Happy Woman App

A large number of girls and young women especially in developing countries are unable to access quality, relevant and timely education; due to  factors such as social economic for instance, the COVID-19 pandemic.132 million girls worldwide are out of school, 52 million in Sub-Saharan Africa alone.16 million will never set foot in a classroom.COVID-19 school closures have disrupted, and in many cases interrupted, the education of more than 740 million girls and young women.These amongst other challenges pose a great threat and jeopardizes  them.

The Happy Woman  App intends to counter this  by providing a mobile-based education platform (formal and informal), where relevant learning materials can be easily and conveniently accessed.

Due to internet accessibility issues, the app focuses on providing both online and offline education services based on a country’s curriculum which when scaled globally will make learning easier and convenient with which skills will improve their livelihoods.

Girls’ education

Over the last decade, Kenya has made significant progress in education, achieving gender parity in primary education enrollment and near parity at secondary level. However, gender parity does not mean that universal access to primary education has been achieved and enrolment in secondary education remains low for both boys (51%) and girls (48%).

Women’s literacy

Women’s literacy rate has significantly increased as a result of positive government policies and strategies. However, despite progress in education as a whole, gender disparity remains a challenge as 16% of women in Kenya still lack basic literacy skills, compared with 9% of men. The failure to promote and retain girls in secondary education is probably one factor negatively affecting the slow progress in women’s literacy.

Challenges and Issues

• Persistent high level of poverty, especially in urban slums and rural areas.
• Socio-cultural norms based on patriarchy prevail; families tend to give priority to boys' education when faced with financial constraints.
• Lack of adequate infrastructure.
• Inadequate guidelines for policy implementation.
• Prevalence of HIV and AIDS.

We intend to offer the solution through a mobile-based app that allows learners to easily and conveniently access all relevant learning  materials anywhere. The app is cloud-based and uses cloud technology to integrate different curricula into a single module where learners can selectively choose what to consume. It will include multilingual integration to facilitate easy understanding of content provided.

There will be a provision for offline accessibility of learning materials in case of internet connectivity challenges. This also helps the learners to save on data cost. The app is intended to be freely available on iOS and Google Play Store.

For the learners who cannot easily understand the content, there will be a provision for parental, guardian and or tutor guidance. The learning process is meant to strictly follow the country’s curriculum for the formal and informal education.

Happy Woman App intends to serve marginalized girls and young women who do not have access to quality formal and informal education by availing this at their disposal. This will consequently provide them with intellectual tools to gain relevant skills making them eligible for absorption in the job market or to be self-dependent improving their livelihoods hence positively impacting the society at large.

We are targeting more than 5,000 girls and young women for a start. These are girls and young women who have been adversely affected by social economic factors such as the COVID-19 pandemic rendering them highly vulnerable and helpless. Through our team research and survey, we have evaluated more than 5,000 girls and young women from different locations in Kenya, in deplorable situations unable to access any study materials during this pandemic time compared to those from well-off families who can easily access education from their prestigious institutions’ online programs.

Lack of quality learning opportunities for girls and young women in different parts of the world, should not shut off their dreams and opportunities in their lives. The Happy Woman App intends to be the answer to this undeserved group by availing the required learning materials and content. This access to quality learning opportunities (formal & informal), free of charge will be a great boost to the betterment of their livelihoods.

Additionally, the App avails offline content access easing their continuity for learning without internet. This greatly helps those living in areas with insufficient or no internet, cutting down costs.

The Happy Woman App is the brainchild of Mr. Ferguson Kyalo, Mr. Jared Mwanduka and their associates,  of which the first two have had first-hand experiences of how it feels for girls and young women to lack quality education causing them irritable limitations in realizing their dreams. Ailing from one of the rural and semi-arid parts of Kenya, Kitui county, it’s been their unquenchable desire and thirst to see this group receive the needed solution. The Happy Woman App hasn't been in existence, not only in the country but also other nations. There are many institutions in the world offering distance learning through different online platforms, most of which charge for their services. This rarely includes the ultimate needs for the two groups in question. Even if they did, the deplorable situations in which they live wouldn’t allow them to access the services. The relevance and the timeliness of the content doesn’t fully fit them. This app seeks to solve this problem by being a free service with an integrated offline functionality as well as a multilingual interface, highly convenient for the learners. The app can be applicable to different countries’ ministries of education who can freely use it and upload their curricula. We strongly believe that this platform would be the perfect solution to millions of underserved girls and young women in the world.    

