Sim Shagaya planned to tackle Africa’s education quality gap by taking a road less traveled. Camped in a town nearly 1,000km away from Lagos, his edtech upstart uLesson meticulously produced over 3,000 colorfully-illustrated short video lessons delivered by human tutors, covering math and physical science subjects for senior high students in Nigeria. Instead of making the lessons accessible through a website—as edX, Coursera, Udacity and others do—uLesson distributed using 32- and 64 gigabyte memory devices. Shagaya was sure this was what Africa needed early in 2020. But as covid-19 locked children at home towards the middle of that year, uLesson stopped selling the memory devices, instead inviting users to access lessons directly on its website and mobile app. Now, beyond making pre-recorded lessons watchable online, uLesson is leaping into new territory: livestreaming lessons to pupils and students.
SOURCE: QUARTZ AFRICA