Robotna

Speaking of the Middle East, it is well known that the unemployment rate and the lack of women's participation in the labor market is one of the biggest problems that are currently being faced and considered as an overwhelming dilemma. according to the World Bank Reports, the unemployment rate among jordanian youth, exceeded  50%, which is considered a tremendous percentage.

One of the most affected proportions by this problem is women especially those specialised in technology or STEAM sector,  according to the Department of General Statistics in Jordan 66.6% of women graduates of technology majors do not find a job to work for after graduation, which negatively affects women’s self-confidence and belief in their effectiveness in society.

After investigating the causes of these problems, it was clear that one of the biggest causes is the very late and postponed educational system in the region, which focuses only on preparing generations for the skills of the second and third industrial revolution without addressing any of the skills needed for the fourth industrial revolution and the future labor market. The reason for this delay is the inability of private and public schools to cover the gap between the requirements of the labor market and the old education systems.

To sum up, the heart of the problem is the inability of schools, financially and humanly, to include technological applications within the educational curricula which lead to a tremendous delay and lack in the student’s skills and increase the percentage of unemployment especially and particularly for women who seek a job in the STEAM sector. 

Our company provides interactive programs and courses in the latest technological fields including professional trainers, training materials and all required equipment. Which reflects positively and contributes to relieving the schools from equipping the expensive technological laboratories and hiring specialized trainers.

Our qualified trainers have long education and training experience with high ability to deal with various types of students’ skills and characters. 

In order to ensure that the impact reaches all social levels, each private school that participates in our program is at the same time supporting a school less fortunate to participate in the program and rehabilitate its students.

Our program consists of six training stages that focus on many technologies such as, such as Internet of Things, artificial intelligence and robotics Programing . Each stage lasts for an entire semester in the latest technological fields and prepares students to have sufficient information about the future labor market.

We also conclude the program with an entrepreneurship course in order to support students to start their entrepreneurial ideas while they are studying.

By providing our services, we have saved schools additional costs, in addition to motivating and encouraging students to learn in a new environment outside the school framework.

The target group in general for our project is school students from 6 to 16 years old, who are divided into two groups, namely, private school students and students of less fortunate schools. Payment is made only by private school students, who in turn automatically support students from secondary schools once they are registered in our program.

With regard to the process of influencing students’ lives, our program is considered one of the most important programs that educate students in the technological fields and the field of STEAM, as it prepares students to work in technological disciplines in the future, in addition to educating students about the importance of studying technological disciplines instead of the stagnant disciplines that increase unemployment problems. Our programs also increase the creative and critical thinking process of students, which in itself is a fundamental change in teaching methods.

We believe that the work team entrusted with solving the problem must have a close connection with the problem itself, in order to achieve the highest efficiency during the work. From this point of view, we can mention the following:

First of all, our team is characterized by ethnic diversity, as there are a number of male and female individuals, as well as many immigrants and those who were refugees in one day. This enhances the team's sense of the scale of the problem faced by the students and the target parties in our programs and makes them able to target the most important aspects that benefit the target group based on their real experience that they have passed. It is also worth noting that there are a number of female teachers who had studied in government schools and they know the amount of failure and suffering that students agonize in these schools.

Regarding the analysis and collection of data that help us in how to deal with students, we had started in a small territory and then increased in growth later and dealt with students for more than five years, during which we have been continuing to collect information and record the feedback by students and teachers to know the problems and issues they suffer from. After many analysis steps and consulting specialists in the field of Monitoring and Evaluation, we were able to develop our programs to rise to the level required to solve most of the students' problems and this continues until now.

As an emerging company that is still in the growth stage, we are actually facing several problems, the most important of which are the following:

First, The team grows and its number increases rapidly, and therefore we always face problems in organizing and directing the team to achieve the highest possible productivity.

Second, We need advice and guidance from specialists on how to choose the work team, organize it, and maintain the stability of the work team in the company.

Third, We hope and aspire to obtain advice from experts on how to maintain customers, manage large sales and the ability to increase the size of the company's labour market.

Finally, We are also facing problems in the work of the professional Branding, marketing and visual identity of the company, and therefore we hope, through this program, to communicate with specialists and professionals who are able to help us in this field.

