Dalia's Book

When I was in high-school I told my friends that I wanted to pursue a degree in computer engineering. They said: "that's too difficult for a girl, you should try something easier". I took it as an interesting challenge and got myself a bachelors and masters degree in Computer Science.

Fast forward to current day: I have built enterprise software in partnership with Microsoft and Roche (the largest biotech company in the world).

In 2015 I founded Dalia’s Book where I design large-scale digital education programs focused on inclusion and equity to close the opportunity gap and help all children develop the skills they need for the future of jobs.

I believe that as creators of technology we have the responsibility to make sure that the children today are equipped with the skills that they need to thrive in the world that we are building for tomorrow.

The covid-19 pandemic exposed to the surface the gaps that we long knew existed in the education systems that lacks in preparing children for their future jobs, and reverted 20 years of progress in access to education, exposing the most vulnerable to even higher risks of social exclusion. 

Dalia's Book is an organization that offers all children everywhere access to high quality education by using technology to empower different actors of society - companies, schools, authorities - to come together and solve one of the world's pressing matter: equitable education for all children.

We are building an Online School where people like us, skilled professionals, volunteer to teach children coding, overcoming social, geographical, physical or cultural barriers and reaching the ones that need us the most. 

Right now, a volunteer from Barcelona is teaching coding to a group of 10 year old children from rural Romania.

82% of mid-skilled jobs existing on the global market require digital skills but a third of the youth surveyed in 2020 globally by UNICEF said their education is not preparing them with the skills to get jobs, while there is a shortage of people in IT jobs worldwide.

Romania is Europe's country with the highest number of functional illiterates among youth (39%), highest percentage of population with low digital skills (43% in 2019) but lowest investment in education (2.7% of GDP; EU average is 4.6%). The mubers are even higher among ethnic minorities or disabled persons.

The covid-19 pandemic exposed to the surface the gaps that we long knew existed in the education system. Globally, 258 million children and youth were out of school. In Romania 2.6 million children were forced to isolate at home, and for most of them this meant that they stopped learning. According to IRES, 37% of primary school students did not have equipment to study at home. According to a report from UNICEF, the pandemic reverted 20 years of progress in access to education, the most vulnerable children being the most affected as they are at a higher risk of poverty, human trafficking or hunger.

My organization designs Corporate Social Responsibility education programs to provide equitable education opportunities for all children to develop critical 21st century skills needed for the future of jobs.

The programs raise awareness about the social mission of sponsor/partner companies and involve their employees as active participants in making an impact and creating change.

Company employees, experts in their fields, cover the gaps from the education system and teach children coding, through: 

• in-class activities
• an online school

Through coding children learn a wide range of 21st century skills, such as critical thinking, problem solving, creativity, communication and others.

My organization serves children and youth enrolled in schools in Romania, whether they are boys and girls, from rural or urban areas, of any ethnicity, with disabilities or of any financial status. 

Boys and girls: technology is seen as predominantly male field where female role models are lacking, that's why our programs involve equally boys and girl to work together and remove the perception that girls are not good at technology.

Rural and urban: for children in urban areas we work with volunteers that go to schools and teach kids coding in the schools' computer labs. For children in rural areas we developed a hardware donation program for their schools as lack of equipment was the major barrier in teaching technology. To provide them the same opportunities to learn coding we are using technology to overcome geographical barriers by creating an Online School where they can learn from their homes.

Disabled: We tailor our approaches for hearing impaired students by working with their teachers who become sign language interpreters for the volunteers.

Ethnic minorities (e.g. Roma): we partner with other non-profits who understand the culture and have the trained staff to meet their needs.

The children that we are working with have limited opportunities in terms of education. 

For rural children and those in small towns, coding education is not accessible because most of extra school coding opportunities ar in big cities. There are no coding schools for disabled children or those from roma communities, as they require tailored intervention and their families are on average poorer. 

The traditional education system in Romania does not prepare children for the future of jobs. ICT is introduced as a subject in school from 5th grade, but most schools lack equipment and teachers are poorly trained.

In early 2014 I had a surgery and had to not work and rest at home for 4 weeks. Until then I thought that you could have a signifficant impact in someones life only if you are a doctor and I loved my job in technology and didn't want to change it. I found some volunteering opportunities where engineers were needed to help universities in Africa and that changed my perception. 

