MIT Solve

Basic Information

Our tagline:

Durable Education needs Focus and Visualization… The solution is Cartography, realizing AFRICA in deep content and urgent access, www.afriterra.org

Our pitch:

The Afriterra Library embraces a non-profit mission to access, preserve, and apply the cartographic record of Africa, enabling broader interpretation and transformative education.

Relevance:

Africa is the second largest continent, the richest in natural resources, youngest in current population, and the deepest in growth potential. Diversity lies at the root of certain conflicts and stands as the solution to many others. Indeed, Education must be global in order to be complete.

Problems/Needs:

Teaching History: Recent research by the Southern Poverty Law Center, and the Smithsonian (NMAAHC), found that teachers lack content and confidence with students in approaching difficult knowledge.

Teaching Geography: Recent reports from the Government Accountability Office found that most social studies teachers spend less than 10 percent of their time on geography; most states do not require any geography courses; and nearly three-quarters of eighth-graders tested below proficient in geography.

The problems of education are rooted in the principles of Focus and Visualization.

Methods of Solution:

Our device is Cartography, and our commitment stands on deep content and broad access. This remedy is achieved by cataloging, digitizing, and displaying more than 5,000 of the rarest maps focused on Africa. The content spans over 500 years, covering all regions and scales in 8 different languages. Our platform delivers a thorough archive from multiple primary sources previously scattered and sequestered throughout the world.

Having secured this material, the methods of use include:

1) A handy Lesson-Companion for any teacher to historically layer, localize, and enrich their own lesson-plans.

2) A friendly, reachable, searchable database for any topic or place-name.

3) Visual enhancements easily oriented by panning-and-zooming high-resolution digital images.

4) Engineering new creative applications layering economic, cultural, social, and natural patterns recognized in time and place using a geo-referenced interface.

Philosophical Basis of Cartography:

Process of Education by Jerome Bruner formulates learning to be structured, collaborative, and interactive. Cartography is precisely that tool to connect and transport through time and space, based on the ‘picturing-relation’ as a universal extension of language. A map is both an object and gesture, a technical widening of the visual field. This is what radically distinguishes it from other forms of communication. The viewer is at the same time outside the representation and enveloped by it. This experience in patterns and relationships contributes to the creation of new identities. Our brain continuously maps a string of experiences known as ‘self’, as well as the void known as ‘other’. When woven together, they form the basis of our very existence. Thus, to map is to exist.

By using the AFRITERRA Lesson-Companion, an educational transformation begins as our technology opens more spatial experiences. Most of these journeys have never been known in our lifetime. From this position, the Afriterra Library gives substance to space…delivering an extraordinary connection to the meaning of world history. With such a resource ready to plant, please join our core of contributors, partners, sponsors, subscribers, and volunteers as stewards extending this important horizon, and changing the world’s relationship to Africa.

www.afriterra.org

Where our solution team is headquartered or located:

Boston, MA, USA

The dimensions of the Challenge our solution addresses:

Personalized teaching, especially in disadvantaged communities

About Your Solution

What makes our solution innovative:

The actual innovation is the Assemblage….., by the orderly identification of a definitive cartographic record, previously scattered and sequestered over centuries, and now captured as a unified digital parade focused on Africa.

The urgent innovation is the Access....., by instant recognition and delivery of such remarkable content at the call of every ardent teacher or student world-wide, using current methods of GPS coordinates and place-name commands to transform the depth of education about Africa.

The ultimate innovation is the creation of new Identities....., by users personally absorbing new spatial experiences, and collectively finding the land as a continuum of changing horizons.

How technology is integral to our solution:

Digital scanning allows storage and preservation of rare maps, minimizing deterioration.

Digital image compression/retrieval allows rapid delivery and access.

High-resolution digital scanners allow minute details to be finally discernible.

Tiling digital images allows rapid pan and zoom actions for pattern recognition.

Relational databases allowed contrast and comparison of metadata.

Global Positioning Systems and Geo-referencing coordinates of old and new maps allow transparent overlay comparisons and the creation of new maps.

Geographic Information Systems match infinite numeric and text tables to map locations.

Optical Character Recognition will enable powerful identification of surface place-names.

Our solution goals over the next 12 months:

Access Goals:

1. Upgrade the Web-algorithm and remittance method for digital subscriptions to the historical “Afriterra Spatial-Companion”

2. Formulate a spreadsheet containing names, addresses and contacts for all public/private schools in each state.

3. Obtain endorsements by high-profile leaders in fields of Education, Journalism, Industry, or Government to enable us in elevating the priority of AFRICA and the value of a visual "Spatial-Companion" to be used with any reading-assignment or lesson-plan serving multiple disciplines in Mathematics, Graphics, Geography, History, Art, Social Studies, and Current Events.

4. Create Marketing materials as digital Demo/Exhibit to order yearly subscription.

Our vision over the next three to five years to grow and scale our solution to affect the lives of more people:

Identify and measure the impact of the cartographic service by process-surveys and outcome-tests in 10000 US schools before and after subscription to the Lesson-Companion.

Exhibit the results and enroll 100 of the largest schools in Nigeria and South Africa.

Similarly adjust, repeat and scale further in Canada and the Philippines.

Our website

http://www.afriterra.org

Find out more about us. First link:

http://www.afriterra.org/SOLVE-grant.pptx

The key characteristics of the populations who will benefit from our solution in the next 12 months:

Adolescent
Adult
Non-binary
Urban
Middle

The regions where we will be operating in the next 12 months:

Sub-Saharan Africa
US and Canada

How we will reach and retain our customers or beneficiaries:

Trade-lists of public and private schools and libraries registered in each state.

Spreadsheet of contact names and addresses for each school.

Academic and Celebrity endorsements to elevate the priority of AFRICA, and the value of our service.

Subscription Digital Image Service

Distribution of outcome/impact results.

How many people we are currently serving with our solution:

50-60 online users per month as researchers or authors studying and using historical images of Africa.

How many people we will be serving with our solution in the 12 months and the next 3 years:

10,000 schools x 100 students = 1 million cartographic experiences in the first year.

10 times that in 3 years

About Your Team

Partnership Potential

The AFRITERRA Cartographic Library... A Spatial Companion