NomadLab

A modular, open source, inclusive, and easy-to-build solution for ICT infrastructure and an innovative educational tool for teachers and students.

The Problem: Globally, there is a growing digital divide between developed and developing regions due to lack of access to digital infrastructure, affordability and remoteness. Majority of the digitally excluded population are ill-prepared to secure jobs that require basic sets of ICT skills. These challenges put them at a socio-economic risk aggravated by inequalities and poor employability.

The Solution: NomadLab provides access to digital tools with online and offline solutions and offers digital learning content to young students and adults from poor families and far-flung communities.

The Impact: As we scale the solution globally, thousands will benefit from low-cost ICT infrastructure, improved teacher quality, and enhanced educational performance of students. NomadLab can lay the ground for a growing community of educators, an exchange of lessons learnt and the provision of a repository for online  and offline learning tools and techniques.

To date, almost 50% of the world’s population, 3.7 billion people, are digitally disconnected and most are women from developing countries. In Cambodia, where NomadLab was initially piloted, only 52.6% of the population are internet users.  Unfortunately, the vulnerable people are most likely to be excluded from access to digital technology. In the majority of public schools in developing countries, digital literacy and basic ICT training are not compulsory in basic education. In the most recent study conducted by UNICEF on the digital literacy in education systems across ASEAN countries, one of the key findings is that more than half of 10-24 year-old participants said they did not learn digital skills at school with the majority coming from rural areas. Aside from poverty, remoteness, limited access to technical resources and infrastructure, there is a lack of practical solutions to address the problem. Apparently, these problems have led to most developing nation’s inability to disseminate digitally relevant resources and content and transfer of basic ICT skills to the vulnerable population. These issues result in a domino effect of inability to equip students with necessary digital skills, excluding the disadvantaged population to access remote learning, and producing highly unemployable and digitally incompetent workforce.

With half of the world’s population still offline, African and Asian regions trail behind compared to other continents. Africa has the least ICT development index (IDI) with poor accessibility, cost-ineffectiveness, and low use of ICT. On the other hand, Asia remains to have a strong digital divide among and within its countries.  

With Philippines and Vietnam’s current socio-economic status vis a vis the continuous digitalization of the world, the future of the underprivileged children from far-flung communities are at risk  if the country fails to improve digital inclusion and embrace digital readiness. Most of the public school students come from low-income families, cannot afford quality education, have no access to ICT infrastructure and digital resources and have very low digital literacy. Through NomadLab, PN can serve more rural communities and underprivileged students and forge alliances with stakeholders like NGOs, government agencies, and funding partners in bridging digital inclusion to the underserved. 

Through NomadLab, disadvantaged students are equipped with knowledge and skills on basic computer use. They are given access to digital educational materials that will prepare them for future employment. Moreover, students in rural areas face a critical lack of information on the labour market as well as post-secondary school options (career, studying, and training) available to them. In the face of a socio-economic context heavily impacted by the COVID-19 health crisis, young Filipinos and Vietnamese are more than ever in need of support to enter employment and guidance to make informed decisions about their future.

Almost half of the world's population have no access to digital literacy and ICT infrastructure magnifying inequality and unemployability. PN promotes digital inclusion especially for the marginalized population to prepare them for a fast-growing digital economy. Students are given exposure to digital infrastructure’s use, customized digital learning content, and initial career path orientation. NomadLab is designed to be shock resistant and waterproof, contents are accessible both in offline and online setting, and is a user-friendly equipment both for trainers and students. NomadLab is intelligently crafted to be highly replicable and scalable even in most remote communities.

Noémie Renquin, PN Cambodia Country Representative & NomadLab Global Team Lead

NomadLab is a unique blend of carefully designed equipment, need-based educational content and applications, train-the-trainer approach, dedicated support team, and highly engaged external partners. Moreover, it was developed around the perspective of global scalability and adaptive technology. It contains hardware stored in waterproof and shock resistant containers with charging systems secured properly. The 2021 version is upgraded to be more innovative compared to the technology we initially piloted in 2019 with its suitability both using laptops and tablets. It also contains network access protection for sensitive contents and an integrated data collection system to help us evaluate the efficiency of our tool for continuous improvement. 

