Project Seed

Student Consulting Groups bridge the gap between academic classroom learning and practical skill development while helping local businesses to grow and create jobs. Project Seed brings this model to developing countries.

In Tanzania students graduate from university finding great difficulty in securing employment, while businesses complain about the lack of a skilled workforce. It often takes in excess of five years for students in Tanzania to find a job after graduating. The teaching style in many universities encourages rote learning and places little emphasis on the importance of critical thinking; students have learned a lot but don't get the opportunity to practically apply this knowledge.

Across many developing countries students are graduating with a lack of vocational education and the critical thinking, teamwork and presentation skills necessary for employment.

Project Seed bridges the gap between academic learning and practical experience by allowing students to develop solutions for problems facing real businesses. The model of student led consulting groups is replicable in any university across the world. Four universities in Ireland, and one university in Tanzania have replicated this model within the past three years.

Four Tanzanian women and men have been offered employment as a direct result of their involvement in the group, despite an incredibly tough job market. In Tanzania, two startups, one social enterprise and one charity have benefited from local universities students’ advice so far.

The impact of our solution is that it creates employment and encourages economic growth within developing countries.

The solution currently benefits university students in specified universities within Tanzania. Following the pilot phase, several universities across Africa will be determined as the next location to expand to.

The solution is deployed by a group of students from an established location, (originally Ireland, soon Tanzania) that travel to the new location for a month of workshops and practice projects with the new students. The newly established university branch will then continue to independently impact local businesses and students within their respective communities.

Number of students actively involved - Students get involved and learn new skills

Regular feedback from clients to check their perception of the recommendations and whether or not they are being implemented - Quality recommendations delivered to clients

Number of students offered employment as a direct result of their involvement, ie. the client offers student consultant a full time job - Employment generated

Our solution is innovative as it empowers students, the future generation, to effect change within their local communities. What better way to bring about change within a developing economy than by giving local youth the necessary opportunities and encouragement to play an active role in this change?

Our solution also encourages the collaboration of a diverse group. Students from all disciplines are welcome. Within our Tanzanian group we have:

• More female consultants than male
• Statisticians, economists, engineers, political and global developmental students

A truly diverse group of students brings all voices to the table.

SomaApps aims to create 1,000,000 fully funded opportunities for African students by 2030. The Tanzanian branch of our consulting group helped this client in the marketing and strategy of their application. This application lists all available fully funded scholarships and conferences based on criteria input by a student. This app was created by Tanzanians, for African students. 

The Tanzanian students gained invaluable practical experience working on this project and they also aided in the development of an app which is made to benefit African students. An example of a project that started with African students, and ended with African students.

The solution is entirely free to students with costs covered by sponsors. Local businesses also benefit from the free consulting services of top university students from their own local community. 

The solution will be deployed by a group of students from already established university branches. As the initiative expands, African students will be able to assist in setting up new university branches in other universities, and pass on the skills they learned from their own experience.

We are funded through three different channels;

• Donations from Irish clients (approximately one in five of our Irish clients give a donation to ISCG upon completion of an engagement)
• Sponsorship (from big corporations such as Microsoft and Bank of Ireland, as well as from government funds and NGOs)
• Personal funds (all Irish students involved in the trip part of the project volunteer to cover a significant proportion of their costs)

Limited finance is our biggest limiting factor. Travel is the main expense.

Limited time is also a factor, as we are full time students.

https://www.linkedin.com/company-beta/9279906/

We want to connect into the network to get advice and contacts to help with scaling the project.

• University College Dublin
• Trinity College Dublin
• University of Dar es Salaam
• Policy House
• Proudly Made in Africa