EmBED

Across Nigeria & Africa, millions of children do not have access to quality education, either because their parents cannot afford it or the prevalent system makes it impossible for them to do so.

Most parent's desire to empower their children with quality education that assures a bright future; while children seek fun and engaging ways to learn that harnesses their creativity.

However, education in Africa faces a 3-headed monster:

• A growing population of out-of-school and underschooled children.

• A widening gap in education quality that mirrors the financial status of families.

• A poor curriculum and dilapidated infrastructure that affects content and delivery especially in public and rural schools.

With a vision to make education accessible, affordable, engaging, EmBED provides world-class education to connected and disconnected children in rural and urban Africa, harnessing the rich African culture of folktales and adventure to create an animated learning platform using games and cartoons. 

Sub-Saharan Africa is plagued by a grossly inadequate educational system; our project identifies 5 core problems in Africa’s educational system:

• Out of school: the stats are frightening; UNICEF estimates that 97.5 million children of primary and early secondary school age in sub-Saharan Africa, are out-of-school; with 13.2 million of them in Nigeria.

• Low literacy and numeracy skills: Despite several decades of focusing on improving access to quality education for ALL children, learning outcomes remain disappointingly low, with fewer than half of the world’s school-aged children learning to read on grade level or gaining basic numeracy skills (according to the World Bank). More affected are marginalized children (living in conflict-affected states) and children with disabilities; who are less likely to go to school and have accessible learning resources.

• Unequal opportunity: Rural poverty, uneducated parents and high cost of quality education has a significant negative impact on the quality of education for rural-area children.

• Demoralised, demotivated, under equipped, inadequately trained, under qualified and insufficient teaching staff: less qualified teachers and not enough teachers for the number of children enrolled in schools results in poor outcomes.

• Deficient Infrastructure: Ramshackle equipment and a poor curriculum drastically affect learning outcomes.

EmBED harnesses the rich African culture of folktales and adventure to create an animated learning platform using games and cartoons. Gamification drives fun and learner engagement, generating data insights that help improve educational outcomes.

Features include

• Every learning represents an adventurous journey (or Ije - the Journey) through a topic. 

• As a learner travels through the topics, their roadmap (the Scroll) clearly outlines their learning objectives.

• At the start of each learning journey, the learner receives instructions from the Scroll Keeper, the protector of the Scroll.

• The learner’s understanding is periodically tested at Encounters, in-topic assessments to reinforce assimilation through challenges. Learners win assets & points.

• An amazing array of animated guides and virtual tutors (from the different tribes across Africa) help the learners along on their journeys and provide feedback on learning. 

EmBED uses 3 technologies: 

• AI: drives learning insights, virtual tutors and development of smart content: digitized text with automated testing; providing immediate feedback on learner's progress

• Web-based Blended Reality: An immersive, game-based and interactive learning experience that empowers learners to explore and learn at their own pace.

• 2D/3D Animation: Bring lessons to life using animations and blended reality; explaining complex concepts in an easy to comprehend manner.

"Only about half of sub-Saharan Africa’s 128 million school-aged children currently attending school are likely to acquire the basic skills needed for them to live healthy and productive lives"...The Africa Learning Barometer, produced by the Brookings Center for Universal Education.

Sub-Saharan Africa is plagued by a grossly inadequate educational system, with the highest rates of educational exclusion in the world. The numbers are overwhelming; over one-fifth of children between the ages of 6 and 11 and one-third between the ages of 12 and 14 are out of school. Almost 60% of children in sub-Saharan Africa between the ages of 15 and 17 are not in school. Girls are much more likely to stay out of school than boys. Nine million girls between the ages of about 6 and 11 in Africa will never go to school at all, compared to six million boys.

These problems are further exacerbated by continued poverty and socioeconomic inequalities, especially in rural areas in Africa. These areas  are often characterized by poor or nonexistent infrastructure and little or no provisions for other critical social services. Thanks to the prevalence of rural poverty, rural schoolchildren are the most disadvantaged from a socioeconomic perspective when it comes to access to a quality education. Getting to school is a more difficult challenge for a child here and illness of a pupil or a family member may force the pupil to drop out of school entirely.

