Project Heartbeat

Improve learning and cognitive outcomes for children under the age of five cannot be solved in isolation. Despite all the commitment and investment from government and corporate, we are working in a highly fragmented environment with too many silo-driven efforts by the many stakeholders. As teachers are the number one driver of learning in schools, the lack of curriculum and holistic support has a direct impact on learner performance. Our solution is an online professional learning community that creates value by connecting and facilitating interactions between teachers and the multitude of stakeholders in the basic education ecosystem ranging from government, to business, education agencies, unions, CSI’s, NPO’s and professionals. Our ultimate goal is to harness the combined knowledge, efforts, experience and investment of the collective ecosystem for a significant positive change in the quality of learning and teaching outcomes globally. Teachers are the heartbeat of our nations!

According to the General Household Survey data by Statistics SA, there are close to 7,2 million children aged 0–6 in South Africa. ECD is a priority in South Africa and is supported by legislation, national policies and strategies. Despite this commitment from Government, some of the prominent challenges and obstacles facing ECD facilities include absence of learning materials and resources, especially within the classroom setting, minimal funding, lack of qualified teachers and institutional capacity. Studies relating to learning and cognitive outcomes have found that children in mostly black African families received sub-optimal stimulation as 31% were never encouraged to imitate daily activities and 35,2% were never given answers when they pointed at objects and asked for explanations. The World Economic Forum ranks the South African education system amongst the lowest in the world. Of the many well documented challenges, “Project Heartbeat” has taken the unconventional approach of identifying the highly fragmented and silo-driven efforts by the many stakeholders as the root cause of our problems. As teachers are the number one driver of learning in schools, another related key challenge is the lack of curriculum and holistic support for our teachers, which has a direct impact on learner performance.

Our primary beneficiaries are educators. There are 437,449 teachers across 25,154 schools nurturing 12,819,542 learners – our secondary beneficiaries. From an ECD perspective, Pre-Grade R Phase accounts for 12,653 learners and Gr. R Phase 811,516. Government does not include stand-alone ECD sites as this currently falls under Department of Social Welfare. There are however plans to fully incorporate Pre-Grade R Phase within the Department of Basic Education (DBE). “Project Heartbeat” is an online professional learning community that advocates professional development, support and appreciation of teachers. Our mission is to elevate the status of teachers in society as a means to improving the quality of teaching and learning outcomes in South Africa, an ecosystems approach that focuses on ECD all the way through to Grade 12. Improving the learning and cognitive outcomes for children under the age of five cannot be achieved in isolation. “Project Heartbeat” offers a common platform for teachers to connect with their peers, professionals and a multitude of organisations. Our dedicated community provides teachers with access to high-quality learning materials and holistic support that aims to empower teachers and transform teaching to unlock opportunities and unleash potential in classrooms across the country.

“Project Heartbeat” is multiple award-winning platform that serves as a professional learning community to co-ordinate all professional development and support offered to teachers, as well as celebrate the profession of teaching. This means that teachers will have one platform to gain access to a comprehensive range of educational material in multiple languages – South Africa has 11 official languages. Teachers will have access to quality resources like lesson plans, activities, guides and worksheets they need for both professional and holistic development, thus empowering them to focus on learners and improve learner performance. With regards to ECD, our resources and support system is geared towards promoting exploration, improving early literacy skills, and supporting language experimentation in preparation for primary school. Our Cloud-based platform provides teachers with access to resources that support high-quality learning. “Project Heartbeat” improves lesson delivery by providing teachers access to quality resources like lesson plans, classroom activities, tools and applications to be more productive and efficient. We thus leverage technology to improve performance by enabling an online Community of Practice that is socially driven. These data variables are used to calculate where value is created and also quantify demand, whereby we match corporate sponsors to fund premium content for teachers, thus bridging the digital divide. We are working to transform training and professional development: Teachers can access course-ware and collaborate with peers and professionals to continuously refine and enhance their personal and professional growth over time. Teachers can earn Continuous Teacher Professional Development (CPTD) points annually for participating and contributing “Project Heartbeat” and we are also pioneering the way forward with the SACE and 3rd party providers to deliver online continuous professional development. We aim to reinvent the recruitment process by leveraging our Reputation Points feature, which is linked to a teacher’s profile based on their social interactions. This used to showcase top sharing teachers based on their participation and contributions. We leverage this data to recognize and reward teachers, and can extend this to schools for recruitment drives. Beyond recruitment, the data can also be integrated into existing loyalty programmes that corporate’s run to unlock value for teachers. These benefits could span reduced bank fees, retail discounts, mobile vouchers, better car finance rates. Our goal is to elevate the profession of teaching in society to attract, recognize and reward the best people into the profession.

