ZubHub

Currently, 146 million children are enrolled in elementary school in India. In a low-income country like India, there is a pressing need to teach basic skills like numeracy and literacy to learners over 21st-century skills such as creativity and collaboration. However, the necessity of such skills in a fast-changing world has been reiterated time and time again by multiple studies and renowned educators such as Ken Robinson and Arvind Gupta. Sundar Pichai, the CEO of Google has spoken about the creativity crisis in India as well. Recently, the New Education Policy developed by the government of India also puts much needed emphasis on such skills. 

21st-century skills help with holistic development, solving pressing problems of the future, preparing for the future workforce, and leading a meaningful and fulfilling life. A lack of creativity discourages questioning, communication, and experimentation, ultimately stifling their cognitive and affective development. While this crisis is a core part of the current education system, it severely affects learners from low-income households who do not have any alternate resources in place to boost their creative skills. Urban, expensive solutions like maker spaces and STEAM kits are simply not sustainable enough for our teachers like Nandini, who is responsible for over 1800 students in a rural school in Rajasthan, India, or our students like Shalini, whose father works as a daily-wage laborer in Gujarat, India. This results in an uneven and unfair distribution of skills that no child should be deprived of.

ZubHub is an open-source documentation & collaboration tool for activity-based learning available for custom use in local schools, libraries, hackerspaces, and other educational organizations. It is based on MIT Media Lab’s Lifelong Kindergarten’s 4Ps of learning- Projects, Passion, Peers, and Play. ZubHub is completely free and developed with the intention of expanding project-based learning opportunities to children in under-resourced communities worldwide; India being the current focus. On ZubHub, children and educators can get inspired by a collection of activity ideas and projects, learn how to build with the materials and tools they already have access to, and share their creations with others. Some of the primary features of ZubHub are creator portfolios, community-curated projects, discussion-based collaboration, and monthly workshops. 

ZubHub is a customizable tool. Other organizations can host a decentralized version to build learning communities based on their own activities. Organizations can even self-host it in low- or no-internet-bandwidth areas. Essentially, multiple ZubHubs can be run independently by different educational organizations, with content and activities relevant to them.

ZubHub’s current focus is K-12 students and educators in underserved regions in India. Most of our students belong to low-income families from rural and semi-urban areas, where they share one computing device (generally, a smartphone) with several members of their family. Hence, we have made our platform easily accessible via web and mobile. Through our local, grassroot-level partners, we aim to penetrate into low or even zero-bandwidth areas. ZubHub is free and encourages tinkering with “low-cost” materials, especially items that can easily be found at home. We have taken workshops based on ZubHub in various areas in Gujarat and Bihar and are set to get ZubHub adopted by organizations that work in Delhi and Jharkhand. ZubHub has also been undertaken by ten government schools in Gujarat. All the children that we have reached till now and that we aim to reach are from low-income, underprivileged families.

Our organization, Unstructured Studio, which is behind ZubHub, was founded by two brilliant and passionate people, Srishti Sethi, whose work at MIT Media Lab started the formation of the organization, and Suchakra Sharma, who is the technical mind behind the development of our platform. Both of them currently reside and work in the USA and Canada, respectively. Still, their passion is in working with the underserved communities in their home country, India, and bringing about a change in the collective Indian mindset so that education can become a more creative, enjoyable, and playful experience for everyone. Our third permanent member is Rudrani Ghosh, our Learning Program Manager, currently located in India, and leads our on-ground operations. She has over eight years of experience working for the education of underprivileged communities. Despite not having a solid base in India, we have reached over 15000 students and educators since 2020, and have conducted 60 workshops in 40 underserved regions of the world.

We tested ZubHub with 50 school students from Gujarat, India, in the project's initial pilot stage. Since the pilot have continued to develop the platform and currently have over 2,200 users. However, we cannot fully say its design is completed as we still plan on adding many features. We are also yet to develop a steady user base. Hence, we consider ZubHub to still be in its Pilot stage.