It is every child’s right to quality education, as enshrined in the UN SGG #4: Quality Education for All. Since more than 85 percent of a child’s brain is already developed by age 6, a comprehensive education to set Africa on the path to leapfrog and scale needs to increase the engagement/learning outcomes for the girl-child and in-school/out-of-school children, encompass high-quality early childhood education (ECE) as well as ten years of basic education that breeds competence in literacy, numeracy and science.

Technology, when applied appropriately, can instigate breakthrough progress in advancing child literacy around the globe. Recognizing that many of the barriers to early learning skills development in low resource contexts can be mitigated through use of individualized learning technology, our mission is to use technology to create borderless classrooms, ensuring wholesome academic experiences for the African child and breaking down barriers to Learning and Comprehension. 

Our project, EmBED (Education made Beautiful, Engaging & Delightful), provides world-class education to connected and disconnected children in rural & urban Africa. EmBED harnesses the rich African culture of folktales and adventure to create an animated learning platform (experience) using games and cartoons. Gamification drives engagement amongst learners, making learning fun and generating data insights that help improve educational outcomes.

EmBED’s borderless classrooms will enable education to happen anywhere and everywhere (from rural areas without Internet access, to poor homes to urban areas), providing accessible, affordable and engaging education  regardless of social background and family economic status.

Presently, EmBED is in 2 parts:

• EmBED Cradle: pre-primary / early childhood education (ECE) portion focused on building a solid foundation for children in literacy (reading), numeracy (Math), thinking skills (critical thinking & problem solving), social & emotional learning and creativity. Target group is children between ages 2 and 5.

Highlights include the AlphaCandies, a customized English alphabet series to make learning the alphabets easy and fun; and the NumbVentures - an adventure in Math and numbers.

• EmBED Genius: focused on the 9-year Universal Basic Education (Primary 1 to Junior Secondary 3), and covers STEM, English, History and social science. Target group is children between ages 6 and 14.

EmBED will  increase equitable educational access in Africa by making education:

• Accessible: any child can access it, whether offline or online, & thus have an amazing education experience

• Affordable: pocket-friendly so that the rich, the middle income & the poor can afford it

• Engaging and Delightful for every African child: promote engagement and a desire to learn through gamification and animation.

• Inclusive / Reach: make education very inclusive for every African child through border-less classrooms, bringing world-class education to the disconnected child, regardless of location. This will help raise the standard of education across the board, enhancing the national plan to bring education to all children within the UBE range.

• Increased Comprehension and Completion rates: by utilizing games and animation, 2 things which are guaranteed to hold the attention of children over a long period of time, we will simplify learning concepts, making them easy for each child to grasp and understand; and also ensuring that their attention is glued to the platform

• Create Opportunities for Tomorrow: by making them tech- savvy digital natives

• Simplify Mathematics and other subjects: and make learning easy and fun.

• Enhance their Creativity: apply knowledge acquired and create your interests

• Develop Problem Solving Abilities: by exploring various ways to solve problems

EmBED has 3 goals

• Provide world-class education to the African child, in rural and urban Africa. Achieved using online and offline delivery mechanisms. Location and lack of access to the internet should not deprive a child of quality education.

• Make learning engaging, fun and profitable for the African child. Achieved by leveraging the rich African culture of folktales/adventure, gamification and animation. Children should not hate learning because of boring presentations or lack of interest.

• Make education affordable. Family economic/financial status or rural poverty should not deny any child world-class education

These align with the first 2 goals of the Challenge

Between March 2020 and March 2021, we built out the core backend and administrative functionalities, including

• Tracking Analytics

• Parent Portal (enabling a parent to subscribe for their child/children, view academic performances of their wards in different subjects, communicate with teachers/EmBED admins etc), 

• Teacher Portal (create curriculum content, manage classes, view details of students performance etc), 

Work is still in progress on 

• the Learner Portal (which comprises of the core student learning and the frontend game engine), design of digital assets and game characters

• Creating and animating the curriculum: for the early childhood education portion (EmBED Cradle) and the Universal Basic Education portion (EmBED Genius)

We are working with 3 private schools in Aba to iteratively test the product and ensure its content matches student needs. A target launch of August 2021 is in view

EmBED harnesses the rich African culture of folktales and adventure to create an animated learning platform (experience) using games and cartoons.

• Every learning represents an adventurous journey (or Ije - The Journey) through a topic. 