During that time Romania was going through a political corruption crisis (something usual for my country) and politicians were trying to buy votes from people in exchange of cooking oil, sugar, bread or salt. They succeeded. 

I realized then how caged people in Romania were in their own poverty, and how the cause of everything was lack of education. Education is freedom of choice.

In the following months I started offering to volunteer for multiple international organizations, but since none of them accepted me I decided to start my own organization and bring education to Romanian children through what I did best in life: technology.

There is a special little girl in my life, that I love very much. Her name is Dalia, she is now 9 years old.

Her parents are not married. She grew up with her grandmother in a village in Romania because her mother left to work in the UK when she was a bit over a year. Her father is of Roma ethnicity. When she was only 4 years she fought leukemia, she was very brave, and survived. I learned a lot from her during those times.

She goes to school now, in the 3rd grade and is very smart. I support her education because I believe she has great potential to change the world.

I named Dalia's Book after her. There are many children in this world who are very smart, just like her, but because of the context they were born in, family, geographical region, ethnicity or disability, they don't have opportunities to reach their full potential and thrive in our world. You don't choose where you are born.

Dalia's Book's mission is to use technology to overcome human limitations and barriers and open opportunities for all these children to live their dreams. 

I worked in technology for the last 13 years and now I am building my own business and freelancing through Toptal, an exclusive network of the world's top 3% technical talent. My work is fully remote and has been like that for the last 3 years. In the past I used to build enterprise software for large corporations such as Roche, Gunvor or UMT (currently EY).

I learned what I know by myself, I understand the importance of technology and I am aware about the big impact it had in my life, and how it empowered me and allowed me to be where I am.

Even if my formal education is in technology I feel comfortable designing interventions for systemic change that influence social behaviour and have long-term outcomes.

Where other people see problems I see solutions and design programs to implement them. My (non-technical) work has received European and national recognition:

• 2017: Best Education Program at Romanian CSR Awards
• 2018: Best Social Impact Startup by Central European Startup Awards
• 2018: Best Digital Skills in Education from the European Commission
• 2019: Best Program for Entrepreneurship and Inclusion from the Minsitry of Culture and Sport for Educate to Have a Voice, the program I designed for the hearing impaired students
• 2019: 1st Prize in Social Inclusion by Cluj Youth Gala

At the end of 2015 we received our first big sponsorship to run an innovative education program at national level with 3 other partners.

The program was for 1.5 years. I was very new and didn't properly handle the relationship with the other partners. This made the sponsor decide that they did not want to continue with us as a partner, but still continued to implement the program in the following years. 

My organization's legal counsels advised that it was an issue of IP, and I was faced with a very hard decision: should I start legal action against my only sponsor and risk an image problem? Was I emotional because I was hurt? Should I just shut up and go against my values? I decided to proceed and 2 years later the court decided in my favour.

I lost the only sponsor and worked very hard to get new ones. I trained my team to not do the things that I did. I improved my contract templates. I created other unique programs. I am now continuously creating a culture of excellent customer experience. 

This was the hardest decision that I ever had to take.

In November 2019 my Project Manager told me that she wanted to move on to another company after working together for 1.5 years. It was very clear to me that I wouldn't be able to run the organization without her and I was honest with her that we would need to stop our programs for about 6-12 months. 

After I moved to Japan she felt a lot of pressure and stress for problems that were supposed to be my own, thing that I didn't know and appologized for. She was leaving to take a job in a domain that she was not interested in. I respected her choice and believed she had potential to do great things, and after I accepted her resignation I adviced her to not go work for a company that she didn't believe in, and offered to give her a recommendation to work for our one of corporate sponsors. I wanted to support her growth even if that meant that I had to shut my own organization down. 

In the end she decided to stay, and since then she grew very fast and became a Program Manager.

I am creating an Online School where teachers are volunteers that live everywhere in the world, to reach the most vulnerable children everywhere in the world. It is a combination of Coder Dojo and Khan Academy, that empowers people who want to have an impact to be active agents of change.

This comes as a Corporate Social Responsibility program for companies, where instead of them just donating money, they also involve their employees to work together. Companies can raise awareness about their brand through the platform and the community of tech volunteers that are involved.