Online communities are socially driven and typical activities include searching, authoring, sharing, rating, correlating, monitoring, discussing, aligning, enhancing, mentoring, collaborating and communicating. “Project Heartbeat’s” unique differentiator when it comes to professional learning communities, is to leverage these socially driven interactions to calculate where value is created, thus enabling us to recognize and reward teachers at an individual level for their participation and contributions to the greater teaching community, and in real time. We believe that teachers are the heartbeat of our nation and should be celebrated every day. Our long-term goal is to recognize and reward excellence across all age groups, curricula, achievement levels and reward offerings. We aim to provide an efficient way for schools to reinforce positive teaching and learning behaviours amongst teachers, leaders and learners as a means of increasing their motivation to academic outcomes.

“Project Heartbeat” is a technology-driven initiative. We practice exponential organisation methodologies like Staff on-demand for platform development, Community and Crowd to drive interactions, use Algorithms to drive engagement via gamification, we Leverage Assets like Microsoft’s Azure cloud services, and use open standard frameworks (AST.net core) and API technology to allow us to collaborate with other ICT initiatives and Basic Education stakeholders. Dashboards are used as a key reporting tool for tracking growth and value metrics like user engagement and retention. “Project Heartbeat” utilizes a hybrid business model, our non-profit organisation provides project management and stakeholder engagement, and our for-profit business provides technical delivery and support. This model has enabled us to form partnerships with Government and other key stakeholders like CSI donors via our non-profit, while our for-profit is working towards building a viable and profitable business. As a developmental initiative working towards SDG4, we utilize this business model to bridge the digital divide by accessing CSI donations to fund access to premium resources for teachers coming from vulnerable and previously excluded populations.

“Project Heartbeat” has been tested on a small scale to demonstrate our Theory of Change to harnesses the combined efforts, experience and investment of the collective ecosystem for a measurable change in the quality of learning and teaching outcomes. The successes and lessons learnt has seen us conclude official partnerships with the Department of Basic Education, the South African Council for Educators (SACE) and the Educator Labour Relations Council. We are a member of the Teacher Appreciation and Support Programme, a multi-stakeholder initiative that is working to embrace the holistic needs of the teacher. Through CSI sponsorship with Telkom we were able to procure professionally developed math lesson plan, diagnostics and assessments for Grade 10 and 11 by the SA Mathematics Foundation. “Project Heartbeat” was the first digital platform to be endorsed by SACE for CTPD points and we are pioneering the way forward for online CPTD. We were part of Money Smart Week, an initiative by Financial Sector Conduct Authority and National Treasury to drive financial literacy. Through our platform, we linked Maths-at-Sharp with SACE that saw Grade 12 learners from Limpopo Province get scientific calculators for their final exams. We are exploring ways to bring stakeholders together to solve challenges like pit toilets and sanitary towels for girls. From an ECD perspective we are working with a partner to development content and training for practitioners and site administrators, as well as a range of resources to improve learning and cognitive outcomes for children under the age of five.

We are currently serving 8090 users, representing teachers from all 9 provinces. Our core focus over the next 12-18 months will be growing the community (educators and organisations) and increasing engagement and retention levels. We aim to grow the “Project Heartbeat” community to 50,000 members over the next 12 months. Our goal within the next 5 years is to grow the community to 437,449 active teachers in South Africa. We will also explore scaling the community beyond our borders to other countries and view partnerships and collaborations as a catalytic in enhancing our ability and sphere of influence to deliver a replicable and viable business model that goes wide and deep in improving the quality of education outcomes. 

