StanLab

StanLab is a 3D low-cost, virtual lab application that simulates science practicals with game-like lesson activities for teachers and students.

The Problem

Generally, the quality of science education that is been delivered in Nigerian secondary schools is very poor and this has consequently resulted in poor performances of students in the school certificates exam such as the West African Secondary School Certificate Exams (WASSCE) and the National Examinations Council Certificate Exams (NECO). It has been a perennial problem dating back to the 80’s and 90’s as cited by Teboho Moja, a Visiting Professor of Higher Education, New York University and recently, the chief examiners’ reports of WAEC and NECO, 2013, 2014 and 2015 indicate poor performance of students in the sciences particularly chemistry. This problem of lack of quality science education especially in Nigerian secondary schools also has a direct impact on the economy of Nigeria as there is shortage of skilled and highly skilled labour for industries and sectors where science education is a foundation. The major factors that have been identified from our own personal  experience having been through this system and which research generally agrees with are:

1. lack of well trained, quality teachers to teach science subjects of Chemistry, Physics, Biology and Mathematics.

2. Lack of science teaching facilities and resources; laboratories, equipments, apparatuses, textbooks, charts and drawings.

Our Solution

StanLab is a 3D virtual lab application that simulates science practicals and allow students to control the simulation as they perform experiment in a hands-on manner using a 3D motion sensing device such as Intel RealSense or Microsoft Kinect.

Stanlab is 

The 3D Motion Sensing device, allows a user to interact with the displayed three-dimensional 3D graphics on the screen for interactivity and immersion. 

Also, we are integrating a game-like pedagogical lesson plan manager and evaluation kits to be used by teacher to instruct students. This will help teachers to guide the students through each lesson/activity to be carried out by students using set of  game-like challenge to pique the student's interest in the area of topic. Research shows that game-based activities improves the learning of students. and since many students enjoy playing game, they will find our application very natural to use 1.

Our Solution is an innovative use of Virtual Reality to learning and there have been solutions like ours that is been developed for Hands-on dissection for dynamic anatomy instruction and evaluation by Two Harvard Professors of Anatomy, Alexander Bick and Trudy van Houten 3.

Global Impact

Our Solution will drive the achievement of SDG 4 Goal - Quality Education For All, through innovative use of technology and pedagogical techniques to improve the learning of Chemistry, which is a central science. A solid understanding of Chemistry through the practical illustration of concepts and the practice of experiments will help to prepare secondary school students for advanced level Chemistry and create a strong foundation for them to become Highly Skilled Labour needed in manufacturing and technology industries.

• StanLab has uses for both classroom demonstration of practicals and personal study. The classroom use case is being custom developed for schools in Nigeria where classes are usually large and where students might not be able to afford a device. 

• Instead of just mouse point and click or touch like many virtual laboratory software, StanLab allows users to use natural gestures for interactivity and immersion

• There is a gamification system with social networking and collaboration features to engage the interest of students.

Our software application uses a 3D motion sensing device/camera like the Intel RealSense or the Microsoft Kinect to capture user gestures  for “hands-on” laboratory science practice and evaluation for K-12 students. The 3D Motion Sensing device, allows a user to interact with the displayed three-dimensional 3D graphics on the screen for interactivity and immersion. For example a user, with natural gestures, can rotate a 3D model of a molecule to see the constituents elements and the dimensions of the molecule.

We are going to complete a piloting of our solution by the end of December, 2018. thereafter, we planned to roll out our solution to both public and private secondary schools in Lagos State, Nigeria in January 2019.

In September of 2019, we would begin the integrating of features for internationalization of our solutions  so we can launch into other West-African countries like Ghana, Gambia, Liberia,

To achieve this scale of growth, we would recruit talented and experience developers for continuous development of our solution and professional operations and marketing personnel for the marketing of our solutions.

Our long-term vision for global impact is to use our technological solutions to transform  learners especially youths into strongly educated and empowered labor force that can contribute to sustained global economic growth that lifts people out of poverty.

With this vision, we are building StanLab to be the go-to platform for real-time simulations and practice of science experiments for students and teachers.

We will leverage on our partnership with Intel Inc, the Nigerian National Education Board and DFID; which has been formed in the development of a Proof of Concept for our idea to extensively market to about 7,129 Nigerian secondary schools in their care. 

Our software will be installed on school's PC for teachers and students' use.

We will also directly market our products online to parents for a subscription to our software for the use of their ward in personal home study and practice.

We are currently working on a pilot with about 5 secondary schools in our community, of an average of 300 students each in collaboration with the Local Education District.

In Nigeria alone, where there are about 7,129 secondary schools, our solutions would impact over 3 million secondary school students in five years.

Overall, our solution will positively drive the advancement of technology in Nigeria  by laying a strong foundation for the learning of science. Empirical research has proven that advancement in technology drives the economy of any nation positively.

Our team has over 24 years of combine experience in education, technology, finance and entrepreneurship. Job Oyebisi, CEO,  co-founded his first venture, a platform that connects students to tutors, when he was just out of secondary school in 2003. He  studied Microbiology at Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife. Bolu Kolawole, CTO, is a graduate of New Jersey Institute of Technology. He has over 7 years of experience as a science teacher in both Nigeria and America. Yvonne Okafor, our CFO, is a graduate of Finance at the Kogod School of Business, American University, DC.

Our business model incorporates the software-as-a-service (SaaS) model and we see periodical (daily, monthly, annual) subscription charges as our main revenue stream. Another source of revenue that we have identified is from licensing fees to Evaluation and Testing Companies like West African Examination Council and the Joint Admission Examination Board which administer test for students entry into universities for the use of our software as alternative to physical practicals testing in their  assessment of students.

MIT Solve is a great platform for our team to learn from some of the world's brightest minds and faculty at MIT and connect to resources that would help us successfully develop and scale our educational solution.

Solve's connection to government and inter-governmental officials is also of great values to us as we try to scale our solution from country to country in Africa.

The visibility that Solve provides also is very valuable to help spread good words of our solution.

Two key barrier to the success of our solution is one:

1. Design and cutting edge technology resources: we believe that solve in partnership with MIT Media Lab can help us access resources for effective use of tech in the design and implementation of our solution for billions at the base of the pyramid.

2. Adoption: Having solve the design and cutting edge tech barrier,  Solve can help us with high-level introduction to decision makers that can help influence the adoption of our solution in places where it's needed.