Since digital transformation is a never-ending process, NomadLab has a flexible design model and updatable apps and uploaded content. We want NomadLab to remain relevant, useful and applicable in the years to come thus it was created to be an equally-evolving solution too. With more than 3 billion of the world’s population still struggling with digital exclusion and still growing, there is an increasing demand for us to engage more remote communities and underserved students in the future. Thus, this technology can be easily passed on from one generation to another. It is a simple solution but intelligently developed to be sustainable, transportable, adaptable, scalable, and user-friendly.

In Cambodia, we started our first pilot project in a high school library in Chi He, Cambodia in 2019. Before the succeeding deployments in other rural  areas of the country including in  two districts in Prey Veng province, we conducted assessment of the initial pilot to further improve the solution. We did this by collecting feedback  and evaluation from the teachers, librarians, and our field partner SIPAR, an NGO with 28 years of presence in Cambodia whose goal is to improve literacy and reading abilities of underserved locals through setting up reading corners, libraries, and resource centers that are highly accessible to them. After the three successful pilot  deployments in Cambodia we have evolved our solution to a combination of devices (laptops, tablets and/or convertible laptop), installed a data tracking device, and led to re-evaluation of our current KPIs to better measure the  success of our project.

NomadLab is an adaptive technology built around the combination of existing hardware and software. The hardware is composed of tablets, laptops (KOOMPI E11, a Cambodian local brand), Raspberry 3B, USB charging station, and AC plug stored in a water resistant, shock proof, and portable container. The software has installed android applications, website cache, and media center with online and offline access.  With the use of laptops, the operating system was switched from Linux to Google Chrome for a more user-friendly experience. Limited access is locked to relevant websites prohibiting social media use to ensure devices are exclusive for learning purposes only. Through NomadLab’s data tracking device, we can track the frequency of users’ access to the installed apps and contents that will help us assess which is the most and least visited by them.

NomadLab is composed of various resources that are combined together to successfully address digital divide and exclusion especially for the underserved communities. One solution can fit in one box of laptops, tablets, raspberry 3B, USB charging station, and an AC plug with learning contents to build students’ awareness, digital skills, and competency for future job-readiness. NomadLab is also a collaboration among various stakeholders that work together in building this solution. Within PN, we have IT experts, fundraisers, Board of Directors, Country Representatives, and support teams who contribute significantly in its development. In Cambodia, we have partnered with local partners and the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sport (MoEYS) in selecting schools or community partners, deployment, implementation, and program assessment. Moreover, our corporate donors dedicated funds to run this program.

For every box deployed either in school or community, hundreds of children benefit every year. Every student from remote areas is introduced to the basic use of a computer. They are provided with digital learning materials that aim to equip them with relevant knowledge, awareness, and competencies to guide their career choices in the future. “Trained trainers” on the other hand are empowered to use an advanced approach to educate students.

NomadLab is a tool designed to help students increase their future employability. Through learning basic computer use and knowledge acquired from the educational content, they become more confident and enlightened with the career path they want to choose. They become more competitive in the job market too, giving them an edge to secure better jobs. When they start earning a decent income, together with their families, they start to live in better conditions, breaking the vicious cycle of poverty.

So far, with the progress and success that we have achieved for NomadLab in Cambodia, replication of this project both in Philippines and Vietnam is our next priority.