While funds are essential to us as a newly emerging organization, we cannot deny how important a helping network and leadership are. We are still relatively new in the non-profit scene, and we believe that Solve can provide the guidance we need to receive further funds and address resource constraints. Since our work revolves around creativity, which is hard to quantify, we have had difficulties devising a proper impact measurement system. We hope Solve can provide the monitoring and evaluation support we need.

Our solution is innovative and unique for several reasons:

Accessibility and Affordability: Unlike platforms like DIY.org, Flipgrid, and Padlet, which often come with subscription models, our tool is entirely free and open-source. This ensures accessibility for underserved populations and prioritizes children's privacy.

Innovative Educational Model: ZubHub serves as a Wikipedia-like collaborative encyclopedia for activity-based learning, fostering creativity and collaboration among students.

Decentralized and Customizable: Our platform offers a decentralized and customizable version for educational organizations, enabling them to tailor the platform to their unique needs.

Localized Impact: Developed by Indian developers for the Indian audience, ZubHub is explicitly tailored to meet the unique needs of this demographic, driving impact within the community.

Practical Solutions for Resource-Constrained Areas: ZubHub promotes the development of low-cost STEAM activity ideas, empowering children in resource-constrained areas to explore and innovate.

Scalability and Accessibility: ZubHub can be hosted in locations with limited or zero bandwidth and is accessible via familiar channels such as WhatsApp and IVR messages, ensuring accessibility for users worldwide.

In the 21st century, education has undergone a profound transformation, offering numerous opportunities for advancement. However, along with these opportunities comes the pressing need for essential skills to seize them. Our focus is cultivating the 4Cs of 21st-century skills—Creativity, Communication, Collaboration, and Critical Thinking. In countries like India, where low-income communities prevail, these skills often take a backseat to the foundational need for numeracy and literacy education. Yet, neglecting these skills stifles learners' ability to question, think independently, communicate effectively, and experiment fearlessly, hindering cognitive and affective development. This disproportionately affects learners from low-income households, who lack access to resources that could enhance their skill sets, resulting in an unjust distribution of opportunities.

Our approach is rooted in the Lifelong Kindergarten framework by MIT Media Lab, which emphasizes Projects, Passion, Peers, and Play. This framework suggests that individuals thrive best when engaged in projects they're passionate about alongside like-minded peers within a safe and playful environment. Research shows that hands-on, open-ended exploration with materials, or "tinkering," fosters richer learning experiences, helping children develop essential 21st-century skills.

Inspired by educators like Mitchel Resnick and Arvind Gupta, pioneers in creative education, we aim to nurture creativity, as studies have shown its positive correlation with academic achievement. Voices like Vaibhav Pande highlight the pressing creativity crisis in India, underscoring the need for interventions to address it.

Moreover, the transformative potential of web-based collaboration platforms, demonstrated by platforms like Scratch, Thingiverse, and Hackaday, cannot be overlooked. These platforms have effectively facilitated the creative process by enabling users to remix ideas and share knowledge openly, driving innovation and collaboration.

Insights from our pilot program further validate the potential of ZubHub to foster a shift from a "competitive" to a "collaborative" mindset. Our observations revealed a significant increase in the development of 4C skills among participating children. The introduction of a "creator profile" enhanced their sense of representation, contributing to confidence-building. Moving forward, we aim to quantitatively measure the growth in these skills using established creativity assessment frameworks, guiding our efforts to maximize positive outcomes.

References:

1. Nami, Y., Marsooli, H., & Ashouri, M. (2014). The relationship between creativity and academic achievement. Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences, 114, 36–39. doi:10.1016/j.sbspro.2013.12.652

2. Resnick, M. (2017). Lifelong Kindergarten. doi:10.7551/mitpress/11017.001.0001

3. The long-lasting benefits of childhood creativity. (2021). Retrieved from https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/work-your-mind/202111/the-long-lasting-benefits-of-childhood-creativity

4. Pande, V. (2019). Crisis of creativity. Retrieved from https://www.thehindu.com/education/crisis-of-creativity/article29602507.ece#

