear growth strategy for our instant messaging app. Our plan is to reach 10000 girls in senior secondary schools in Nigeria by 2025. We plan to do this through our STEM Club project, online and offline mentoring, digital skills training in various secondary schools, social media platforms, InspireIT messaging app and organizing technology workshops in communities especially in rural areas. 

We are focused on providing free mentoring services to students in secondary schools who are interested in pursuing STEM careers but do not have access to STEM mentors.

Since our main source of funding is through grants, we also plan to offer premium services in addition to the free mentoring services that will be offered via InspireIT messaging app. These premium services will offer additional services in certain technology areas (artificial intelligence, machine learning, internet of things and natural language processing). 

However, we are also mindful of the fact that a lot of girls in secondary schools from low-income homes will not be able to afford these services. Therefore, we are planning to offer these services at a very low cost.

We are interested in growing InspireIT platform and developing our messaging app to serve thousands of girls in senior secondary schools in Nigeria. We believe that being a part of Solve's global network will provide us with many opportunities and resources to grow our own network  and help us build an app that will help young girls in secondary schools in Nigeria, Sub-Sahara Africa and Africa in general have access to STEM mentors. The ability to be able to download the app no matter your location in Nigeria will go a long way to help girls especially those in rural areas that may be finding it more difficult to connect with STEM mentors and access STEM opportunities and resources.

We are look forward to meeting new potential partners, and learning from professionals.We're looking to build our connections to grantors, to learn more about fundraising strategies, strategic planning and product development.

We plan to grow InspireIT outside Nigeria but we currently do not have enough capacity (both human and financial) to do so. We strongly believe that InspireIT will gain more exposure (both human and financial) through Solve.

To reach our goals, InspireIT seeks:

1. Advise and connections on product development, distribution and strategic planning

2. Mentors with expertise on growth strategy and global product distribution

Partnership with MIT faculty and Solve Members will give me and my team valuable global exposure both human and financial and opportunities to work with STEM professionals.

Bearing in mind, our plan to scale, Solve's network will be invaluable to ensuring access to a broader pool of STEM training opportunities, technical resources and strategic resources.

Since 2017 when we started the InspireIT STEM Club, to enable girls in primary and secondary schools in Nigeria learn digital skills, learn coding skills and build strong foundation in science subjects, we have:

1. Reached out to more than 2255 girls in various primary and secondary schools in Nigeria. Some of the schools are: Interkince College Ohafia, Interkince primary school Ohafia, Potter's Court School Elelenwo Port Harcourt, Ikenegbu Girls Owerri, Ohafia Girls Model Secondary School. 

2. Trained 108 girls in primary and secondary schools on HTML, CSS and Javascript during Africa Code Week in 2017.

3. Mentored more than 445 girls women through World Pulse and InspireIT platforms. World Pulse is a U.S based social network platform dedicated to accelerating global changes that women speak, encouraging and supporting women to speak up and amplifying women’s voices by using digital communication tools and strategies.

4.  Reached out to more than 145 young women in Nigeria through various online and offline technology and entrepreneurship workshops.

Our plan is to reach 10000 girls (and more possibly) in secondary schools in Nigeria in the next 5 years. We also plan to grow outside Nigeria, reaching other girls in secondary schools in Sub-Sahara Africa.

 Support from The GM Prize on Learning for Girls and Women will enable us develop InspireIT instant messaging app to help girls in secondary schools across Nigeria have access to STEM mentors, STEM opportunities and STEM resources.