• As a learner travels through the topics, their roadmap (the Scroll) clearly outlines their objectives, ensuring clarity on what is to be learned.

• At the start of each learning journey, the learner receives instructions from the Scroll Keeper, the protector of the Scroll.

• The learner’s understanding of what has been learned are periodically tested at Encounters, in-topic assessments designed to reinforce the learner's understanding through challenges. Learners win game assets & points to aid on their journey.

• An amazing array of animated guides and virtual tutors help the learners along on their journeys and provide feedback on learning. These include

  • Onye Nkuzi (The Teacher): Learn with the amazing guides, mentors, companions and teachers from the different tribes across Africa

  • The Lightbearer: points of enlightenment along the learning journey to highlight crucial/important points.
    

  • Guardians: Travel with the Guardians, your companions and protectors on your learning journey.
    

We do not have existing paying customers yet as we are still in development. However, we are working with a couple of private schools to develop a comprehensive scheme of work/curricula and ensure our learning content properly aligns with and covers the recommended curriculum. Their core role is to vet and verify the content we developed with their students. Some of these schools include: Greenfield International Schools, LearnHub Golden Schools, Mustard Seed International School. Combined, these schools have a student population of close to 900 and approximately 85 teachers. The core interaction till date has been around curricula development and content creation; with a timeline of March 2021 for private beta with their students in terms of trying out the content.

As part of our implementation of the Google Impact Challenge in 2019, we built coding labs in 15 rural schools, established 40 coding clubs and trained over 13,800 children in coding. Prior to this, we had trained over 1375 children from 35 schools in coding as part of the Africa Code Week. Most of these are still within our circle, participating actively in our free coding programs for children.

As part of our marketing, we will onboard all the students and schools we already have their data to participate in our beta testing program.

Our milestone for the next 12 months (post-launch) is to reach 100,000 children, and between 36 and 60 months, to reach 2.5million children and 100,000 teachers.

Job Creation: We will be able to track the statistics of every creator on the platform

We will also provide tracking and measuring tools/algorithms to enable us monitor usage patterns, measure impact on the children's learning, review the work of creators amongst others

To ensure equitable spread of EmBED, we intend to partner with organizations that can sponsor the provision of the learning devices to displaced children in IDP camps, children living with disabilities and children in rural areas

• Engage with international development agencies and NGOs like UNICEF, Mastercard Foundation

• Engage with local development agencies like Northeast Development Commission and Niger Delta Development Commission etc

• Engage with corporate sector for CSR sponsorships (banks, multinationals, telcos etc)

Fulltime

• Management - 3

• Developers - 7

• Animators/Illustrators - 2

• UI/UX - 1

• Content Creators - 3

Part-time

• Advisory Board - 6

On the side of the technical team, we had an initial focus on developers as the primary milestone is to build the core of the platform. So in our present team, 45% is comprised mainly of developers (7), 20% are animators and illustrators (2 - because the core need for the animators and illustrators is in the content creation phase of the project, after the platform has been built and we are generating the content to put up on it), 10% are UI/UX designers (2) and 25% are management (3).

• Chiduziem Ukaegbu (Head, Animation, Illustration and Creative team) A graduate of Computer Science with a Masters in Animation, he is responsible for the creation and design of characters for the gamified platform

• Olorunfemi Omotayo: Founder, Teachers Academy Africa, Google Certified Educator, Microsoft Innovative Educator, EdTech Consultant, Organizer @TedxAbayi, Public Speaker and #SDG4 advocate. He is leading the content creation for the platform

• Mrs Victoria Chimebere: Retired principal with 34 years of service. Primary EmBED education consultant, with a focus on curriculum development and behavioural analysis

• Mrs Edith Alozie: Certified teacher with 34 years of teaching. Retired in 2011 as a  duty principal special class. Helping define the EmBED educational philosophy

• Blessed Emeofe Onoriode: (Front-end/WebGL Lead) a graduate of Computer Engineering, he is a focused, dedicated and consummate developer; passionate about building amazing user experiences using front-end technologies, with a particular focus on Reactjs and WebGL/Three.js

We needed people of diverse skills to come together around a compelling vision. At the management level, I was a technical person, so I found a COO who was experienced in operations and sales/marketing and a CFO who had helped build several startups into profitable ventures.

