Access to Innovation-Introducing Emerging Tech into Schools

This immersive educational curricula brings coding [java], robotics [Arduino], virtual reality [Unity], Augmented Reality, Product Development [CAD] and Entrepreneurship to African countries through a workshop that can be implemented in schools to increase economic independence, raise GDP and empower youth to harness the technologies that are shaping the future.

Our solution is to - to build upon the regional and national initiatives of empowering youth to actively participate in mastering the skills needed for the world of tomorrow.  Through an immersive series of workshop sessions in coding, virtual reality, augmented reality, robotics and product development, participants will leave with the fundamentals to be the next generation of south africa's tech leaders.

The goals of the educational curricula are to: 

• increase student's ability to harness technology as a means of educational advancement and skills in maths, sciences and scientific arts
• introduce a dynamic approach to stimulating creativity and cognitive thought around technology for educators and students alike
• establish our efforts as a continental program that is scalable and effective as an acute or long term curricula

We identified 3 key areas that the country is seeking to address - 

1 - Address the skills shortage in African countries 

• The Access to Innovation workshop is a sample of the immersive skill and project based education that directly correlates to the skills needed to work within any company that uses software-based solutions to operate a business. 

2 - "Respond to the U.N's plan for Transformation, Modernisation and Reindustrialisation of Gauteng, South Africa."

• The workshop is largely based on not only imparting computer science skills and creativity but is also anchored in creating transformational leadership for South Africa.

In South Africa, $176BN South African Rand, is the amount of potential revenue that could be added to the South African economy if the conditions for entrepreneurship were improved just 10%  - amounting to almost HALF of its current worth.

By instilling motivation, higher learning on CS theory and principles, the fundamentals of how consumer tech works empowers a nation to be innovative entrepreneurial thinkers - whether it is within medicine, construction, architecture, media, business or agriculture.  Our workshop is an intensive study of these principles, to be introduced at the grade school level in Sub Saharan Africa. 

The impact of out solution enhances the failing educational system in Sub Saharan South Africa. Less than 12% of students are prepared for post-secondary education in math and science because of the lack of emphasis on practical application of science and technology such as coding and robotics. Even basic computational theory or practice is overlooked in most schools and lack internet infrastructure. 

Our workshop comes equipped with the robots (Arudino), the virtual reality headsets and programming software (Unity for kids and Panoform - an introductory augmented reality software) and most important, internet infrastructure.

Evaluate students at the end of the workshop for their aptitude in CS fundamentals and track them as they continue in their math and science studies as a result of the supplemental curricula - We successfully reach 10,000 students in Sub- Saharan Africa. In only 2 months we have already reached over 200 through the initial workshops

Our solution is innovative because it takes CS curricula one step further with the inclusion of virtual reality programming to help students think strategically about solving local challenges of agriculture, science, medicine and construction - all industries where in Developed countries, are already using these methods to enhance productivity and output. South Africa needs to make exponential progress in delivering this practical education to young adults. 

People and inter-connected relationships are at the center of the workshops - it is inclusive of not only students, but educators. The curricula is offered in multiple languages, including regional local African languages where our volunteers are located (e.g. in the Eastern Cape - where Xhosa is spoken - our last workshop with the Mandela family was taught in this native tongue). 

The workshop also includes a 3 year accredited coding program that includes robotics and SQL Database programming, thanks to our partner Oracle. 

The workshops are currently hands-on with a group of workshop facilitators based in the US who fly to the location as well as on-the-ground facilitators in our Johannesburg location that travel throughout the continent in partnership with Oracle. 

Currently we sustain our business through government and commercial funding from NGO's such as Africa Rising (of the Nelson Mandela Foundation), Standard Bank and Samsung. This has been excellent for us to pilot our program to over 200 students successfully and gain overwhelming interest to scale to other countries, but additional resources are required to simplify the logistics of travel and execution.

Travel expenses to communities that cannot afford to cover the basics costs of getting us to their region, if remote. 

Lack of internet connectivity

Language barriers 

http://us9.campaign-archive2.com/?u=33335e582cebfc847ac8c277e&id=0dec4b432b

Samsung, Africa Rising - Nelson Mandela's Educational Organization in South Africa

Africa Teen Geeks