Ignite

The most essential requirement in the development of a community or country is education. In Nigeria, the high cost of quality education coupled with other factors give rise to uneducated and undereducated Nigerians, especially in the rural areas. With the world entering the digital age and lack of constant electricity, it creates a three-pronged challenge - lack of basic education, digital illiteracy and lack of electricity. 

Our solution, Ignite school-boxes are mobile computer suites housed in retrofitted shipping containers converted into fully equipped digital classrooms and library powered by solar energy leveraging on aggregating Open Educational Resources 

Ignite school-boxes will provide access to education and digital literacy for millions globally thus enabling them to break free from poverty changing their lives and their societies for good.  

Ignite targets the problem of lack of education and digital literacy/skills in Nigeria and sub-Saharan Africa. More than 30% of Nigerians and sub-Saharan Africans are illiterate. In Nigeria, over 10 million children are out of school. For millions who are enrolled in school, they are poorly educated because of a lack of access to good teachers, learning tools and funding. Digital skills are necessary for today's world and technology has created a path for many to exit poverty. However, because of the lack of access to quality education and necessary digital literacy, many are still stuck in poverty and at the bottom of the socio-economic ladder.

Ignite school-box is a solar-powered offline and online digital solution for rural areas. The ignite school box is a mobile computer lab housed in a modified shipping container making it portable and it is powered by solar energy. Our Learning software is comprised of various learning tool Open Education Resources curated to meet the needs of our target region as well as content created locally.  Instead of trying to create totally new digital learning content, we believe we can curate and aggregate OERs enabling us to keep our solution low cost. 

The computer suite will be equipped with low-cost computing devices(netbooks or raspberry Pi's), a content server and AP which houses our offline learning platform, a projector, a portable printer and a VSat internet facility. The learning content will range from STEM subjects and digital literacy to business and life skills. 

The mobility of the ignite school-box ensures that it can be easily moved within a large community reaching as many people as possible. 

Our target population is majorly the Nigerians and sub-Saran Africans living in rural areas. Data shows that about 48% of Nigerians still live n rural areas while over 50% of sub-Saharan Africans live in rural areas. These rural areas are largely populated by subsistence farmer, hunters, fishermen and animal rearers. Many are unemployed with no sources of income. As Nigeria struggles to improve its educational sector, focus I placed on urban areas. The meagre funding is spent in the urban areas, leaving the rural areas with next to nothing in terms of education resulting in dilapidated schools, no or poorly qualified teacher and no teaching or learning tools.  The problem is a mix of lack of resources, funding, and neglect.

As we develop ignite, we understand that most of our target population are poor hence the need to ensure that our solution is low-cost and maintenance making it easy use. We also realise that basic education is scarce so we ensure that our curriculum and learning resources start from the basics capturing all that is required to gain a basic education. 

Education is a major key to exiting poverty and with our solution, we will provide basic education, digital literacy/skills, business and life skills ensuring they gather the knowledge required to improve their lives.

Today's world is the digital age and technology is indispensable in our present society. LAck education, digital literacy and skills as well as digital access largely prevents most rural dwellers from participating in the digital economy and breaking free from poverty. 

By providing basic education, digital literacy, business and life skills to these underserved population, ignite school-box is providing them with the ability to fully engage in the digital economy. 

Ignite school box is still in the prototype stage because we have not yet deployed or tested it in a live environment. We have built several iterations of our offline learning platform, tried out several content servers. Presently, we have not yet modified a shipping container.

Most existing solutions to the lack of education in Nigeria and SSA tend to try to build new things - mobile apps, devices etc. Not only is this path really expensive, but it also requires the user to be able to purchase a smart mobile device in most cases and be able to use it. Our solution is innovative because it takes on a different and improved approach to tackling the problem. It is harnessing and leveraging already existing and readily available technology thus creating a low-cost solution that is easily adaptable.

As we begin to deploy our solution, we expect it to create a positive impact in this space. More solutions will embrace building on the foundations of available technology in order to tackle the challenge. We also believe that local tutors will begin to create local content that is suited to their localities because the barrier to entry for creating the content would have been reduced drastically. 

We have not launched our pilot yet. In one year, we plan to be serving about 80 - 10 persons after our pilot launch. This will be in one community. In 3 years, we estimate that e will be serving 500 - 700 persons in several communities. We expect this number to run into thousands in 5 years.

3 Part-time workers

We are well-positioned to work on this solution because every member of our team has witnessed the poor state of education in our region and has overcome challenges to become relatively successful. Several members of the team have IT backgrounds working in various industries including the educational technology space. Two has worked on developmental projects in  rural and urban Nigeria gathering relevant experience required to deploy solutions.

We believe that a diverse team is necessary and we strive to ensure that everyone is well represented on our team. At each point in time, we ensure that our team is diverse and equitable. 

We are applying to seek assistance to build and launch our solution because we believe it fits perfectly into the mandate of solve. Solve will provide the resource that we need to develop and optimise the solution. We also believe that applying and possibly getting selected will provide a platform for our solution to get noticed and get attention from organisations and individuals.

As we work towards deploying we understand that people have walked ahead of us and we are willing to seek help from them to guide us going forward. We believe that this will help us fully optimise our solution and reduce the learning curve that we might face.

We do not have any specific partners in mind. We will however like to partner with organisations and initiatives that provide open educational resources as well as technology that promotes education. 

Our solution can be tailored to meet the need of refugees ensuring that they are not left out and are provided with tools with which they can get access to quality education and learn digital skills.