Hello, my friend,
How are you? Is it starting to feel like Christmas there?
Unlike the harmattan that seems to be taking its sweet time to get here... I am always here. Lol.
Today we discuss AFRILEARN and its contributions to the tech ecosystem.
Afrilearn is an education technology company integrating genius tutors, animators, and developers to provide affordable, world-class education for younger Africans across the continent,
According to UNICEF, one in every five school children worldwide is in Nigeria. That is, roughly 10.5 million children in the country aged 5-14 years are not in school. While financial constraints don’t just cause this, as some primary education is free, it plays a part in the quality of education. With over 70 million Nigerians living in poverty, quality education is the least of the worries for many, as some young children are forced to work at a tender age.
To overturn this problem and give every child a chance at education - a chance at a better life, Isaac Oladipupo, and Gabriel Olatunji-Legend co-founded Afrilearn in 2019. We recently sat with Isaac to discuss his journey to building Afrilearn, Nigeria’s most affordable EdTech platform.
Here’s how our conversation went...
Isaac, the Intersection Between Media, Technology, and Education.
Isaac is the co-founder and CEO of Afrilearn, an education technology company. His professional career started in media as the youngest journalist for Genevieve Magazine while he was in school.
He landed this job when he published his first book at the age of 19, which found its way into the hands of Genevieve Magazine's founder, Betty Irabor.
In describing his experience, he says, “The interesting thing about that job is, even though it was the job where I earned the lowest, it opened me up to priceless opportunities. I got to meet a lot of people that I normally would not have access to meet. I interviewed celebrities and bank CEOs, traveled to cover events, executed projects, etc. I remember getting promoted once or twice within a year. I was earning way more than people I met there, who were graduates and older than me.”
Leaving Genevieve to pursue another endeavor, he joined an international non-profit as a media executive and eventually led a new media team.
Fusing his passion for media and technology, he founded an online news platform called Talk Naija. “At some point, I left that organization to found Afrilearn. Today, he says I’m the co-founder and CEO at Afrilearn’’
A problem solver and the birth of Afrilearn.
Isaac was never motivated to become a startup founder; he identified a problem and chose to solve it. According to Isaac, “When we were starting, I didn’t even know there was something like a startup founder; we just wanted to solve a problem of education, starting with Nigeria.”
The idea for Afrilearn came from Isaac's personal experience.
His family went from wealthy to the average middle class, which exposed him to different realities.
He wondered how different their life would've been if their parents had been more comfortable and sent them to school.
This led him to ask a critical question that is at the heart of Afrilearn's work, "I wondered, how can we democratize education for young Africans?
That was how Afrilearn was born.
How Afrilearn is Solving the out of School Problem in Nigeria.
The average living wage of Nigerians is about 43,200 Naira. With most public education being watered down, the average fee for a private secondary school per term is between 150,000 and about 300,000 Naira. This contributes to the millions of children out of school in Nigeria today. Fortunately, Afrilearn has a solution.
Afrilearn is building a platform many people have now called the Netflix of education for younger Africans.
If you go to the Afrilearn platform, you'd see thousands of video lessons and class notes covering the entire curriculum from JSS1-SS3. You would watch the video lessons, study the class notes and go through a practice you just learned before you go to the next one. That’s how powerful the platform is. It shows you the areas of your strengths and weaknesses, and you can know how you’re performing.; Parents can see how their children are doing on the platform; it is that intuitive.”
One child at a time, Afrilearn is solving the out-of-school crisis by making education as affordable as possible. "
Afrilearn’s 1,000 Naira per month platform and its integration in Nigerian Schools.
Afrilearn is on a journey to creating an Africa where every child would have no excuse to get an education. Many schools around Nigeria are already using this platform. "
With Afrilearn, the videos are animated such that when a teacher is teaching, you're not only seeing a teacher, but you're also seeing animations and illustrations of what is being said by the teacher on the same screen.
The Afrilearn platform has over 19,000 past questions and more than 3,000 class notes while being extremely affordable. "
That's because our vision is to democratize world-class education for Africans.
So right now, we are about the most affordable EdTech platform in the country, and we intend not to stop doing that."
Afrilearn receives a $100,000 Grant to integrate AI & Machine Learning into the Learning Platform.
Afrilearn's work recently gained the attention of UNICEF.
They are the only Nigerian startup in the recent cohort of the UNICEF Innovation Fund and have been awarded an equity-free grant to aid their work. "
Afrilearn has assembled a team of AI experts alongside their software team to build a robust AI machine learning personalized feature on the learning platform. "
The tool is so powerful that it would also naturally detect the areas in which a student is struggling and recommend content for them to improve."
We're developing a world-class AI personalization recommendation model to make learning fun and immersive for our userbase across our mobile app and web platforms."
The Impact of The Bulb Africa’s Accelerator Program on Afrilearn’s Growth.
Afrilearn was a part of The Bulb's accelerator program and had mentorship sessions that changed how the Afrilearn model should operate. "
The mentorship session awarded Isaac the opportunity to learn how people perceive words. "
Afrilearn has also recorded some traction post the accelerator. "
In building Afrilearn, we learned and got a lot of inspiration from Netflix, and it was built from the ground up on a dark mode theme.
But, once we're done with the white version and release it, we'll be going all out in marketing."
Nigeria is the starting point, but the world is the goal for Afrilearn.
While the name "Afrilearn" may suggest the startup's goal may be limited to Africa, Isaac tells us that the vision is global.
He sheds light on Afrilearn's plans for the future and education of young people worldwide.
First, very soon, we are releasing a product called Afrilearn Kid's Code.
Second, although the product most people know is Afrilearn, Afrilearn also owns Exambly. Exambly is a major product when it comes to examinations. Exambly is basically about helping people to pass any exams internationally. Right now, we have over 10 exams on the platform, including WAEC, JAMB, etc. So, all the past questions from inception till date are on Exambly. You will find it there if you go to Exambly.com or the play store.
We want to help people globally to prepare for local and international exams for free, forever. We are taking Exambly global and then Afrilearn; we are leveraging coding skills and taking that global as well.
So that’s the plan for the future.”
In some parting words, Isaac appreciates The Bulb Africa’s work and sends a message to young people.
“I want to say a huge thank you and well done for playing a major part and a huge role in not just empowering but enabling powerful technological innovations from Nigeria and beyond. I also want to say to any young African or Nigerian out there- if there’s anything I’ve learned, it’s that we, to a large extent, underrepresent and second-guess ourselves. Please do not second-guess yourself. More importantly, if you’ve found that problem that you feel compelled to solve, the best thing to do is not to wait for perfect conditions. Just go and start something.”
He encourages youths to attempt to see into the future and create an indispensable solution to an incoming problem people have yet to realize. He says,
“We continue to wait on our government and hope things change, but we can’t base our life and future on belief. I believe that if most young Nigerians pick a problem and decide to solve them with their unique talents, I think we wouldn’t be where we are.”
By improving access to education for children in Nigeria and beyond, Afrilearn is changing the status quo and empowering young people everywhere with the knowledge our future will thank us for.
I hope you enjoyed reading through as much as I did. Tell me what your thoughts are, and let’s talk about them.
This brings us to the end of our conversation. What are your thoughts? Do you have questions?
We will bring you more insightful stories and interviews.
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Merry Christmas and all things jolly & jingley.
Enjoy your holiday.
Jewel from Leverage.