Traditional Romanian non-profits adopt a model of operating that is further away from their sponsors. The innovation of my program is in the fact that I work together with companies to design education interventions and involve their employees.

Inputs

Corporate Social Responsibility education programs that raise awareness about the social mission of companies and involve their employees as active participants in making an impact and creating change.

Company employees, experts in their fields, cover the gaps from the education system and teach children (boys and girls, from rural and urban areas, with disabilities or of any ethnicity) critical 21st century skills for the future of jobs, through coding, in: 

• in-class activities
• online school

Outputs

Children learn skills like coding, critical thinking, creativity, problem solving etc. 

They get to participate in activities that otherwise would not be available to them due to lack of financial support. A module of coding classes costs $150 in Romania, where the average monthly income is $750, most parents not being able to afford it. Also, due to geographical or physical limitations, these classes are not available for children living in small towns, rural areas, children who are disabled, or that come from specific marginalized communities. 

Children are able to discover their passion for technology.

Short-term Outcomes

Because they started learning early on skills for the future of jobs, they are better equipped to chose the path that they want to take in the future. They have the chance to consider going to universities that previously seemed out of reach. In Romania children decide to study Computer Science from high school (9th grade). However, a vast majority of them think that since they are not good in Math they will never be good at CS. Marginalized children (low income, rural areas, with disabilities, roma) tend to give up school due to lack of motivation.

According to The Prince’s Trust youth index, young people without a positive figure of the same gender are 67% more likely to be and stay unemployed than their counterparts. Through our program volunteers become role models for children who usually don't have anyone to look up to, learn from and admire.

Long-term Outcomes

Increased access to high paying jobs for these children when they become adults.

-> minimized poverty
-> reduced inequalities
-> increased life quality
-> reduced government costs

Up to date, my organization has served 6633 children, out of which:

• primary school: 1619
• middle school: 5014
• high school: 30
• with intellectual disabilties: 50
• hearing impaired: 265
• from rural areas: 4463
• orphans or in placement centers: 52

Our programs have involved around 350 volunteers.

Our targets for Romania:

In 1 year: we received a grant to serve 1000 more children aged 9-13 from rural areas and small towns, and 50 hearing impaired. Our target for the next school year is 1500 children.

In 5 years: We want to reach 50,000 children in Romania in 5 years.

Next year:

1. launch an Online Coding School with multiple tracks to get disadvantaged children into coding, and involve Romanian volunteers and from the international Diaspora as teachers. This would help us scale our impact
2. open a branch in Japan in late 2020/early 2021 (ongoing discussions with possible local NPO partners)
3. open a branch in India in partnership with one of our global IT sponsors, Algeier Group (ongoing discussions)

We will use our Online Coding School to launch our programs in other countries.

Next 5 years:

1. Be present in every county in Romania
2. Reach at least 5000 children in 10 countries globally

1. Lack of funding. Maybe it sounds too ambitious, but I think that I can overcome any other barriers through a strong team and local partnerships in each country where I will be operating, because this year I have received partnership requests from organizations in Australia and in multiple countries in Africa, besides the one for India. Available funds would make hiring and keeping a great team possible.
2. My lack of fundraising skills: My least developed skill and the one that I am least comfortable with is fundraising and I believe my organization has to suffer because of that.
3. My lack of international development skills. Although I've been working in international organizations with international teams globally on software, opening businesses in different countries requires so many more skills

1. Lack of funding: approach angel investors, prizes, awards, growing the portfolio of corporate partners in Romania. Use my relationships in different countries to connect with people that would want to either support or invest in impact initiatives in education
2. Lack of fundraising skills: I'm currently doing meditation and self development programs to rewire my brain for wealth. The next steps is to search for mentors, pitch, ask for feedback and then try again
3. Lack of international development skills: I am currently applying to Executive MBA programs to learn these skills

Sponsor/Client Companies: I design co-branded programs that involve their employees hands-on in teaching children; they offer their employees paid volunteering time to do work that has an impact; they also offer other resources that are needed (e.g. computer donations). Sometimes they already have a community that they are supporting and link us to it.