In Early Childhood Development, we aim to improve learning and cognitive outcomes of children under 5 by providing ECD practitioners with training and quality resources. These resources will also advocate to decrease inequalities, including stereotypes and discrimination based on gender, religion, race, or class. We have already launched our debut storybook, titled “Who I am?” in partnership with the Isithombo Institute of Learning. Strategic plans are in place in terms of how we can significantly impact the lives of millions, our storybooks will be digitized and animated using emerging technologies like AI and machine learning. We aim to compound learning through alternative mediums like coloring-in books as well as a range of toys and games. In the next five years we aim to export this innovation to other countries and regions of the world to create a global professional learning community that unlocks opportunities and unleashes the potential of millions of lives.

As a developmental project, we have been reliant of donor funding to forward the progress of our platform and associated ECD offering. This financial barrier has significantly impacted our ability to execute from a time perspective, with average fundraising campaigns spanning 12-18 months. This also has a ripple effect on other aspects like the technical and legal expertise required. While we are embracing the technological revolution that is underway and the associated opportunities, we also face the reality of infrastructure backlog and widening inequality gaps with regards to poverty. The rate of technology progression is also going at an insane pace, with disruption looming across all sectors, so the question we have to constantly ask ourselves is, are we building something that will still be relevant in 5 years’ time? Culturally, teachers have a techno-phobia and this is evident in our engagement and retention data, our sharing ratio is 1:4 (uploads to downloads). This behavior is a limiting factor in maximizing the benefits of teachers’ sharing and collaborating.

Financially, we were the recipient of a MISK Grand Challenge award by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in November 2018. The $100,000 prize money has been like a breath of fresh air in our ability to execute. Our primary focus has been rebuilding our “Project Heartbeat” platform, version 4.0 is scheduled to go live 1 July 2019. Our goal over the next 12 months is to validate revenue streams so that we are less reliant on donor funding. As part of the Grand Challenge award, we also secured our Equivalency Determination from NGOpulse, so we are an equivalent of a US charity, based on IRS requirements. Securing donor funds from the US is quite attractive from a currency perspective. From a human capital perspective, we are building a team with the relevant expertise and experience to successfully execute on our vision. The Organisation structure is an interesting one that leverages virtual staff on-demand and crowd and community. From an infrastructure perspective, we plan to partner and collaborate with other organisations. For example, working with telecommunication companies for connectivity and free access through “zero rated” pricing to teachers. We leverage gamification as a means to influence the behavior of teachers to promote a culture of sharing and collaboration. Furthermore, we are digitizing currently manual paper-based processes which take away from a teacher’s time in the classroom and with learners. Partnering with Organisations that have existing communities is another strategy to grow our community and increase the engagement and retention metrics.

N/A

We have a full-time staff compliment of 4 people, with other functions fulfilled by part-time staff of up to 10 people. This virtual staff on-demand approach has enabled us to access the expertise and experience needed at a fraction or at no cost.

Our team is best-placed to deliver this solution as we are brought together by a massive transformative purpose – improving the quality of education outcomes. We have 20+ years of experience with entrepreneurship, corporate, government, education, Early Childhood Development and technology, with a thorough knowledge of the local and international education sectors. The depth of our team’s expertise and experience gives us strength and resilience to overcome the setbacks, failures and rejections along the way. We also have an extensive network upon which we can call and have relationships at both Government and Business.  Importantly, we are aligned to the SDG4 goals.

Through our non-profit company, we have formal partnerships with the key custodians of Basic Education – the Department of Basic Education (Nationally), the South African Council for Educators and the Educator Labour Relations Council. We are also a member of the Teacher Appreciation and Support Programme, an initiative launched in 2015 by the Minister of Basic Education to look at the overall well-being of teachers. We also have relationships with other stakeholders including business, CSI’s, NPOs, professionals and unions. “Project Heartbeat” creates value by facilitating interactions between organisations and teachers. The nature of these relationships are either in the form of partnerships or collaborations. From a technology perspective, we’ve worked closely with Microsoft via their App Factory. They were integral helping build our MVP and we have adopted the Microsoft stack for our solution.