The actualization of the Happy Woman App involves bringing into collaboration, a number of technology frameworks. The core technologies are:

• Software and Mobile Applications
• Internet of Things
• Audiovisual Media

Software and Mobile Applications 

This technology entails bringing together different components of software frameworks and the underlying code structures into a single functional unit delivered as a web service with a particular functionality through computer programming. The software is either web based or mobile based. Happy woman App will be build using Mobile technology that utilizes cloud computing to host the app as well as making it remotely accessible to the users.

Internet of Things

This technology makes the interconnectivity between the cloud server and the Happy Woman App very convenient by connecting the end-users with the services and contents that can be easily retrieved from the cloud host. Once the content is retrieved, the end-user would have the choice to save it into the device for offline access purposes.

Audiovisual Media

The formats of the learning materials are expected to vary from pdf, html pages, and word documents to video presentation. The integration of audiovisual technology is expected to greatly help in making the retrieval and understanding of its simplicity, clarity and precision to the learners as well as compatibility with the devices used.

We have been involved in projects which use the technologies identified above in coming up with successful solutions in the past.These have been used in companies and learning institutions.

• Software and Mobile Applications

Used in coming up with reliable solutions for development of user based applications for business processes.It has been used in apps like WhatsApp and Instagram .

• Internet of Things
  

Our software solutions involves creating interconnections between cloud hosts and end-users. Internet of Things has greatly fostered our implementation of related projects.Used in apps as Siri,Alexa,Robin,Elsa and Google Allo.

• Audiovisual Media
  

All projects we have done in the past need reports retrieval and content delivery in formats which the user can easily read, interpret and understand. Use of Audiovisual media has helped us in delivery of content in such formats as pdfs, html pages, videos and audios

The Happy Woman App is designed to provide quality learning opportunities to marginalized girls and young women .The idea is that this will solve the very need of the underserved young women and girls who will become skilled people to be eligible for jobs in the competitive job market and or become self sufficient in creation of businesses and or self employment.Our first phase is intended to reach 5,000 of them, with more than 1,000,000 in the next three years and over 3,000,000 in the next five years.

Information will be readily available through the app for theoretical and practical purposes through audiovisual technology making learners gain competency in various aspects thinking about, conducting and managing social-economic small and large-scale engagements.

Learners will have the ability and skills to demonstrate shallowly or in depth, the concepts  learned depending on the challenges at hand. Through experience, they are expected to deliver these acquired skills to others through mentorship, management, hiring and training.

This will be a great way of affecting,touching and improving the society both locally and internationally.

At current, we’re serving only 107 people  through provisions of online classes via audiovisual media which  is ineffective as per our target.However, we intend to serve 100,000 people in the first year and over 3,000,000 in the next five years.

The Happy Woman App is designed to provide quality learning opportunities to marginalized girls and young women .The idea is that this will solve the very need of the underserved young women and girls who will become skilled people to be eligible for jobs in the competitive job market and or become self sufficient in creation of businesses and or self employment.Our first phase is intended to reach 100,000 of them, in the first year  and over 3 million in the next five years through absorption and replication in other countries.

• Financial constraints

• Inadequate skills in retrieval of learning materials 

Financial constraints

This project is out rightly beyond our financial ability and it would require financial support.

We intend to find monetary support from well-wishers, donors, grants and peer organizations.

Inadequate skills in retrieval of learning materials

We intend to offer online support and user manual systems.The online support varies from live chats, messages, support calls through hotlines .At the very apex,we hope to have teams which can travel to offer physical assistance to least literate groups.