• Chibueze Ukaegbu I. (CEO) B.Eng Computer Engineering, with certifications in Oracle, Ethical Hacking, Software Development. Has coordinated projects in education, telecomms and government sectors in conjunction with Nigeria Communications Commission, SNEPCo, Federal Ministry of Education, Afrihub Nigeria, and Task Systems. Managed the automation of the 5% TSC for the Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority. As a Consultant Senior Solutions Architect for Telios Support Services (tssdevs.com), he led the remote web & mobile teams to deliver a financial services project for a UK-based client.

• Osabuohien Otamere (COO) astute banker, Business Development and Project Manager with over 15-years experience, a solid professional skilled in Analytical Skills, Customer Acquisition, Customer Relationship Management, Management, Financial Risk expert and a Certified Microfinance expert (MCIB). Delivered projects within the banking sector for rapidly onboarding and growing customer base. At FINCA Microfinance Bank, he helped establish over 5 branches and grew revenues to over #3 billion.

• Osese Omini (CFO), a graduate of Accounting and education, with extensive corporate experience in business management, development & accounting. Helped grow an oil palm processing company  into one of the most profitable, rising to the Lead farmer status and eventually ranked number 2 in the state in 2012 at the ADP organised World Food Day.

To be part of a network and community of passionate and visionary people committed to solving global problems and improving the world we live in.

Human Capital: what we are aspiring to build requires people with highly talented skills in specific areas (game development, 3D programming with WebGL, mobile development, 3D/2D animation etc), so we are looking to get the best we can

Business Model: we are in-between a social impact and a profit making organization. We are still finetuning the best model that would enable us generate enough profit while serving our target group. Like Ben Franklin would say: Doing Well by Doing Good.

• A world-class animation and content creation studio, specifically Pixar / John Lassetter / George Lucas

• A tech company with extensive AI/ML libraries that offers comprehensive hosting options too, specifically Microsoft Azure or Google Cloud Platform

• MIT Labs, especially around research on web-based VR/AR technologies and implementing such in mobile apps and web browsers

• Brilliant undergrads and interns at MIT who are willing to commit some time in developing part of the EmBED platform, especially in the following areas: Animation (2D/3D - with a particular focus on Blender), Illustrators and Painters, Game Development (Web-based, JavaScript, Godot), Programmers (Web, Mobile, AI - JavaScript, Python)

• Philanthropic and developmental organizations with a large focus on Education, and Africa. The goal is to raise grants targeted at sponsoring the provision of tablets and access to children across Africa. Examples include Rockerfeller Foundation, UNICEF, USAID and others

Our Mission is to use technology to create borderless classrooms, ensuring wholesome academic experiences for the African child and breaking down barriers to Learning and Comprehension. Our 3 goals are:

• Accessible: any child can access it, whether offline or online, & thus have an amazing education experience

• Affordable: pocket-friendly so that the rich, the middle income & the poor can afford it

• Engaging and Delightful for every African child: promote engagement and a desire to learn through gamification and animation

Our digital inclusion strategy is to ensure that the UN SDG #4 (Quality Education for all) is also made available to special groups of African children, as outlined in our 3fold objectives:

• Educating the girl-child: There is a prevalent culture of not training the girl-child, or for those from low income homes to go and serve as house-helps (most either have their education completely stopped or are put in public schools where learning is negligible).

• Opportunities for the Disadvantaged: Accessibility for people living with disabilities (PLWD) and those living in orphanages

• Inclusion for the Excluded: bringing education to children in rural areas, disadvantaged by poverty, displaced into IDP camps because of wars and unrest

We believe that the EmBED offline devices can go a long way to make education accessible and fun for children displaced into IDP camps. The funds will be primarily used to provide the tablets free to children within the IDP camps

Our Mission is to use technology to create borderless classrooms, ensuring wholesome academic experiences for the African child and breaking down barriers to Learning and Comprehension. Our 3 goals are:

• Accessible: any child can access it, whether offline or online, & thus have an amazing education experience

• Affordable: pocket-friendly so that the rich, the middle income & the poor can afford it

• Engaging and Delightful for every African child: promote engagement and a desire to learn through gamification and animation

Our digital inclusion strategy is to ensure that the UN SDG #4 (Quality Education for all) is also made available to special groups of African children, as outlined in our 3fold objectives:

• Educating the girl-child: There is a prevalent culture of not training the girl-child, or for those from low income homes to go and serve as house-helps (most either have their education completely stopped or are put in public schools where learning is negligible).

