Mobile EduTech Digital Training Centres

1) Our solution is addressing the lack of digital skills on the African continent. 

2) Our solution is Mobile EduTech Digital Training Centre that allows many youths and teachers to have easy access to digital skills training in the shortest period of time  within their local communities and at a cost effective price. 

3) This solutions allows for the democratization of digital skills development. If many people are digitally skilled on the continent, we will be able to grow the African economy exponentially.

Africa has the fastest youngest growing population, The Africa-America Institute (State of Education in Africa Report 2015) stated that, By 2040, the world’s largest labour force will be in Africa with an estimated working age population of 1 billion. Unfortunately, currently teachers who are the custodians of education do not have the relevant skills to prepare the learner for today and tomorrow’s workplace. Caerus Capital, The Business of Education in Africa also stated the following, “The International Labour Organization finds that nearly two-thirds of Sub-Sahara Africa’s youth are under-educated for the work they do, the highest figure among all regions. Surveys among employers confirm these trends: 54% of Sub-Sahara Africa employers state that job seekers’ skills do not match their needs. The secondary education teacher preparation and support paper (2019) stated that the main problem that Sub-Sahara Africa faces when it comes to teachers, is that, there are not enough of them……Sub-Sahara will need about 2.2 million teachers to deal with the rising pupil school enrolment.   Without dramatic changes to the education systems, Sub-Sahara Africa will fail to reach its potential as an engine of global growth and could indeed be a drag on the global economy.

Please watch this 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HCRN4kfCujQ

Compu-Connect Education has put together a Mobile  EdTech solution which addresses  ICT skills development with Robotics & coding training program  for the youths and teachers by using a EdTech Mobile Digital Training Centres. The Mobile EdTech Digital  Training centre is a mobile self-charging cabinet that comes loaded with laptop, an acredited ICT skills development program and a battery powered scribbler robots used for skills developmet.. We have also taken care of the deep rural schools that have no electricity supply, we use solar powered EdTech Mobile  trolley.  Over the past 12 years, we have put together a training program where teachers are trained and have added 4IR skills needed for classroom teaching, which includes a 3 months ICT skills program with a Robotics and Coding program for Teachers. This program is accredited by MICT-SETA (The Media, Information and Communication Technologies Sector Education and Training Authority in South Africa). This program will easily be registered with the Higher Education Authority of any country if need be.

Women, Youths and Teachers will be positively impacted directly. In line the UN Sustainable Development  Goals (SDGs) Goal 5 " Achieve gender equality and the empower all women and girls," and also In line with the Continental Education Strategy for Africa 2016-2025, SO 5: "Accelerate processes leading to gender parity and equity," we wish to empower women from Sub-Sahara African country to be the distribution channel of this solution.Teachers and Youths with no tertiary education are the trageted direct consumers.  A digital diagnostic assessment will be used to select women, who will be trained to become EduTech entrepreneurs who will train teachers and youths in the required digital skills. We already work with women digital suppliers to source some of our solutions, so we understand women's desire to run flexible businesses. This solution allows entrepreneurs to create jobs for themselves by running the mobile EduTech digital centers profitably. The youths are skilled with employable digital skills so they can now easily look for tech related jobs. Our company already works with teachers in training them with integration of digital tools in classroom teaching. This is a comprehensive African digital skills development solution for Women, Youths and Teachers.

Our solution enables women to run their own small businesses in their homes or back yards or at schools in their communities in form of a mobile digital training center. There by creating jobs for themselves and hopefully expanding the business by acquiring more mobile centers, hence creating jobs for others along the way. Most youths would like to be digitally skilled, but the higher entry barriers excludes them from participating. This solutions breaks down the barriers.  The teachers would like to acquire digital skills but no training schools that are flexible to accommodate them.This solution brings training flexibility.

Our competitors are colleges and universities. These offer very rigid programs that are expensive and physically difficult to access because general training institutions especially in Africa are situated far away from local communities. Our solution flips the way skills training is done, we bring skills training back to the local community and can be  done anywhere including in people's backyard or living rooms. The training centers can also be taken where students are. We make skills training easily accessible  which cuts out lots of costs such as costs associated to travel. This also allows flexibility in that learners can access training when it suits them. Those with internet access can also access part of training away from the training centers. 

Our competitors courses take a minimum of six months, our program takes only 3  months

The solution is completely technology powered, it  consists of

1) 12 laptops, 

2) 3G or 4G Mobile internet, 

3)  Self charging Mobile laptop storage cabinet (The solar powered one is for rural communities), used to securely store, charge and transport laptops. 

4) An Accredited Skill Wise Compu Tutor software program a self teaching ICT skills development software used to train students without human intervention 

5)  Odyssey platform an integrated and cloud based assessment platform for recruiting the right entrepreneurs to rum the Mobile EduTech Digital Training Centers. 

6) Mobile Robotics Infrastructure for developing Robotics and Coding skills. The Package has the following:

10 S3 robots that are  battery powered

10 S3 mini USB cables

10 Offline software USB devices

10 Challenge card sets

10  Remote controls

10 Torches

10 Robot drawing markers

10 Rulers

10 Paper for robot drawings

1 Equipment containers

1 curriculum manuals

18 centres are currently running in South Africa and  2800 youths in rural South Africa have already been trained and are skilled and issued with MICTSETA accredited certificate.

Our Robotics and coding program operates in 13 school in South Africa. Over 180 000 people have been successfully assessed by our digital online  assessment tool for selecting entrepreneurs

Response to lack of women participation in Tech 

UNPD Africa website states that, Studies show that women in the tech industry constitute only 28% of professionals in the sector worldwide, and just 30% in Sub-Saharan Africa. 