Mass and Special Schools/School Districts/Ministry of Education: provide access to the children that are most in need and the teachers that are a link between our program and the children and their parents; Teachers act as mediators with the parents, provide support in class activities and sometimes help train and advize the volunteers in educational best practies and methods; for the in-class experience they provide the computer lab where activities take place

Other organizations/non-profits: provide access to children part of a specific beneficiary segment (e.g. hearing impaired, Roma ethnics, etc.) and project staff that knows their needs and culture and help with managing the relationship and participation, and remove impediments that exist on that end (e.g. social workers, teachers, counselors, etc.).They also identify children's needs and help us tailor the programs according tothem. For example, we just signed a partnership with REDI (Roma Entrepreneurship Development Initiative) to implement an Online Learning program for Roma children in Romania. REDI staff will act as coordinators of the program in the local communities and handle the relationship with the children and parents to ensure no dropout and maximum participation. 

Beneficiaries

Children and youth, especially the ones traditionally left behind: from rural areas, with disabilities, ethnic minorities who are at risk of social exclusion due to the continuously widening opportunity gap that exists between them and children in highly developed urban areas, high financial status. Without our programs these children would not have opportunities for equitable high quality education that prepares them for the future of jobs.

Programs

For each beneficiary segment we provide digital education programs tailored to their needs. We empower people from local or national communities to actively participate in closing the opportunity gap that exists in education by becoming mentors and role models.The children are taught the skills for the future of jobs by people experts in their fields. We also develop small satellite donation programs to remove other impediments, such as lack of hardware.

Customers

Our education programs are packaged as Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), PR or Employer Branding services for local companies, where they pay for our services from their CSR or Marketing budgets and encourage their employees to give their time to mentor children. We design education programs based on each company's profile and social mission. 

Products & Technology

We have both offline and online models for our programs. The volunteers either go to schools to teach children, or they use our Online School supported by a web platform.

Our revenue streams are the following:

1. Selling Corporate Social Responsibility, Employer Branding or PR services: to companies that will pay for them from Marketing or CSR budgets.
2. Donations: from either volunteers or people who want to support our work.
3. Government Grants: national or European 
4. Private Grants: from corporate foundations or other private entities
5. Raising funds from Angel Investors
6. Tax exempt sponsorship and donations from either companies and individuals (possible according to the Romanian tax system, similar in other countries as well)

The following are the funds raised and revenue from July 2019 to July 2020. According to our business model, these funds can be considered as both grants and revenue. Due to confidentiality agreements unfortunately we cannot disclose the exact amounts for each of the sponsors.

Total grants/revenue for CSR programs: $86,500

Our clients/sponsors were the following international companies with offices in Romania: Societe Generale European Business Services, Bombardier, iQuest, Yardi, Yonder, Montran, Telenav, Xoomworks

Corporate foundations: Sage Foundation (UK)

Non-profits managing grants of large corporations: TechSoup (grant from SAP), Act for Tomorrow (grant from Kaufland)

Employees of IT companies who supported our program from their savings because they wanted to be teachers

I am seeking to raise funds for the following categories:

1. Operational support for the programs in Romania: ~200,000 in grants or angel investment by end of 2020
2. Development of an MVP for the web platform to support our online school: ~$150,000 by October 2020 in grants, angel investment or equity. Moreover, I want to partner with Software Service companies to provide the engineers needed to build the platform
3. Opening a branch of Dalia's Book in Japan: ~$500,000 by end of 2020 in grants, angel investment or equity

$300,000 (for the Romanian branch only)

The Elevate Prize can open opportunities for connecting with highly skilled people that can provide coaching, feedback and input in all aspects of my organization, especially fundraising. It can also open opportunities to pitch in front of investors who are looking to support impact initiatives. 

The network and team of the Elevate Prize can also offer support, coaching and advice in international development and expanding my organization in different countries.

I am especially looking to find people open to partner with whom I can design more programs and expand the impact of what I am doing in the lives of more children in various countries globally.

1. MIT and Harvard Education departments (students, teachers, researchers) to create high quality educational content and provide the best education to children who otherwise would not have this opportunity. I would also like to partner with these institutions to validate education program design approaches and address new beneficiaries (e.g. blind children)
2. Other organizations that work with disadvataged children and can help scale our impact
3. Global IT companies for CSR, sponsorship and volunteers, that could become our partners