TECHTENUM MINDS

We are an education-driven start-up working towards creating a technology and innovation culture and way of thinking that promotes the local development of consumer tech products.

Our solution revolves around SDG 4(offering quality education) to enable Africa to innovate more. By offering wholesome education, we hope to stimulate curiosity that will drive us to contribute to the technological advancement of this global village.

Our path to offering technical education revolves around:

1. Electronics kit: We have created custom electronic kits that will serve as part of the core educational material. This kit is made with future technology in mind as it promotes robotics, IoT and bioengineering technologies. It has also made to be for children to interact with these technologies at a tender age.
2. Learning platform: For access to all, scaling and affordability, we are creating a platform that will enable us to distribute our curated materials. The video resource will revolve around our kit, web and mobile app development; contemporary technology like artificial intelligence, machine learning and blockchain. The platform will be built with microlearning to easy consumption and gamification to make learning fast.
3. Inclusivity: In Africa, innovation and tech have been considered a 'big boy's club'. With our solution being more accessible, it intends to motivate a disadvantaged girl child to join in and have the same opportunity to innovate.

The main problem in Africa is the lack of innovation of consumer-tech products. Consumer tech products are essential products that have electronics that make life better. This main reason where there is minimal innovation is due to a lack of technical know-how among the Africans in technological fields. This makes us more consumers than contributors to consumer technology.

The minimally skilled innovators are attributed to Africa's educational system being more theoretical than practical. The theoretical aspects are due to the high cost of labs setup or upgrade; lack of initiative in technical institutions to pursue practical education and lack of practically mature trainers.

The lack of technological implementation knowledge to address Africa's unique need make us consume products that don't satisfy our needs wholesomely.

Our primary target is individuals who wish to create a sustainable solution but currently lack the technical know-how. These individuals are broadly students from tech-related fields like engineering and computer science.

In most of Africa's institutions of higher learning, the delivery of this education is theoretical. The theoretical aspects are due to the high cost of labs setup or upgrade; lack of initiative in technical institutions to pursue practical education and lack of practically mature trainers. This makes the learner ill-equipped to solve society's problems.

We wish to supplement their theoretical knowledge by providing practical resources like:

1. Electronics kits circumnavigate the need for high-end labs.
2. Easy to consume learning materials available at an affordable price.

This will make them grow their technical skill in the comforts of their rooms.

I joined campus. Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, I had to do a virtual class. Undertaking computer science, I found it difficult following live practical zoom sessions due to zoning out. I started asking myself how this could be made better.

I formed a small team and did a market study. In the market study the results were compelling:

1. Most tech institution was shut down completely and no activities were being undertaken.
2. With Covid-19, the majority of the student from the electronics field desired to make solutions like ventilators, automatic dispensing machines and medical products that may make telemedicine and transportation easier.

This made us pivot as we created a kit to start teaching concepts of electronic design.
In November 2021, we began our first market test with our first cohort. We secured 15 electronics students and 10 web development students in which we are still collecting metrics to improve our products. With absolute certainty, they have validated our product. Also, they have validated the need for a learning platform.

In our pilot, we wanted to small dataset of 35 users to test our product. In the market test, we taught two technologies (web development and hardware with Arduino). We capture 25/35 users. Our target was individuals.

Hardware with Arduino

1. Users:15 users
2. User community: All are studying Bachelor of electrical engineering at Moi University(First and second years).
3. Male: Female ratio: 3:2

Web development 

1. Users:10 users
2. User community: From different universities not limited to Strathmore University, Daystar University and Moi univesity;
3. Male: Female ratio: 1:1

1. Techtenum learning platform. It is a new use of existing technology in a new market. Though the platform is under development, the core learning material on the platform will include consumer-tech product design path; web and app development path; blockchain path and AI and ML paths. The content will be short promoting microlearning. It will also be interactive through a gamification approach. The business relies on this technology to scale faster; make the material available and accessible in our environment where is scarce practically mature instructors and affordable to all. 
2. Techtenum electronic kit. It is a new use of existing technology in a new market. It is a custom product made with consideration to promote robotics, IoT and bioengineering technologies. The business uses the kit as a learning material to promote innovations.

We started the market test on November 2021 with 25 users. The users who joined to form the first cohort of the first module we're interested in Web development(10 users) and electronics beginner with Arduino(15 users).

In 2022, with the learning platform up and running, we hope to approach five technical colleges and add them to our platform. The freedom of scaling with the platform will allow us to access up to 750-1000 users by the end of the year.

Under our slogan of "Build, build right , right at the beginning" we anticipate:

1.  All the users in our innovative platform will ideate based on priority need. We hope that the learning we are undertaking will pivot them to think in the line of technological initiatives to solve local problems.
2. Increase the number of women in innovative tech who have been alienated for the longest time. This will be the first step increase in effective women-led startups.
3. Increase in children taking an interest in tech from an early age. Investing in future generation create the solvers of tomorrow.

The key metrics used to measure our impact goals are:

1. Referring to SDG 4, can our users access the learning material full-time? What is the drop-out rate? How many users do we have currently? Are the users consuming the material in the right manner?
2. Are the tech-marginalized groups(women and children) have equal access to the platform? Is the material made in a simple way for even children to understand?
3. What is the number of tech-based started as a result of going through our programme? Are they solving priority need to impact society positively? Are they working to achieve other SDGs goals are met using technical innovation?

Lack of capital to roll out the learning platform. Currently, we are developing the platform with the hope to scale and making the program more affordable. The initial cost of deploying the solution to the AWS cloud is rather costly. Once the platform is up, we will need to get more individuals to create high quality contents.

Our team cores educational backgrounds include computer science, engineering and teaching. Teaching being our core activity, teammates with a teaching background have enabled the material to be delivered in a consumable and understandable way. Working with teachers the engineers and computer scientists have created well-curated resources and curriculum. The team members have a long experience in working in a startup have a know-how of how to create a lean startup.

Currently, we have managed to partner with a biomedical start-up in Eldoret, Kenya called Obium Core Limited. They are making a biomedical glucometer to provide telemedicine functionality to diabetes patients. We have also partnered with Oxata Turus Solution, a smart city startup to focus on the automation of asset tracking. Both startups enables us to generate materials and provide experience in setting up a lean start-up in Africa.

There are few women in STEM and even few women-led startups in Africa. Techtenum seeks to bring equal access to our learning to women to enable access to materials at their convenience. You girls will be exposed to technology as they learn that setting us a startup like Techtenum is possible.