ETUDESK : Abidjan Startup Changing The Face of African Online Learning
If you look at the state of education as a whole in Africa it has one serious challenge of not being able to deliver training programs with both soft and technical skills so as to offer quality education for their graduates hence leading to a high rate of unemployment because organizations are looking to recruit the best and they get “half-baked” professionals.This is because an important element of those skills weren’t addressed.
That is what drove this young man from Ivory Coast called Lamine Barri in the yer 2012 to come up with an e-Learning platform to solve the problem of lack of infrastructure and resources which he experienced first hand while studying at one of the country’s university. It wasn’t an easy road for him as being new to the startup world and lack of funding plus trying to find mentors, technical skills was a challenge but, he still kept on believing. Then, he eventually found a passionate web developer in Franck Dakia and the Abidjan Founder Institute which helped him launch his dreams. Together, they shared a vision and motivation that still rings true today.
Fast forward four years later and the world’s first African online learning platform is live and offers academic institutions and companies to easily create and manage their online learning programs at the click of a button. It helps to face the lack of infrastructures and teachers, to make educational resources available anytime and anywhere. In Ivory Coast, on more than 560 academic and university institutions, only 8 have their online course platform. The most common issues are the lack of technical skills to build this type of solution. It requires web infrastructures which must be maintained regularly and online learning platforms are definitely expensive for some small institutions.
This allows academic institutions and businesses to now create their training programs online; is a key step in educational development and the future of what is taking place in Africa today. When students and workers have access to high quality courses at a lower cost, this helps enhance their professional skills and opens more job opportunities. Using Etudesk, educators can set up their own learning platform in less than one minute, and create courses that incorporate video, quizzes, activities and certificate integration into their program. Having a better way to focus on programs and content, will allow these educators to quickly correct quizzes and have the administrative space they need to monitor the progress of students seamlessly.
After winning the Côte d’Ivoire round of Seedstars World they now get an opportunity to pitch the idea in front of the world’s leading innovators and funding investors in Switzerland. We are rooting for them all the way because this is a noble and selfless act to promote lives of others.
Visit the website for a fast and easy setup of your very own training program. The world needs more people like Lamine Barri.
Image credits :Etudesk
