MEDULLA SHELF

Problem

Inadequate access to administrative tools in low and middle level schools resulting to operational inefficiencies. Education financing is also a problem with schools struggling with school fees collections and parents lacking fast and affordable financing options.

Problem 1: Communication

Lack of adequate communication channels within the school ecosystem resulting in low parent engagement in the child's education process.

Problem 2: Administration

General administration is largely manual which is hectic and cumbersome.

Problem 3: Education financing

Bad debt resulting from inability to collect fees.

Solution:

A mobile & web-based platform that provides online access to school administration tools, real time communication and Education financing for parents.

Timing: Why NOW?

Covid 19: Schools struggled to keep up constant communication with parents.

Schools going digitital: Schools have identified the need to digitize based on the pandemic’s experiences

High Mobile Penetration rate: The internet and mobile pentration is on the rise in Africa

Communication:

This is the major problem that we look to solve via our Medulla Mobile App. Globally, it is the 3rd biggest problem that faces education institutions. 

Administration:

In Africa, schools at the high level of the scale both in public and private sector are the ones that have access to proper school administrative systems and these are less than 20% of the schools in Africa. In this regard, the rest 80% are underserved with limited or no access to school management information systems.

School Fees:

According to Acumen Education research:

School fee payment remains a challenge for many parents. Although education entrepreneurs
cannot directly influence the cost of schools, they can address this challenge in a few ways:
1. Help school owners better understand the correlation between tech-driven efficiencies and
fees charged to parents, which can also reduce friction of non-payment for teachers and
school owners
2. Increase awareness by parents of products and services that can help them better manage
their finances and school fee payments
3. Provide better training or implementation support for school management systems that
include a school fee component to aid in transparency of fee payments
4. Train schools and parents around building a collaborative repayment culture

Medulla Shelf is a mobile and web based cloud based system that will:

• Centralize communication and offer administrative support to teachers in a bid to improve the quality of education in Africa. 

• Provide a platform for education financing to needy parents. This will be achieved through strategic partnerships with financials services providers in the lending market which will be synced on the mobile app parent interface.

• The integrated efficient cloud based data storage will propel schools towards using data in a more analytical and scientific approach. This will assist in guiding students towards careers that are aligned to their performance in different fields of interest thereby ruling out guess work or imposing courses that students have not shown great passion for.

We hope to fully automate all the manual functions that teachers undertake. A demo to our product can be set up via: 

https://portal.medullashelf.co...

Our end goal is to conquer the African Market. 

Our low cost solution looks to serve low and medium level schools that have limited access to school management information systems. With an extremely easy set up process that is as simple as opening a facebook, instagram or gmail account, we have managed to sign up at least 10 schools with a population of approximately 1000 Students. 

Our target market has been split as below with the needs of each summarized:

ECDs, Kindergartens: Most are small in size without systems in place

Primary and Secondary Schools: Most lack efficient and effective systems to meet the local needs

Special needs schools: This niche has been neglected by most service providers

Some of the key learnings:

Schools:

• Teachers appreciate tech when it has an easy UI
• They are more receptive after Covid-19
• There is lack of trust from previous disappointment from systems
• Collections is a major problem
• Most use quick books as an accounting solution
• Communication is hectic
• Administration is manual and takes a lot of teachers time

Parents:

• Parents are excited about the pricing and are willing spend more
• They will appreciate real time updates from schools
• Communication is a major problem
• Lack of flexibility is school fees payment is a challenge

Having gained the above insights, we are building the product with the pain points of the end users in mind. The response from our current pilot has been great and we look forward to scaling to other African markets.

Kenya alone, has 18 M learners in pre-primary, primary and secondary. Most of these learners are in institutions that have poor systems infrastructure. With the high internet connectivity penetration in the country, our cloud based solution will be an effective tool in assisting teachers, parents and learners in recording and analyzing performance data to better guide learners in career paths. Our solution will also automate tasks such as taking roll call, timetabling, capturing exam results grade and eventually analyzing this information. Automating these tasks will assist teachers in saving time and having more time with learners.

Pilot (Current WebApp features)

Home:

• Dashboard that has an overview of Total no. of Students, Staff, School fee balance summary, Communication 

Student Tab:

• Student Registration
• Homework assignment
• Exam scheduling & Recording of results
• Automated Roll Call 

Calendar:

• Automated timetable
• Automated events

Finance:

• Automated invoicing
• Fee collection recording

Staff Management:

• Role access management
• Staff log ins creation

Settings:

• Subjects customization
• Class customization
• About school i.e. mission, vision values

Library:

• Record book catalogue
• Monitor book lending

We have 10 schools piloting 6 uploaded real data that gives a total of 1000+ students in the system.

Our key driver is to introduce a more data driven approach within education institutions. The current state of affairs is composed of systems that do not meet the specific needs related to data.

By addressing communication as one of the major problems in education, we would have created a tool that brings cohesion and gives mileage as opposed to other players in the market.

