Chalkboard Education

Chalkboard Education democratizes access to education by providing  m-learning solutions that work on all mobile devices, without Internet connection.

The rapid population growth and the increasing value attached to university education means the system will have to keep up. In 2010, the population of people aged 18-23 in Sub-Saharan Africa was above 100 million. This figure will grow by more than 50% by 2030. Investments in secondary education will soon boost demand, but at the moment, university infrastructure and technology are not adapting fast enough to meet this projected increase in student enrollment.

So far, most e-learning solutions are not adapted to Africa’s connectivity and power-starved environments. That is because they are largely web-based and need excellent bandwidth to work. These challenges have easy-to-implement solutions and should not inhibit youth in both Africa and across the world from attaining the university degree and the education they want.

Chalkboard Education designed an innovative application that is adapted to African markets and is relevant to the students, professors, and universities needs and constraints.

With the application, universities and learning institutions can digitalise and upload any content, including audio-recorded lectures, simple text, images, multimedia files, etc. Course materials are in a compact format and then accessible offline on the students’ mobile phones. The students then receive an SMS with a link to the application and a unique login code to gains access to the course material. Professors and have access to the student data and can therefore monitor students’ progress at any time.

Moreover, we collect students' data which allow us to customize the learning experience and we are developing AI solutions to integrate personalized learning interactivity to the content and the app interface.

Chalkboard Education’s ambition is to educate or train 150,000 African youth by 2023 by providing access to quality education through which they attain a recognized diploma. The application will allow the millions of youth living in rural Africa to have access to training and education regardless of infrastructure and social challenges.

Our solution is different from others on the market and innovative because it features:

• Offline-capable web application created specifically for the African market that is cross platform and allows universal access.
• Easy-to-use interface that allows universities to save thousands of dollars and hundreds of man hours annually.
• Allows universities and learning institutions to enrol an unlimited number of students regardless of their location.

Our product is a web application that works with and without the Internet. We make digitize any content and make it mobile-friendly. Content is accessible via smartphones and features phones (equipped with a web browser). Learners can read their course, take quizzes, even in offline mode.

Through our platform, we also collect data on learner's performance and app usage patterns to deliver custom reports to institutions/organizations and teachers. This goes a long way in ensuring no learner or no student is left behind.

Our key milestones by EOY 2019 are:

• On the sales aspect:

- reach 20'000 learners and 10 schools

- impact 200'000 secondary beneficiaries (in families and communities)

- reach $400,000 in yearly revenues 

• On the product aspect:

- finalize our platform (refine our dashboard and our data analytics)

- develop fully our AI engine

Over the next 3-5 years, we want to make our solution even more accessible.
We want to reach people with even less sophisticated phones such as simple feature phones, and develop products for low-literacy users.

• In terms of traction and impact we will:

- have reached 200'000 learners (both in universities and via organisations partnerships)

- reach as many learners in rural areas as in urban centers

- reach at least 50% of female learners

• In terms of expansion

- be present in 2 additional markets in West Africa: Nigeria and Senegal

- have successful pilots in East Africa, to prepare for an expansion there

We sell our solution to organizations (B2B), such as universities or learning institutions. Our implementation process is easy and inclusive: the learners receive an SMS with a link to the application and a unique login code to gain access to the content. They do not need to have an account on an app store.

We stay in touch with the learners via SMS campaigns, but we also rely on our partners on the ground. We "train the trainers" to become our ambassadors so they can help the learners in case of any difficulty using the app.

Since 2017, we have signed 5 clients for a total of 3000 users in Ghana, Ivory Coast and Rwanda. This is a mix of universities and organizations.

For all our programmes, we aim to serve 50% of female beneficiaries. For instance, we are working on a mobile nutrition project for frontline health workers in rural Rwanda. 1 worker out of 2 is female.

We are in the process of closing more deals by end of Q2 2018 (social impact programmes and universities) that would bring us potentially 2000 to 3000 more users.

We expect to serve up to 20,000 users/learners by end of 2019.

We are targeting universities (so students as users) and organisations that want to implement education or skills development programs.

Our first pilots proved that there is a correlation between the regular use of the app and students results. During our pilot with the University of Ghana, grades were in average 18% better compared to the previous year (when the students were not using Chalkboard Education).

In 3 years, our solution will be available online and on-demand for any institution or organisation that wishes to implement it.

Our team has the right mix of grit and experience.

Our co-founders bring a combined 10 years of experience in web development, digital strategy and data analysis.

We are an international and pan-African team who is truly dedicated to
education. Before Chalkboard Education, we were all involved in
educational projects.

Together, we have raised over $200,000 in seed funding and have attracted impact investors focused on education such as the Jacobs Foundation. We have also won competitions and small grants such as Seedstars Ghana and BPI France tech grants.

We are a for-profit social enterprise that sells a software as a service.

Our revenue model is mix of B2B and revenue sharing B2B2C subscription model. We target universities or organisations, as well as individual students and share the revenue with teachers/lecturers.

For the B2B subscription model: we offer universities and organisations packages with two pricing, based on the number of learners and the programme. This comes with an implementation fee. This pricing was informed by our pilot experience in 2016.

For the revenue sharing B2B2C subscription model: we charge each student up to $8 per month through a monthly subscription per course. This pricing was informed by our market research in Cote d'Ivoire.

Through these models, we project $150,000 in revenues in 2018. As of July 2018 today, we have reached 75% of this target. We aim at multiplying our revenues by 10 within 4 years (EOY 2022). According to our projections, we will break even by end of 2021.

We are working on an innovative web-based solution that has the potential to reach millions in Africa.

R&D is a huge part of our work and we are looking for mentorship and advice from MIT experts and the Solve network to help us with our product development, as we are continually testing and experimenting.

We are constantly trying new things and need help on the R&D side.

We want to keep making products that are accessible to all mobile phone users, regardless of their connectivity and devices.