Editor’s Pick: Ubongo
This week’s Editor’s Pick is Ubongo, Africa’s leading edutainment company. This year, Ubongo has been the winner of EdTechX Africa in Dar es Salaam, qualifying for the Global Startup Super League and won the Next Billion Edtech Prize at the Global Education & Skills Forum. We spoke with Christina Bwana about what they have achieved and next steps.
What was the inspiration behind starting Ubongo?
Africa is a continent of kids, who are facing many of the world’s most difficult development challenges. We believe in these kids’ potential to change their world, but they’re not getting the support they need to realize that potential.
There is an education crisis in Africa, and millions of kids on the continent stand to miss out on the life-changing opportunity of quality education. The problem starts from the earliest years, with 44% of children aged 3–4 in Africa experiencing low cognitive of social, emotional development. They enter school with insufficient learning readiness; then the problems compound from there.
In Tanzania, 55% of 10–16 years old fail baseline math and reading tests set for an 8-year-old, and over half of the primary students do not own a single textbook. Schools are overcrowded, and the system is rote and rigid, leaving kids discouraged and unmotivated to learn. School systems are unable to meet the demand, and families have little access to informal learning resources for their children to use outside of school. Almost half of Africa’s population are children, and 2 billion more will be born in in the next 35 years. We need solutions that can help fill this gap, at low cost and massive scale, to help Africa’s next generation can realize their full potential.
Ubongo’s co-founders (a dance and music teacher, a maths teacher, a Techie, an animator, and a social entrepreneur) came together and created Ubongo as a potential solution towards this problem.
Tell us a little bit more about the product
Akili and Me engages kids aged 3–6 and their parents to develop school readiness through early numeracy, pre-literacy, languages skills, motor develop and social emotional learning. Tanzanian and Rwandan preschoolers who watch Akili and Me significantly outperform their peers in school readiness, even when controlling for socio-economic status, school, age and parents’ level of education. The show has TV, radio, online and app versions, and is currently in Kiswahili, Kinyarwanda and English.
Ubongo Kids inspires kids aged 7–14 to use their /Ubongo (“brain” in Kiswahili) to solve problems and find the fun in learning. It covers math, science, technology and engineering, plus a wide range of life skills, from growth mindset and curiosity to shared humanity and to financial literacy. Tanzanian kids who watch Ubongo Kids improve significantly in math, science and reading outcomes. The show has TV, radio, online and app versions, and is currently in Kiswahili, French and English
What is the ultimate goal for Ubongo?
Our vision and goal is to equip Africa’s next generation with the educational foundation, critical skills and positive mindsets to change their own lives and communities for the better. This will be done by creating and delivering edutainment content on the tech platform that is available to them, be it TV, Radio, App and other digital, internet, SMS and print.
What has been the hardest thing about getting Ubongo off the ground?
It’s a huge amount of work to run a start-up that builds products and services which have very regular outputs: new episodes every week, maintain and increase quality, keep investing time and resources to produce. It’s not just having one app that you can invest time and money in, but multiple products that have to a longer life cycle that needs to be maintained.
What has the response been like since winning EdTechX Africa Ecosystem Event in Dar es Salaam?
A lot of people and Edu-tech companies in Tanzania have long entrusted us to lead the way in providing quality education and entertainment for the children of Tanzania and across Africa. Winning the competition reaffirmed their belief and trust in us and opened up new networks for partnerships.
How has starting your company in Dar es Salaam helped you? What separates this ecosystem from others?
Tanzania is a great place to start because there is a single local language that the whole country speaks, and this helped us build our brand and create localised programming in a place where we could immediately take it to scale.
On the business end: if you can make it work in Tanzania — which is a harder place for EdTech companies due to lack of on the ground investors– you can make it elsewhere!
Ubongo encompasses school learning, life skills and self-learning, engaging all ages and continues to bring the fun to learning! Christina shared how the tech has enabled multiple different features and has allowed endless possibilities. As they look to grow, create new content and continue to deliver effective localised learning the African families, this is certainly an EdTech company to follow!