“Project Heartbeat” is an online professional learning community that promotes professional development, support and teacher appreciation. We have a two-sided business model; our end-users are the 437,449 teachers across 25,154 schools nurturing 12,819,542 learners. We provide teachers with access to high-quality resources, course-ware and a holistic support system. Our customers include government, businesses, education agencies, unions, CSI’s, NPO’s and professionals. We create value for our customers by connecting and facilitating interactions between organisations and end-users. Our social enterprise utilizes a hybrid model consisting of a non-profit company that fulfills project management and stakeholder engagement, and a for-profit company that provide technical delivery and support. Through our non-profit entity we are able to raise funds through donors and sponsorship, and we are working towards building a viable and profit business venture through our for-profit entity. Potential revenue streams will be validated over the coming 12 months. 

Our social enterprise combines operational models to capture opportunities in both commercial markets and social sectors. This wasn’t our initial plan, but circumstances and opportunity has lead us down this path. Our non-profit company undertakes project management and stakeholder engagement, which is sustained by donations, grants and sponsorship. We are a Public Benefit Organisation (Section 18a company) in South Africa and have our Equivalency Determination verification from NGOpulse in the USA. We have been overly reliant on donor funding, which was largely influenced by the development nature of our initiative. With the rebuild of our platform scheduled to go live 1 July 2019, we will place a lot more emphasis on validating identified revenue streams over the next 12 months, with the goal of building a viable and profitable business venture. The goal is to generate sufficient revenue to cover our expenses.

We are applying to Solve because of the opportunities it represents. We understand the value of networks and to have access to a peer network as well as organisations for learning and exposure would greatly support our scaling ambitions to make a significant impact in millions of lives. We believe that Solve and MIT can assist us with overcoming technological barriers from an expertise perspective, guiding us on implementing technologies like NPL algorithms, AI and chatbots for our Early Childhood Development initiatives. It would be great to get an academic perspective on our initiatives through mentorship, coaching and strategic advice.

N/A

We would like to partner or collaborate with organisations that also have a vested interest in improving the quality of education outcomes, and organisations working towards SDG 4 goals. We would like to partner with philanthropic organisations that support education and have moonshot aspirations to change the current narrative of exclusion and inequality. We have bold ideas, but not always the technical expertise to translate ideas in working solutions, so we are thus hamstrung by time to get our value propositions to market, it would be great to have access to MIT and its networks to help accelerate our solutions.

We are practitioners of Exponential Organisation Methodologies and Emerging Technologies. “Project Heartbeat” is a technology-driven initiative. We practice exponential organisation methodologies like Staff on-demand for platform development, Community and Crowd to drive interactions, use Algorithms to drive engagement via gamification, we Leverage Assets like Microsoft’s Azure cloud services, and use open standard frameworks (AST.net core) and API technology to allow us to collaborate with other ICT initiatives and Basic Education stakeholders. Dashboards are used as a key reporting tool for tracking growth and value metrics like user engagement and retention. It will be crucial for us to incorporate AI in our platform. In our planning, we have identified two areas, 1) utilize AI and machine learning within our platform to support the professional development of teachers, and 2) South Africa has 11 official languages, we could incorporate Neuro-Linguistic Programming, deep learning and machine learning to power translation of our Early Childhood Development resources into all 11 official languages so learners can learn in English and the mother tongue.

The vast majority of ECD practitioners and Site Administrators in South Africa are women. These are our primary beneficiaries who we aim to empower and celebrate. This is reflected in our belief that teachers are the heartbeat of our nation! Our secondary beneficiaries are learners. Of the 811,516 learners we aim to impact, 408,859 are girls. Should we be successful, we will utilize the prize to accelerate our solution including training and support for ECD practitioners and site administrators, as well as content creation around our series of storybooks and animations for kids aged 3-9 years.

N/A