To measure NomadLab’s progress towards our impact goals, below are the measurable indicators that we use based on UN SDGs: 

1. Quality Education (SDG 4)

a. Participation rate of students in the NomadLab program

b. Proportion of students who graduate equipped with basic ICT skills

c. Percentage of students who have improved academic performance at the end of academic period

d. Number of school staff and youth club members who were trained and who actively participate in the program

e. Learning evolution of the youths using NomaLab (learning step progress monitoring)

2. Gender Equality (SDG 5)

         a. Proportion of female vs. male participants

3. Decent Work and Economic Growth (SDG 8)

a. Number of students who have knowledge in more career choices or professions other than the ones present in their community

b. Number of students who choose courses in tertiary studies that require ICT skills

c. Number of students who choose college courses that are not professions present within  their immediate community.

NomadLab was first introduced in Cambodia where we also founded PN’s first TVET program in 2005.  Hundreds of students have already benefited from our initial pilots but thousands still need to be reached hence, we aim to build more NomadLab across Cambodia in the next year. Also, for 2022, we plan to conduct our first replication and project implementation in the Philippines and in the next 2 to 3 years we will expand to Vietnam where we both have an existing TVET program since 2009 and 2010 respectively. With our years of presence and operation in both countries, we have built connections with the local government, corporate partners, communities, alumni, and relevant networks. We have familiarity with the countries’ educational system, poverty situation, remote communities, and lack of digital inclusion in the majority of the population. Strategically, mobilization is easier with our existing centers and local teams. 

With PN’s new mission to expand footprint and scalability, a NomadLab is planned to be built as well in Madagascar after we have successfully established a program there by the end of 2021 and once we have secured funding from donors. We hope to achieve this within 3-5 years. NomadLab is a perfect complement for our educational program in our goal to teach digital skills, provide digital resources, and build employability for underserved youths.

• Pandemic - hinders our ability to mobilize

• Funding - challenge in securing partners and donors during pandemic

• Technical challenges - hardware problems with maintenance and depreciation over time

• Trained local staff turn-over - affects continuity of the program

• Building partnership with technical partners

Short-term barrier

• Pandemic - the initial plan to expand the solution to the Philippines and Vietnam in 2021 was put on hold. The team will focus on maximizing opportunities to pilot and implement within Cambodia. But for 2022, despite the presence of covid-19 we will aim to replicate at least in the Philippines first.

 Long-term barriers

• Technical challenges – maintenance and replacement of broken devices are expected to be shouldered by the partner school

• Trained local staff turn-over – aside from librarians, school’s IT staff and some teachers also undergo NomadLab orientation and training

• Building partnership with technical partners – through our existing network, we will communicate our need to find technical partners for referrals and endorsements

• Funding - mobilize our fundraising teams, together with the help of our board to secure fundings for NomadLab. We will also strengthen our communication efforts to advocate more about the solution. 

Passerelles numériques (PN) provides vocational training in the digital sector to underprivileged youths with technical and soft skills training and guidance to employment. It was founded by Accenture France and the NGO Enfants du Mekong in 2005. During that time, they observed that the digital market was developing rapidly but there were few trainings and educational opportunities for underserved youths of Cambodia giving them low chances of entering the labor market. Hence, they decided to join efforts and established the first center in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. With its effective model and successful implementation, PN opened its second center in Cebu, Philippines in 2009 and the third one a year later in Da Nang, Vietnam. For the last sixteen years, PN has produced 2,200 graduates with over 10,000 people lifted out of poverty. 

To further increase PN’s impact and relevance, we developed NomadLab in 2017 to introduce a new solution with our ambition and drive to serve more underprivileged youths. In line with PN’s mission of unlocking the potential of underprivileged students by equipping them with digital literacy and soft skills that are a key to a job-ready future, NomadLab is another practical solution to promote digital inclusion to students from remote communities. This program introduces them to learning the basic computer skills and expands their knowledge with the digital educational uploaded content. 

Full time  staff - 2

Part-time staff - 15 (full-time PN staff, partly dedicated to NomadLab)

*numbers subject to change

For the strategy alignment and support, PN’s global team provides assistance in fundraising, finance, innovation, communications, etc. We have support teams both from Paris and a regional office located in Phnom Penh. We also have Board Members based in France and Singapore who help in advocating and raising funds for this project.