The aspect of education financing is one that has not been well explored by other players in the market. This will be a game changer as it will make education more accessible and available for most parents.

 We are currently serving 15 schools with a population of approximately 1200 students. In the next 1 year, we are targeting to have reached 1000 schools with a total student population of 300,000. In the next five years we anticipate to be service 100,000 schools with an approximate student population of 30 million learners.

Some of the measurable indicators include:

• The number of schools piloting the product: We have schools piloting the product and yet to convert to early adopters. These schools are an indicator that the system we are building is solving a problem for them. 
• By ensuring the system is affordable and accessible by education institutions, we would be promoting quality education. This would be achieved via automating manual tasks that are time consuming. Once this is achieved, teachers would have more time to focus on course work.
• Our data driven approach would create student profiles that would easily be analyzed to build rational conclusions on the strong holds of the different students. This would be a great tool when scholarship institutions require a reference point to guide them on the interests and performance trends of the students. 

We are a team of 4 people:

CEO - Who is currently in charge of business development 

CTO - who is the main developer and in charge of the system 

2 Customer service agents who are assisting in handling client requests.

James Macharia - https://www.linkedin.com/in/ja...

Worked with leading top brands in the hospitality space. 5 years with Sankara (Marriott) driving sales & revenue. 3 years managing sales in East and West Africa & a constant top performer with Booking.com. Latest role with IHG as Director of Sales & Marketing

Ronald Kudoyi - https://www.linkedin.com/in/ro...

Over 8 years working as a professional software developer and have built multiple successful desktop, web and mobile apps. Worked with a lot of development languages for multiple platforms, a guru of development in Java/C#/C++/HTML/R etc

As much as the team is still small. We have tried to create a balance by having 2 ladies as customer support agents so that we can bridge the gender gap. Having worked in multinational companies, the CEO and CTO are well exposed and enlightened on the importance of an all inclusive work culture that is fair and just regardless of color, ethnicity, religion or gender.

Financial constraints:

Solve can give us access to funding opportunities that can help us build and scale our product faster. Most start ups in Africa fail because of lack of funding. 

Networking:

Solve will also give us an opportunity to network and get in touch with players in the edutech space that are looking to transform educating in Africa. 

Training and resources:

Looking for tech-preneurs focused on solving global problems, we believe that Solve will assist us gaining access to resources and additional training on how to make our business model more sustainable and one that has an impact in the education space. 

Human capital is essential for companies to thrive. In this regard, we would require expertise in recruitment and allocation of resources in the different departments within the organization.

We also require financial expertise so that we are able to achieve realistic projections and allocation of funds in the running of the company. This would also assist in situations where we need to pitch to investors and justify the amount of funding we are looking for. 

Legal advise - To penetrate new markets, we would require a strong legal team that is conversant with the different policies in place. In this regard, this is support that we would wish to acquire from Solve.  

Bill & Melinda gates is involved in initiatives that revolve around improving the quality of education. Therefore, they stand to be part of the organizations we would be happy to build partnerships with. 

Solve would also be a great partner having been in social enterprise space for quite a while.

We qualify for the above funding because our solution is aimed at improving lives through encouraging adoption of technology in education. After collecting data, our system will integrate machine learning to be able to predict the performance scores of students and therefore act as a tool that guides teachers and parents on the different career paths of interest. 

Our key driver is to introduce a more data driven approach within education institutions. The current state of affairs is composed of systems that do not meet the specific needs related to data.

By addressing communication as one of the major problems in education, we would have created a tool that brings cohesion and gives mileage as opposed to other players in the market.

The aspect of education financing is one that has not been well explored by other players in the market. This will be a game changer as it will make education more accessible and available for most parents.

We qualify for the above funding because our solution is aimed at improving lives through encouraging adoption of technology in education. After collecting data, our system will integrate machine learning to be able to predict the performance scores of students and therefore act as a tool that guides teachers and parents on the different career paths of interest. 

Our key driver is to introduce a more data driven approach within education institutions. The current state of affairs is composed of systems that do not meet the specific needs related to data.

By addressing communication as one of the major problems in education, we would have created a tool that brings cohesion and gives mileage as opposed to other players in the market.

The aspect of education financing is one that has not been well explored by other players in the market. This will be a game changer as it will make education more accessible and available for most parents.

We qualify for the above funding because our solution is aimed at improving lives through encouraging adoption of technology in education. After collecting data, our system will integrate machine learning to be able to predict the performance scores of students and therefore act as a tool that guides teachers and parents on the different career paths of interest. 

Our key driver is to introduce a more data driven approach within education institutions. The current state of affairs is composed of systems that do not meet the specific needs related to data.

By addressing communication as one of the major problems in education, we would have created a tool that brings cohesion and gives mileage as opposed to other players in the market.

The aspect of education financing is one that has not been well explored by other players in the market. This will be a game changer as it will make education more accessible and available for most parents.