myME Box

By providing accessible quality, flexible and interactive self-learning education and vocational training through myME Box, disadvantaged children and youths will receive equal access and opportunity to attain life-long and progressing employable skills suitable for the 21st century and beyond. It’s available both online and offline, and accessible via mobile devices.

Poverty and inaccessible education are two major barriers for disadvantaged children and some youths to access quality education in various parts of the world. Develop progressive skills to contribute and thrive in the evolving workforce requires quality education and real-world knowledge. In order to battle the issue of inaccessible, costly, and poor-quality education around the world, our solution is to provide free, flexible and accessible quality education through an innovative, interactive and self-learning education platform called myMEBox.

myMEBox is a portable and low-cost content server that made out of Raspberry Pi, mini router with WiFi, and SD Card and it automatically download/upload latest contents via the server ( www.mymebox.org) where updated educational contents are stored/updated/uploaded.
The online/offline video-based self-learning curricula include basic teaching materials and vocational training courses that are based on real-life employer needs. Through partnerships with both local and global companies and businesses, learners receive knowledge/training/skills according to the requirements and skillful needs of employers.
The strength and effective teaching of myMEBox comes from its human-centered design model that emphasizes the needs of the general youth population and employers. And, integrated with a Blockchain-based system that will allow out-of-school and migrating youths to identify, validate, and present their completed courses to partnered schools, institutions for further studies and digital-CV for potential employers.
Once myME Boxes are installed across the world and its completion-certificates are accepted as reliable accredited certificates according to partnership agreements and Blockchain concepts;
1.    they can be used to join the workforce,
2.    disadvantaged children and young people will have higher chances of receiving better education and vocation training with lesser drop-out rates, and
3.    will have higher chances of landing better job opportunities in countries that have implemented the myMEBox system, connecting all workforces from around the world.

The specific problem that myME Box solves is making education free, flexible, accessible, and of high standard for disadvantaged children and youths. This serves as an option for out-of-school children and some of the youths to receive at least the minimum education standard. However, the greater effects of implementing the myME Box includes making work transitions smoother because people are able to enter the workforce in various locations through myME Box completion certificate, employee skill sets are continuously developed through practical vocational training, and helps minimize the unemployment gap between market demand and required employee's skill sets.  

Using Myanmar as an example, there are only about 60% of school-age children attending school, according to 2014 government’s census data. Nearly 1 million students dropping out of school each year due to severe poverty and lack of access to quality education. myME Box is transpired out of myME Project, which providing non-formal and vocational education to over 2500 out-of-school children in Myanmar for the past 4 years. The implementation of myME Box will provide second-chance education for millions of out-of-school children and accelerate employment opportunities for youths across the world through quality, multi-language, interactive, flexible, and real-world education.

The impact of myME Box installations in poverty striking areas is that the disadvantaged children and youths will get free access to inclusive and equitable basic education, practical vocational training with progressing skill-sets, and easier job transition with partnered business firms. Through myME Box level-completion certificate, graduates will obtain a stable job career with better salary. Deployment of myME Box will be easily achieved since it’s a stand-alone, multi-language, low-cost content server, they will be installed at community centers, schools, myME teashop classes, monastic and ethnic education centers where students/users can attend classes through them with or without on-side facilitators.

b. myME Box URL/Website is up and running according to the plan and 150 myME Boxes install at various locations in Myanmar - a. Complete the development of both server and client sides and deployment of 150 myME Boxes

b. Multi-language option appears on the myME Box landing page and 120 new myME Boxes stall at various partnered facilities in ethnic regions in Myanmar - a. Complete multi-language functionality for 8 major ethnic languages in Myanmar and deployment of 120 new myME Boxes at ethnic regions

b. A new menu option/item to upload video lesson plans on the myME Box landing page and track user signups for customize courses - a. Users can upload knowledge/vocational self-learning video lessons and customize vocational courses for personal/business needs

myMEbox contains lightweight and cost-effective components, solely designed to provide interactive, flexible and self-learning online education and practical job training with or without the onsite facilitator. Installation at any local district/township and facilitator carrying it along allows learners acquire up-to-date skills and knowledge without leaving their home-based. Lesson plans are designed and developed based on human-centered design model that emphasizes the needs of the students and potential employers. Also, integrated with a Blockchain-based system that allows out-of-school and migrating youths to identify, validate, and present their completed courses to partnered schools, institutions for further studies and digital-CV for potential employers.

myME Box is particularly designed and developed for out-of-school and marginalized children who do not have the opportunity to access quality education. We’ve started, served and learned from them for the past 4 years and developed practical curriculum and education program based on their challenges, issues, backgrounds, and needs. myME Box solution is the next step in scaling up of our 4-year hands-on program for millions of children in Myanmar and across the world in robust, flexible, and effective way by utilizing cutting-edge technology. It will also address two major issues when it comes to online learning; language and accessibility.  

myME Boxes will be distributed free-of-charge in low-income neighborhoods where education is inaccessible. There will be a supervisor/facilitator in each neighborhood/village to manage the boxes. In addition, myME Project also plans to train a teacher from that neighborhood who could lead a class using the ready-made teaching materials and resources straight from the myME Box. This way the classroom is brought to the children and interactive teaching becomes more effective for learners. Students can also learn from interactive, game-based, and engaging video lesson plans without the facilitator on their own time.

Although myME Boxes, which contains eBooks, interactive lesson plans, educational games, and updated news and information, are distributed free-of-charge in unprivileged communities, the products will also be sold to the government, private and public schools, and interested individuals for profit. The seed money to research and pilot would come from funders and donors, and hopefully the prize winning money. Once the profits starts running, the money will be used to conduct continued research and development to further upgrade the myME Box technology and include new interactive lesson plans according to the needs of the children and businesses. 

myME Box has four developing phases. First is to design and distribute the myME Boxes. Next is to add languages to make the program convenient for the majority. The third phase is to implement a cloud computing system that automatically synchronizes myME Boxes with new uploads. The last phase is to make the platform user interactive where users are able to upload educational contents, obtain online vocational course certificates, and serve as an interactive ground for employers and employees. Due to the large scale of the project, initial funding and technological accessibility is limited within the myME Project organization. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wRh-qteeQDY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Re8aVN9h2To

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tfa0633M374

There are millions of out-of-school children and child laborers around the world, and about 5 million of them are in Myanmar and quality education is a critical step toward alleviating poverty and the abuses associated with child labor. We’ve launched myMEproject in 2014 to provide quality and flexible non-formal education to thousands of out-of-school children in cities across Myanmar via mobile school buses. But, we need serious help to reach millions more and believe that applying to Solve and utilizing the human-centered technology-based solution along with its resources and experts is the smart way to scale-up our effort efficiently.  

We are partnering with international companies (Telenor Myanmar, Samsung Myanmar, and EdotCo) that are operating in Myanmar to provide connectivity and zero data charges to access myME Box server/website, and also provide both used and new smart phones, tablets and laptops for the students to access myME Boxes.