AFRICA – The Mastercard Foundation Centre for Innovative Teaching and Learning (CITL) in Information, Communications, and Technology has announced 12 African EdTech startups that will benefit with a funding of US$40,000 each from the Centre’s support to expand their operations and improve secondary teaching and learning across Africa.
Twelve companies have now been selected as fellows. They will each receive a comprehensive package over the next year that includes customised mentorship, financial support, the opportunity to test, validate and scale their business, and a US$40,000 grant to aid in the development of their solutions.
“The announcement of these first fellows at the Centre for Innovative Teaching and Learning is a milestone moment in the work we are carrying out in Africa,” said Peter Materu, chief programme officer at the Mastercard Foundation.
“Bringing together these talented entrepreneurs and supporting them as they innovate to drive excellence in teaching and learning offers new opportunities with great potential to raise the bar in African education and benefit tens of millions of students.”
Four of the selected companies are Kenyan, namely mobile learning platforms M-Shule, Kytabu and Eneza Education, and mobile-first data management solution Litemore. Another three are South African: customised online learning platform Siyavula, and teacher-training platforms Instill Education and Zibuza.
Learning management platform Chalkboard Education and translation service AkooBooks represent Ghana, while the rest of the cohort comprises Rwandan laboratory experiments platform O’Genius Priority, Ethiopian coding school iCog Labs, and Nigerian educational video platform HITCH.
“We’re very proud and excited to have this first group of leading African innovators in EdTech with us,” says Joseph Nsengimana, Head of the Mastercard Foundation Centre for Innovative Teaching and Learning in ICT.
“These companies are working to expand the use of ICT to address some of the most pressing issues facing education in Africa today. We will give them access to the customized mentoring and financial support they need over the next year so that they can test, refine, and validate their products.
“With that, they can grow their businesses and help to improve learning outcomes throughout Africa.”
Launched in 2018, The Centre for Innovative Teaching and Learning, a five-year initiative is aimed at sparking innovation and promote promising practices in the use of information and communications technologies for teaching and learning, and to catalyze significant improvements in education across the continent.