 Powell and Chang discussion paper. Women in Tech.... (July 2016) argue that

Strengthening women’s participation in the ICT sector is important for three reasons. First, increasing employment opportunities for women enhances gender equality, which is fundamental to human rights and dignity. Second, empowering women leads to benefits for their children and communities. Third, bridging the gender gap in ICT jobs can help address the mismatch between the supply and demand for jobs in emerging countries. Tapping into the ingenuity of the full population could fuel economic growth, not only by increasing productivity across sectors by effectively leveraging ICTs, but also by improving the design of ICT products and services to meet the needs of both women and men

In response, we wish to empower women from each Sub-Sahara African country to be the distribution channel of this solution to the schools and youths. A digital diagnostic assessment will be used to select women in each country who will be trained to become EdTech entrepreneurs, there after the trained women entrepreneurs will be eligible to run the EdTech Mobile Digital Training Centres. 

Response to Youth unemployment and Teacher shortage

The secondary education teacher preparation and support paper (2019) stated that the main problem that Sub-Sahara Africa faces when it comes to teachers is that, there are not enough of them……Sub-Sahara will need about 2.2 million teachers to deal with the rising pupil school enrolment.

Filling 2.2 million teaching posts for regular classroom teaching and to train more new teachers to address the problem of the digital gap that exist in Africa for our learners is a mission impossible for any Sub-Sahara African country. Hence forth given the high youth unemployment, youths with no tertiary education will also be targeted to be trained as digital tutors so that they can be deployed in schools to focus on the teaching of digital skills in the schools. 

We have trained 2800 youths in rural SouthAfrica, if we secure funding we hope to empower 300 women by establishing 300 centres in one year at train about 21 600 students, in 5 years we hope to establish 5000 centres across the continent and should have trained 1.1 million students

Year of Project Growth roll out: establish 300 centres to train 21 600

Year 1 establish 1000 centres to train 72 000 students

Year 2 establish 2000 centres to train144000

Year 3 establish 3000 centres to train216 000

Year 4 establish 4000 centres to train 288000

Year 5 establish 5000 centres to train

Anticipated Total students trained by year 2026 is 1,101, 600

The biggest barrier that we face is funding for establishing the Mobile EduTech Training centers

Finding the right entrepreneurs to run the Mobile EduTech Digital Training centers successfully.

Funding Barrier: We are currently searching for investors to invest in the expansion strategy, we have a proven monetized concept that if expanded is a very profitable venture but will also change Africa's landscape. The funding will go towards, Establishing the mobile centers in local communities, training and recruiting the right entrepreneurs, supporting the entrepreneurs.

Finding the right entrepreneurs Barriers: We will use an online assessment tool to find the entrepreneurs with the right skills for the running the centers successfully, Country co-coordinators will be recruited to offer local support to the entrepreneurs. We will also implement an Artificial Intelligence chat-bot to enhance entrepreneur support and engagement. Instant messaging facilities will also be implemented for maximum support to the entrepreneur.

The name of the organisation is C-Connect Africa that Trades as Compu-Connect Education, am the Co-founder and CEO of Compu-Connect Education.

full time solution team members are 6 ( 4 women and 3 men)

1) Sarah Njamu CEO has 22 yrs working experience holds an MBA and several Teaching qualifications in adult learning and high school teaching.

2) Dr Rob Stead 35 years working experience, a Molecular Biologist and academia who has spent twelve years developing technologies for simulation based training models

3) Steyn Bronkhorst has 15 years working experience, a Registered Psychometrist specialising in predictions of human potential within the business world.

4) Harrison Njamu has 23 years working experience a Register Construction Project Managers specialising in cost management and Mentorship of entrepreneurs.

5) Desire Schabort with 18 years working experience, an Academia and Robotics Specialist

6) Sarina Venter Jordan has 9 years working experience, a qualified Chemical Engineer and a Robotics Specialist

Compu-Connect Education currently has the following partners

SkillWise: supply an accredited Self-Tutor  ICT skills software platform used for Training

Edro Robotics: supplies the Robots and the curriculum used to teach Robotics

Odyssey: supplies the platform for selecting the entrepreneur with the right skill set to run the Mobile EduTech Digital Centers.

Target market and beneficiaries: Our key customers are women entrepreneurs, unemployed youths and teachers with no ICT & Robotics skills. The beneficiaries are learners in  schools.   

Value Proposition: We Create jobs for women by helping them to establish and run small businesses inform of a Mobile EduTech training centers ,  we bring affordable easy access to  digital training for  unemployed youths and school teachers, we have the potential to impact 200 million school learners with digital skills on the African continent and   create a $1 billion digital training  industry in Sub-Sahara Africa.

We are looking for institutions who can give loans to women entrepreneurs to be paid back in 5yrs.

Cost of investing in each EduTech Mobile Digital Training Centro for the entrepreneur $27 000, once off.

Financial projections for an entrepreneur

The price for training one school digital workforce for 3 months is $200 which works to $67 a month, if the center trains 24 people every 3 months, in 12 months they will train 72 people, the training center should have an annual turnover of $19 296. The entrepreneur should be able to payback the investment loan to the funder of  $450 a month over 5 years and they will have a gross profit of $1191. Plus after 5 years they will be able to pay back the investment loan. An entrepreneur can opt to invest in another EduTech Mobile Digital Training Center and expand their business or the can diversify. This is a sure way to empower women on the continent with a viable Tech Business modal.