On an otherwise reasonable evening in July, over 1000 people packed an auditorium in Boulder Colorado for the culmination of the Unreasonable Institute. They came to watch 12 ventures, tackling some of the world’s greatest challenges, take the stage and share their plans to help define progress in our time. This is one of those talks.
The entrepreneur in this video is Toni Maraviglia of Eneza Education. Eneza uses mobile phones to prepare underserved Kenyan students for their primary-school exit exams.
What is the urgent social or environmental need you’re addressing?
In Kenya, 6 million of the 9 million students now in primary school will fail. In rural areas, more than 2/3 fail, with more than 80% of girls failing. Millions of kids are powerless without basic skills to find viable jobs.
Within rural areas 3-5 million students are without basic school resources. Class sizes are more than 60 students per teacher, personal attention is absent, and schools have no student data until it’s too late. Communication among stakeholders is often nil. Other developing countries mirror this problem.
What is your solution to this need? Describe your business strategy.
Eneza Education provides quality tutoring to kids in rural Africa by leveraging simple mobile technology. It’s our aim to reach 50 million students across the rural areas of Africa, enabling them to access assessments and lessons and interact with teachers about their local content. We also provide teachers and parents with data and tips to help students improve. Currently, we have nearly 60,000 students from over 700 schools across Kenya using our products.