Co-Creation Hub Nigeria (CcHub Nigeria), in partnership with the Mastercard Foundation, recently celebrated the conclusion of the 2023 Mastercard Foundation EdTech Fellowship with a Demo Day. The Demo Day was held at the Podium Event Centre in Lekki, Lagos, and celebrated the achievements of 12 innovative Nigerian EdTech start-ups, and their founders who form the2023 cohort of Fellows.
The Fellowship, which was first announced in February 2023, was a rigorous selection process that led to the selection of 12EdTech companies that met the robust criteria outlined by the Mastercard Foundation and CcHUB. The companies were then inducted into a six-month accelerator program that includedadvisory support on the science of learning,, investment, product development, financial management, and communication strategy, among others.
The Demo Day provided an opportunity for the selected EdTech companies to showcase their products and their growth over the six-month program, and share their plans with potential investors and customers. Collectively, the 12 Fellows’ EdTech solutions reached 312,000 learners during the six-monthacceleration period alone.
The 2023 cohort of the CcHUB Mastercard Foundation EdTech Fellowship include:
● EduTAMS – A multi-tenant cloud-based school management system for basic and tertiary schools with a focus on API-based connectivity and interoperability of learner data for large education systems.
● 9ijakids – An online platform creating exciting learning experiences to help children fall in love with learning using games.
● Gradely – A solution that empowers parents and schools with a toolbox to provide personalized learning of the standard exam curriculum through interactive videos, an extensive practice test bank, and live tutoring.
● Money Africa – A platform that provides financial literacy education for adults and children through digital content, personalized advisory services, and an online community.
● NKENNE – An African language learning app for Africans on the continent and in the diaspora with a focus on the context of African culture, tonality, and building social communities.
● Davtonlearn – A SaaS learning management system for corporate organizations to onboard and train their staff in line with each company’s corporate objectives and workforce goals.
● Qataloog – An online curator of curriculum-relevant content for learners across various levels and disciplines in K-12, tertiary, and TVET education.
● SabiTeach – An online learning platform that seamlessly connects learners with qualified teachers for private sessions while also providing tutoring services for children with special needs..
● Schoolinka – A digital platform improving the pipeline of quality educators by upskilling teachers and accelerating top teaching talent to improve the standard of education in Africa.
● Gotocourse – An EdTech solution that provides a comprehensive virtual school platform for creators and students to connect and learn.
● Kunda Kids Ltd – An EdTech App that provides a collection of African-inspired stories and language learning content for children
Schoola – A learning platform for K-12 schools that offers gamification and tools for fun, engaging and interactive lesson preparation.
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As part of the benefits of the Fellowship, the EdTech companies also received $100,000 each in funding to help drive the growth and scaling of their businesses, and will continue to receive post-acceleration advisory support from CcHUB over the next 12 months. The Fellowship is part of a broader goal of the Mastercard Foundation Centre for Innovative Teaching and Learning to support the growth of an impactful African EdTech ecosystem that will catalyze innovation and advance promising practices in the use of technology in learning and teaching to benefit African learners, education, and EdTech innovators across the continent.
Overall, the process has been intentional to ensure that the cohort offers a range of solutions covering digital content, learning management platforms, STEAM education support, workforce and skill development, tutoring and testing, curriculum-based online learning content, and providing support for teachers in lesson delivery and assessment.
The call for entries for the next cohort of the Mastercard Foundation EdTech Fellowship Program opened on December 13, 2023, to select 2024’s cohort of 12 start-ups part of the continued three-year partnership between CcHUb and the Foundation.
About CcHUB
Co-creation Hub (CcHUB) launched Nigeria’s first open living lab for technologists, entrepreneurs, tech companies, investors and hackers in 2010 to accelerate the application of social capital and technology for economic prosperity. The hub has since expanded to include an umbrella of pan-African innovation enablers that includes the CcHUB Design Lab in Rwanda iHub and eLimu in Kenya, Growth Capital by CcHUB and CcHub Syndicate. All CcHUB companies contribute to stimulating innovation and technology application towards achieving social impact across diverse sectors including education, public health, digital security and governance.
About the Mastercard Foundation
The Mastercard Foundation is a registered Canadian charity and one of the largest foundations in the world. It works with visionary organizations to advance education and financial inclusion to enable young people in Africa and Indigenous youth in Canada to access dignified and fulfilling work. Established in 2006 through the generosity of Mastercard when it became a public company, the Foundation is an independent organization separate from the company, with offices in Toronto, Kigali, Accra, Nairobi, Kampala, Lagos, Dakar, and Addis Ababa. Its policies, operations, and program decisions are determined by the Foundation’s Board of Directors and leadership.
For more information on the Foundation, please visit www.mastercardfdn.org.
The Mastercard Foundation EdTech Fellowship
The Mastercard Foundation EdTech Fellowship is an entrepreneurship acceleration program designed to support promising, African EdTech ventures. Implemented in partnership with innovation hubs and EdTech accelerators across Africa, the Fellowship provides select EdTech companies with critical business and financial support, as well as insight into the science of learning, preparing them for scale, sustainability, and impact. The Mastercard Foundation EdTech Fellowship was launched in 2019 by the Mastercard Foundation Centre for Innovative Teaching and Learning and supported 12 African EdTech companies from seven countries in its first year, reaching over 800,000 learners. The goal of the Centre is to partner with 12 Tech Hubs to support over 250 EdTech companies and reach at least 1.8 million young people by 2025.
For more information on the Mastercard Foundation Centre for Innovative Teaching and Learning, please contact:[email protected]
For Further Information on CcHub or the programme, please contact Busola Dakolo – [email protected] OR Osibo Imhoitsike – [email protected]
Ayomitide Adeyinka is a content writer, crypto journalist and editor with a Bsc in Political Science. He is also an egalitarian.