N/A

• 2 Full-time
• 2 part-time
• 10 field workers

Our team comprises of highly skilled experts in leadership, community service  and the IT sector. Our lead has over 8 years first hand experience in community service dealing with the marginalized such as the orphans, street children, girls, young women and those living with HIV and AIDS.

Our software engineers have extensive skills in design, development and implementations of software with different underlying technologies with more than 5 years experience in the field of work, served in over 7 companies and  providing software solutions in more than 10 learning institutions across the country. Our research team is well equipped and with huge experiences in data collection tools such as surveys,observations,interviews and focus groups.They are also apt in data preservation and evaluation.The efforts of these put together have seen achievements in great works and the undeniable need of unity.We subscribe to the slogan:unity is strength .

We are  currently partnered with Learnsoft Beliotech Solutions – leading experts in school software development and implementation. They are helping as associate consultants.

We are a non-profit organisation  offering free products and services to the marginalised in the society such as food and clothing to orphans and street children and internally displaced people,pregnancy gift hampers to pregnant teenagers and women ,counselling services to child abuse and gender based violence victims,those living with HIV/AIDS and refugees. Our revenues are solely dependent on well wishers, sponsors and grants. Most of the revenue such as for field work and necessary materials have been from personal contributions ,resources and individual donations.These groups require these services because they’re very basic to them ,but they’re helpless and with no hope except from the good Samaritans .We believe that the best lived life is that lived for others.We will gladly keep doing good all the days of our lives .

As a non-profit organisation we heavily rely on well wishers, sponsors and grants for sustainability. As at now,  all the expenses for field work ,products and services alongside necessary materials have been from personal contributions ,resources and some individual donations . We do not have any existing sustained financiers but we anticipate to have them in due time to help us realise our dreams .

The Happy Woman App was invented as a result of identification of a challenge facing marginalized girls and young women in acquisition of quality learning opportunities. In the process of meeting the prime need, we have realized that we have expenses to cover, which are beyond our financial capability making it hard to actualize our dream solution.

Through Solve, we hope to meet like-minded peers and organizations, which can offer adequate financial support to the project  making it deliverable within the anticipated timeline. We are determined to deliver a tech- friendly and easily accessible app to reach the marginalized girls and women both locally and globally.

We have identfied the above key areas as the mojor ones because they need much financial attention which is beyond our current financial capability.Funding is necessary for the realisation of the project through its model,meeting the technological monetary needs,marketing and exposing the product to the target groups through the media.

Relevant NGOs - help in steering our project implementation.

MIT Initiatives would offer advice,ideas and any pertinent information.

Econet wireless would offer technological support and if necessary financial assistance.

Other Organizations.

Chipping in of such organizations which are like minded; would greatly boost the actualization of this project which would highly benefit the world by reaching the marginalized girls and young women.

Refugees fall under the category of the marginalized in the society in which girls and young women belong.This is one of the groups in the jurisdictions of our service beneficiaries . Realistically young women and girls in this category suffer the most. Therefore, receiving this very prize would greatly foster our financial muscles and capabilities, making our dream easier and achieving one of the United Nations’ (UN) sustainable development goals of Sustainable Cities and Communities.

Our key focus is solving the quality learning opportunities for marginalized girls and young women. This Prize will help us in faster actualization and implementation of the project.

Our key focus is solving the quality learning opportunities for
marginalized girls and young women. Some of the most vulnerable women are in Sub-Saharan Africa especially regions faced with drought ,famine and terrorism .This Prize will help us in faster
actualization and implementation of the project,putting smiles on these young  women and girls.

Our key focus is solving the quality learning opportunities for
marginalized girls and young women. Young women, are adults who through this project would garner great literacy skills ,opening them up to opportunities,therefore this Prize will help us in faster actualization and implementation of the project which will benefit and positively influence their livelihoods.

Happy Woman App considers to implement machine learning technology in coming up with human interactive solutions for making learning easier for marginalized girls and young women. We intend to develop solutions that utilize AI technology in teaching just like human beings.This prize will make this possible and a great breakthrough to our goals .