Motivar

Motivar

Motivar

A social enterprise supporting learners effectively access and leverage digital education to upskill

Ekiti, Nigeria

NGA

Hybrid of for-profit and nonprofit

Poor education quality in Africa has resulted in a dearth of skills and knowledge needed to compete in the modern workforce among its young people. This causes low innovation and productivity, high unemployment and underemployment levels, and a large informal economy that keeps them in low-income jobs. Thankfully, digital education and skill acquisition mechanisms can break this trend and democratize access. Yet it is not distributed and leveraged effectively. According to UNICEF (2021), 1.3 billion young people globally cannot access online learning, with sub-Saharan Africa bearing a significant portion of this burden. For example, Coursera’s impact report showed that only 4% of its user base is from Africa. Despite a large youth population that numbers almost half a billion. This reality is due to various socioeconomic reasons. UNESCO estimates nearly 90 percent of students in sub-Saharan Africa do not have access to household computers, and 82 percent lack internet access. Beyond the access challenge, there's a serious completion crisis: Our survey shows 75% of learners who start online courses abandon them before completion. Industry averages are even higher. This statistic reveals that merely providing access to digital education isn't enough—learners need comprehensive support to successfully maximize the benefits of online education opportunities.

We will work to improve the efficiency and distribution of digital skill training and education, especially for underserved demographics. By offering learner support services, and be the easiest way for learners to find, start, and complete courses online. This service will be distributed through a digital platform and offline community centers. Digital platform: We will build an AI-enabled learner support platform that implements a framework of motivation, accountability, and community designed to bypass the barriers that limit learners and strengthen their intrinsic motivation to learn online effectively. Community Centers;- Our community centers will be physical infrastructure in locales with a low distribution of internet-enabled devices and low digital navigation skills among our target demographic. It will be equipped with computers and other digital learning aids and host our learner communities offline. The centers will be managed by Motivar and funded in partnership with local community interests. Motivar will ultimately become the operating system for e-learning support.

Our target are young people between the ages of 12 - 40 who want to build skills and gain certification to improve their socio-economic mobility. They lack access to internet-enabled devices, stable electricity, or strong internet connectivity, or face social barriers such as discrimination, poverty, or have special needs that limit their learning. They are in rural areas, street children or born into low-income families. They are often out of school or attend schools that lack the required infrastructure and do not provide them with the education they need to succeed in this century. We address their needs in three key ways: 1. Personalization, gamification, incentives, social recognition, and peer communities will help improve the learning experience for learners and bolster their commitment to complete the courses they start. 2. Alternative financing mechanisms through BNPL and crowdsourcing that we would implement would help more learners pay for online certifications and degrees they need and cannot afford. 3. Our community centers would be equipped with electricity, digital learning aids, and internet-enabled devices powered by our platform. It will be open for young people to use. These centers would host our learner communities offline.