• Opportunities for the Disadvantaged: Accessibility for people living with disabilities (PLWD) and those living in orphanages

• Inclusion for the Excluded: bringing education to children in rural areas, disadvantaged by poverty, displaced into IDP camps because of wars and unrest

We believe that the EmBED offline devices can go a long way to make education accessible and fun for children displaced into IDP camps. The funds will be primarily used to provide the tablets free to the girl-child especially those in rural/public schools who do not have access to world-class education

EmBED uses/proposes to use Artificial Intelligence and ML models and algorithms to provide the following features:

• Smart content: digitized text with automated testing; providing immediate feedback on learner's progress

• Learning insights: understand how each child learns and craft an individualized learning experience for him

• Virtual tutors: interactive digital teachers proffer guidance and assistance on the learning journeys. Using a child's past learning history, the ML models can predict how best a child learns and enable the digital tutors to guide him/her along the best pathway
  

• Data analytics: aggregate learning insights and identify gaps in learning content and proffer recommendations
  

• Accessibility Features (in-progress) for people living with disabilities. 

• Localization (upcoming feature) to make the content available in core Nigerian and African dialects, with French, Igbo, Yoruba and Hausa being the priority. There is abundant research that shows that children learn better and more comfortable when learning in native language. Here, we would leverage NLP (Natural Language Processing) to localize content and make it more accessible, especially for children in rural areas who don't understand English but are well versed in their local language

• Social learning; children can also connect with and learn alongside their friends, promoting competitive collaboration

These features, we believe, will make life better for myriads of young African learners, who are an integral part of humanity. This is our key qualification for the prize.

EmBED uses/proposes to use Artificial Intelligence and ML models and algorithms to provide the following features:

• Smart content: digitized text with automated testing; providing immediate feedback on learner's progress

• Learning insights: understand how each child learns and craft an individualized learning experience for him

• Virtual tutors: interactive digital teachers proffer guidance and assistance on the learning journeys. Using a child's past learning history, the ML models can predict how best a child learns and enable the digital tutors to guide him/her along the best pathway

• Data analytics: aggregate learning insights and identify gaps in learning content and proffer recommendations

• Accessibility Features (in-progress) for people living with disabilities. 

• Localization (upcoming feature) to make the content available in core Nigerian and African dialects, with French, Igbo, Yoruba and Hausa being the priority. There is abundant research that shows that children learn better and more comfortable when learning in native language. Here, we would leverage NLP (Natural Language Processing) to localize content and make it more accessible, especially for children in rural areas who don't understand English but are well versed in their local language

• Social learning; children can also connect with and learn alongside their friends, promoting competitive collaboration

These features, we believe, will make life better for
myriads of young African learners, who are an integral part of humanity.
This is our key qualification for the prize.

Our Mission is to use technology to create borderless classrooms, ensuring wholesome academic experiences for the African child and breaking down barriers to Learning and Comprehension. Our 3 goals are:

• Accessible: any child can access it, whether offline or online, & thus have an amazing education experience

• Affordable: pocket-friendly so that the rich, the middle income & the poor can afford it

• Engaging and Delightful for every African child: promote engagement and a desire to learn through gamification and animation

EmBED will provide a comprehensive platform to increase the engagement/learning outcomes for the girl-child and in-school/out-of-school children, encompass high-quality early childhood education (ECE) as well as ten years of basic education that breeds competence in literacy, numeracy and science/STEM.

Presently, EmBED is in 2 parts:

• EmBED Cradle: pre-primary/early childhood education (ECE) portion focused on building a solid foundation for children in literacy (reading), numeracy (Math), thinking skills (critical thinking & problem solving), social & emotional learning and creativity. Target group is children between ages 2 and 5.

  Highlights include the

AlphaCandies, a customized English alphabet series to make learning the alphabets easy and fun; and the Numbventures - an adventure in Math and numbers.

• EmBED Genius: focused on the 9-year Universal Basic Education that covers STEM, English, History and social science.

As part of this process, each learner will be provided with the EmBED Passport; an personal education identity and wallet built on the blockchain, that would allow them capture their learning outcomes from pre-primary to tertiary.