In Cambodia, we have established a small team dedicated to NomadLab led by the Country Representative with the support of the PNC team. Moreover, NomadLab is implemented and sustained in partnership with other organizations. SIPAR and MoEYS work with us on the ground with schools and beneficiaries. On the other hand, our corporate partners like SMART Axiata, Enfant d’Asie, and AFD provide funding support to build NomadLab in selected communities.

For our scaling plans both in the Philippines and Vietnam, PN has established centers in both countries since 2009 and 2010 consecutively. We have local teams there composed of Selection, Education, External Relations, Administration and Finance, and IT and Training teams. We also have already forged long-term alliances with the government agencies, community, and local and international corporate partners and individual donors in both of these countries. For our ICT expertise, PN has local ICT experts in Vietnam and Philippines (IT Training Managers, IT Admin, IT teachers and SNA Coordinators) who can help in developing and improving the solution.

Noemie Renquin, NomadLab’s team lead, serves as the Country Representative PNC since 2020. She oversees PNC’s TVET operations and leads the entire Cambodia team. She also spearheads the design and implementation of NomadLab piloted in Cambodia. With this project, she works closely with the IT technical expert in developing the technical aspect of the solution and a project coordinator in coordinating with the field and supporting the learning content development. Moreover, with the support she receives both from the global and country teams, NomadLab's replication to other countries is being initially discussed.

Although NomadLab was initially conceptualized way back in 2017 and Noemie has just started leading this project in 2020, she has been highly involved in developing new ideas on how to further improve the solution. This year, under Noemie’s project leadership, we introduced the hybrid version of NomadLab --- mixed use of laptops and tablets, installation of access protection for sensitive content, and use of a data collection system. On top of NomadLab, she also spearheads PNC’s cybersecurity program focused on developing digital awareness and content. She has a proven track record in leading teams/projects and contributing to the development of great ideas.

NomadLab in Cambodia currently has partners for:

Implementation and program support:

• SIPAR – helps PN in identifying, selecting, and collaborating with the right schools and communities in Cambodia who will benefit from the NomadLab. 

• Cambodia Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports (MoEYS) - identifies the support needed in schools and we provide solutions like NomadLab

• Youth Clubs / Schools – NomadLab is rolled-out either in selected schools or youth clubs from remote areas. Students studying in the identified partner schools or living within the community of our youth clubs are the target beneficiaries of our solution

• KOOMPI – our laptop providers. As a probono support to our project, they provide free technical services and guidance on the use of KOOMPI laptops.

Funding partners:

• Agence Française de Développement (AFD)

• SMART Axiata

• Enfant d'Asie

Building bridges and creating fruitful partnerships lies in PN’s DNA. As a finalist both in the 2017 and 2021 MIT Solve Global Challenges, we know that this community offers the unique opportunity to exchange experiences and lessons learnt with fellow Solvers. Your community offers access to experts from academia, non-profits and the corporate world. Solve can help PN to grow our exposure and connect us with potential investors and future partners. Our on-the-ground experience in Southeast Asia has taught us that interdisciplinary cooperation and multisectoral partnerships yield the best results when addressing one of the most complex development challenges of our time: quality education for all. With our long-term vision to scale regionally and globally and tap thousands more beneficiaries, Solve can be one of our best partners to achieve this goal.

NomadLab’s goal is to scale to other regions to provide an innovative digital learning solution to disadvantaged communities and students to bridge the digital divide. Our technology is an instrument in equipping the students with necessary knowledge and skills to prepare them for a brighter future ahead of them. Hence, support in various fields will be beneficial in further improving our solution. We are open to partners collaborating with us to design a better business model for us. Finding investors or donors will also be crucial in the number of communities and beneficiaries that we can tap. Other help in areas of finding strong network connections, public relations, monitoring and evaluation processes, and technical support are also needed for an overall advancement of the solution.