5. Resnick, M., et al. (2009). Scratch: Programming for All. Communications of the ACM, 52(11), 60-67. Retrieved from https://web.media.mit.edu/~mres/papers/Scratch-CACM-final.pdf

6. Blikstein, P., & Worsley, M. (2016). Children are citizens: The every day and the digital. Springer.

7. Kostakis, V., Niaros, V., & Giotitsas, C. (2014). Production and governance in hackerspaces: A manifestation of Commons-based peer production in the physical realm? International Journal of Cultural Studies, 18(5), 555–573. doi:10.1177/1367877913519310

Our overarching goal in establishing Unstructured Studio was to ensure equal access to creative resources for everyone worldwide. However, to achieve this, we have established a short-term objective of reaching 100,000 learners and educators within a span of 5 years.

Our current primary impact goals include:

• Increasing the usage of ZubHub among learners and educators by expanding the digital platform's reach, particularly in underserved communities.

• Enhancing the development of these users' creativity, communication, collaboration, and critical thinking skills, the 4Cs of 21st—century skills.

Additionally, we have a secondary goal:

• Collaborating with local artists, makers, and inventors to develop 20 unique, low-cost learning activities annually that foster users' creativity and critical thinking.

Progress Measurement:

Aligned with these objectives, we will gauge our impact using three main metrics:

Reach and engagement metrics:

• Analyzing the average number of projects created per account, with a target of a 25% annual increase to signify growing engagement.

• Tracking interactions (comments, likes, appreciations) per project as indicators of collaborative learning and communication. We aim for a 20% increase in interactions per project over the course of a year.

Educational impact metrics:

• Assessing 4C Skills Development using assessment frameworks from MIT and the LEGO Foundation to evaluate the enhancement of the 4Cs in children. We target a 30% annual improvement in these skills among ZubHub users.

Partnership and collaboration metrics:

• Monitoring Partnership Growth by counting the number of new partnerships with schools and educational organizations, aiming for a minimum growth of 10 partnerships annually.

• Tracking Innovation in Learning Activities by monitoring the development and implementation of innovative learning activities, with a goal of introducing 20 new activities annually.

ZubHub is a web and mobile showcasing and collaboration platform featuring creator portfolios, community-curated projects, and discussion-based collaboration.

It is developed using React/React Native and manages and stores all data on cloud servers. The entire application stack can be configured to access content from localized storage when necessary to support offline use, similar to the design of the Kiwix platform (https://www.kiwix.org/en/). The experience is seamless and highly scalable, with thousands of children interacting with it simultaneously. We do not store children's private information and encourage them not to share any personally identifiable details. Our application loads quickly on both the web and mobile.

ZubHub also consists of a WhatsApp/SMS and Interactive Voice Response (IVR) based notification system that periodically engages with creators and is particularly helpful in limited connectivity settings. We envision a distributed network of individual ZubHubs that can operate independently and share content and data through a robust decentralized social networking protocol (ActivityPub) interface. This approach is ideal for building robust and reliable creativity networks that function effectively in various connectivity environments.

Our core team currently comprises three individuals. Our founders work part-time, while we have one full-time employee who looks after the on-ground operations in India. We have also mentored 10 interns who helped us develop ZubHub and joined us through Outreachy, a FOSS (free and open source software) mentoring & outreach program.

3.5 years

Even though we are a small team, we strive to uphold these values. Our core team, consisting of our founders and our employees on the ground, hails from three different regions in India. This diversity brings a rich tapestry of perspectives and cultural insights that enhance our collaboration and drive toward excellence.

Our technical team, comprising interns we mentor through the Outreachy program, is purposefully structured to include individuals from underrepresented groups in the technology industry in their respective regions. It particularly encourages women, people of color, transgender/genderqueer/non-binary individuals, and people from historically disadvantaged castes or tribes to apply. Through Outreachy, we have mentored 10 interns, each situated in various countries across Asia and Africa.

Our organizational vision is deeply rooted in socio-economic equity and inclusivity. We aim to democratize creative education, often deemed a privilege in many parts of the world and not accorded due importance. All our STEAM-based activities utilize "low-cost" materials, and we have made them entirely free. Our central ZubHub is also freely accessible, without any hidden costs, as we specifically encourage children from low—or low-middle-income communities to contribute.