Robotna is distinguished from other startups in its programs and in its business Model, through the following:

The first problems are, as we mentioned previously, that schools refrain from providing technological programs due to several issues, the first of which is that the prices of equipping technological laboratories are very expensive, and secondly, that there is no Arabic content available in these feild, and thirdly, that school staff are unable to keep pace with this rapid development.

Here comes the creative role in the services of our company, which provides all of the above to schools by providing technological programs in a way that save make schools save money. This is because the company provides trainers, training equipment, and training materials in Arabic, which were prepared by our team, and makes all this available only by subscribing to the company and nothing more.

This reflected positively from a financial and sufficiency point of view on schools, especially during the last pandemic period, where the number of student registrations was lower than average. Our solution compensate a part of that shortage by giving a percentage of profit with the participation of each student to the schools. We note that with the introducing and applying this idea, we have achieved benefits for both parties, for the school from a financial point of view, and for the student from an educational point of view.

Through our theory of change which stands for “We prepare children and youth with fun and practical technology services and products to get them ready for the careers of the future” , we will make sure that the plan is implemented using chain theory, as we strive to reach 5,000 students over the next year and 100,000 students over the next five years.

We at Robotna have a department specialized in Monitoring and Evaluation, whose permanent mission is to verify that all activities lead to the desired results, which in turn leads to achieving the impact that the organization seeks. We do this by using the Impact Value Chain & Indicators which works in conjunction with our theory of change that is explained in the next question.

https://drive.google.com/file/...

“We prepare children and youth with fun and practical technology services and products to get them ready for the careers of the future”

A thorough description of our theory of change can be found in the following link:

https://drive.google.com/file/...

Our project is based on the use of the latest technological equipment related to academic courses that deliver ideas in the best way. The techniques used can be summarized as follows:

-The latest robot kits from LEGO and others are used to teach students the logic of working with a robot and the implementation of projects.

-Pictoblox, through which the student learns the basics of algorithms, the application of programs that use artificial intelligence and machine learning.

-The Internet of Things, for which we use several kits such as Modi and others, in order to clarify the various applications of the Internet of things in society and daily life applications. 

-3D printers, where the students learn how to design the CAD models using opensource software such as TinkerCAD and then print the object by learning the latest 3D printing technology and settings to produce the required object. 

-The VR, where the student can watch 3D shapes and interact with them in a virtual medium.

We are a multidisciplinary team, where 56% of the members are women, who came from the three regions (Jordan, Syria and Palestine). In addition, 40% of our part-time employees are immigrants who were refugees, so we try our best to apply diversity and equality in opportunities from both gender and nationality perspectives which makes the employment and selection process is always based on the qualifications of the candidate.  

Our company provides many services through the subscription plan, which covers the needs of both individuals and organizations. The type of targeted beneficiaries and customers can be listed as follow:

B to B

• Private schools and academies in Jordanian governorates

• Organizations and companies that work and are interested in the field of education and technology

  B to C:

-School students between the ages of 6-16 years

-Students and graduates of universities in the field of engineering and information technology

  And free activities within the services of Robotna as a social company:

- Underprivileged public school students and refugees over 6 years old in Jordanian governorates

Please use the following link that contains the full description of our business model canvas.

https://drive.google.com/file/...

Through our company's business model, we guarantee the sustainability of profits.  Actully, we deal with several types of customers, which are divided as follows:

B to B

• Private schools and academies in Jordanian governorates

• Organizations and companies that work and are interested in the field of education and technology

  B to C:

-School students between the ages of 6-16 years

-Students and graduates of universities in the field of engineering and information technology

  And free activities within the services of Robotna as a social company:

- Underprivileged public school students and refugees over 6 years old in Jordanian governorates

Using its business model, our company has succeeded in reaching out to many non-governmental and governmental organizations, and has also worked with many private and public schools.

Examples include:

NGOs:

• Save the children
• Plan international
• Mercy Corps
• International youth foundation
• DRC

Private Companies:

• Zain Company
• 10 Private Schools 
• 25 Private Academy

Governmental Institutions:

• Ministry of youth
• Ministry of entrepreneurship

The company was also able to contract with 20 public schools and many private institutions, which made the number of students registered in our services more than 10,000 students.