MIT Solve

Solution Overview

Solution Name:

Nessy VR Technology on E-learning

One-line solution summary:

NessyVR Technology on E-learning is a project that provides virtual reality E-learning experience to the students in Kibera slum in Nairobi

Pitch your solution.

Most governments around the world have temporarily closed educational institutions in an attempt to contain the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The project will provide E-learning beyond 2D gaming to the targeted students by immersing them to another world of E-learning by use of virtual reality technology such as VR Goggles.

When students read about something, they often want to experience it. With VR, they aren’t limited to word descriptions or book illustrations; they can explore the topic and see how things are put together. Our project efforts is to mitigate the immediate impact of school closures, particularly for more vulnerable and disadvantaged communities, and to facilitate the continuity of education for all through remote learning. Also put the students to the test by hosting a quiz, and keep a record of grades for your own analysis afterwards.

Film your elevator pitch.

What specific problem are you solving?

Most governments around the world have temporarily closed educational institutions in an attempt to contain the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic.

These nationwide closures are impacting almost 70% of the world’s student population. Several other countries have implemented localized closures impacting millions of additional learners.

The global lockdown of education institutions is going to cause major interruption in students’ learning particularly whom come from vulnerable and disadvantaged communities. Whom much of them have no required resources to do online learning.

What is your solution?

In the era of digital devices, we have an opportunity to enable better learning with technology. Virtual Reality (VR) seems to be the natural next step for the evolution of education. Too much information received in a short period of time can easily overwhelm students. As a result, they become bored, disengaged, and usually not sure why they are learning about a topic in the first place.

When students read about something, they often want to experience it. With VR, they aren’t limited to word descriptions or book illustrations; they can explore the topic and see how things are put together.

Presently the feeling VR provides to students they can learn about a subject by living it. It’s easy to forget that VR experiences aren’t real — a body actually believes it’s in a new place. This feeling engages the mind in a way that is remarkable.

Who does your solution serve, and in what ways will the solution impact their lives?

Kibera is the largest slum in Nairobi, and the largest urban slum in Africa. The 2019 Kenya Population and Housing Census reports Kibera's population as 185,777, contrary to previous estimates of one or two million people.

Our project efforts is to mitigate the immediate impact of school closures, particularly for more vulnerable and disadvantaged communities, and to facilitate the continuity of education for all through remote learning.

The VR on E-learning can provide analytics on the time taken to complete real tasks (in the virtual world) or flag mistakes directly to the trainee. The VR can create scenarios that would be otherwise impossible through standard e-Learning. Also through group collaboration where Learners can experience scenarios together and solve problems collaboratively. VR on E-learning conditions improved overall performance (i.e. learning, including knowledge acquisition and understanding) as few of the research shows. Learners on VR condition also showed better performance for ‘remembering’ than those in the traditional.

Which dimension of the Challenge does your solution most closely address?

Promote gender-inclusive and gender-responsive education for everyone, including gender non-binary and transgender learners

Explain how the problem, your solution, and your solution’s target population relate to the Challenge and your selected dimension.

VR on E-Learning has already proven to be successful in corporate training and even engineering applications. It is now at a place where is a solutions in E-learning which is cost-effective, efficient and productive, also generating a competitive advantage. This Technology does show great potential, not only as an option to supplement or replace traditional learning methods, but to develop novel learning experiences that have not been used before. For example, a student might learn about how molecules and atoms work, before putting on a VR headset and being immersed inside an atom and experiencing this first hand.

In what city, town, or region is your solution team headquartered?

Kibera, Nairobi Province, Kenya

What is your solution’s stage of development?

Prototype: A venture or organization building and testing its product, service, or business model

Who is the primary delegate for your solution?

Nesphory Mwambai, President & Founder