1. Beneficiaries Segment:

• Primary beneficiaries: Learners from low and low-middle-income communities and educators working with them.

• Secondary beneficiaries: Local grassroots-based educational organizations acting as intermediaries for reaching the primary beneficiaries.

2. Value Proposition:

• ZubHub is a free, localized platform specifically designed for the Indian audience. It facilitates creative learning and project management for learners and educators.

• Emphasis on inclusivity: Encouraging participation from learners of low socio-economic backgrounds, ensuring equitable access to educational resources.

3. Distribution Channels:

• Strategic partnerships with local grassroots-based organizations to directly access and engage with the target beneficiaries.

• Utilization of digital channels and community networks for wider dissemination and outreach.

4. Customer Relationships:

• Cultivating collaborative relationships with beneficiaries through ongoing engagement initiatives and support mechanisms.

• Providing personalized assistance and guidance to ensure effective utilization of the platform.

5. Revenue Streams:

• Grant funding: Securing grants and funding opportunities from philanthropic organizations, government agencies, and corporate social responsibility initiatives.

• Potential for future revenue generation exists through value-added services, such as a subscription-based model for the premium version of ZubHub and customized installations for educational organizations. We are currently exploring this avenue with one organization, and another potential revenue stream could be through partnerships or donations.

6. Key Resources:

• Technological infrastructure: Development and maintenance of the ZubHub platform.

• Human resources: Community engagement team, technical support staff, and project managers.

• Financial resources: Grant funding to sustain operations, drive impact, and support scalability.

7. Key Activities:

• Continuous platform development and enhancement to meet the evolving needs of beneficiaries and stakeholders.

• Collaboration with grassroots organizations to facilitate targeted outreach, community engagement, and capacity-building initiatives.

• Monitoring and evaluation: Regular assessment of impact metrics and reporting to stakeholders to ensure accountability and transparency.

8. Key Partnerships:

• Collaboration with local grassroots-based organizations for effective outreach, community engagement, and user support.

• Potential partnerships with educational institutions, NGOs, and governmental agencies to amplify impact, leverage resources, and expand reach.

9. Cost Structure:

• Technology development and maintenance costs.

• Human resource expenses for staffing, training, and capacity-building initiatives.

• Administrative and operational costs, including marketing and outreach expenses.

9. Impact Measurement:

• Quantitative indicators: Number of beneficiaries reached, frequency of platform usage, and engagement metrics.

• Qualitative indicators: Feedback from beneficiaries and educators on the platform's effectiveness in fostering learning and creativity.

• Social impact assessment: Evaluation of improvements in educational outcomes, empowerment of marginalized communities, and promotion of social inclusion.

This business model aligns with the principles of social entrepreneurship, focusing on creating positive social impact while ensuring financial sustainability through grant funding and potential revenue streams.

As of 2024, we have received two grants- 

• Digital Ocean’s Hollie’s Hub for Good (2022)- $10,000

• King Baudouin Foundation’s Ernest Solvay Fund (2023)- €10,000

We have projected the following channels for us to sustain the project beyond 2024. 

• Primarily, fundraising via individual donations and philanthropic and charitable organizations aligning with our mission and values. We become eligible for corporate and FCRA licenses this year, which means we will be able to receive corporate social responsibility funding as well as foreign-based funds, which will do much in helping us sustain ourselves.

• In addition, we aim to participate in accelerator programs so that we can receive support from experts who can help us stabilize ourselves through expert guidance and mentorship and help with networking and strategic planning. 

• Licensing and managing custom installations of the ZubHub platform for educational institutions (e.g., Agastya Foundation, Pratham Foundation, Barefoot College, etc.). 

• Continuing to participate in FOSS mentoring programs such as Outreachy and Google Summer of Code to receive development support for ZubHub.

Tapping into the philanthropic efforts supported by the India Diaspora community in North America (where our founders are currently based) and other regions to get help with fundraising: https://www.indiaspora.org/.