MOOCs and what they mean for Africa

What are MOOCs?

MOOCs are a course of study made available over the Internet without charge to a very large number of people.

Massive Online Open Courses or MOOCs are essentially the digital extension (or transformation) of distance learning. The term was coined in response to the George Siemens of Athabasca University led course called ‘Connectivism and Connective Knowledge’ which experimented with mixing face to face students with digital participants from the general public in 2008. In 2011, Stanford University developed 3 MOOC courses which quickly gained more than 200,000 registrations combined in a matter of weeks.

By 2012 several well-financed providers such as Coursera, Udacity and edX emerged onto the scene touting content partnerships with several world elite and American ivy league universities alongside a multitude of lower tier university  and independently developed courses. For this article’s purpose we’d like to focus on what these MOOC courses mean for students and young professionals in Africa at large.

MOOCs in Africa

What kind of MOOCs exist?

  • xMOOCs – follow a traditional classroom style format where the eXpert (origin of the preceding x) determines curriculum content, leads a class via instructional video’s and classroom assignments during a given time frame. A lot of the courses on Coursera, for example, follow this method.
  • cMOOCs – do not follow a traditional model instead allowing the learner to choose and pace themselves on the content. The c stands for Connectivist, a which model attempts to push boundaries by also allowing for the learner to create content on the very subject material they are learning. Usually a mentor figure of some kind is still present just to loosely guide the process along but it is up to the learner to choose their own path. Many of the courses available on Treehouse a good example of cMOOCs.

What do MOOCs mean for Africa?

  • Access to an ever growing amount of educational content at little to no cost
  • Content is, in most cases, accessible across a number of devices

The courses you can find available at some of the world’s most popular MOOCs range from ‘Introduction to Artificial Intelligence’ to ‘Learning Basic English’. MOOCs are already taring down the access barriers to education enabling Africans to access world class content at very little cost.

Note that it’s not ‘for free’ as professed by many MOOC providers and mainstream media articles because this is not exactly the case in many instances for the average African user.  While a course like ‘Financial Markets 101’ from Yale University may now be open to participants at no cost for enrolment, the supporting ‘hidden’ costs to access this material for the average African user is largely ignored.

Access Problems

Two core issues at the heart of the multi-tiered problem are:

  • access to quality computing devices/facilities on the one hand
  • access to quality internet on the other.

Access to quality desk/laptop/mobile computing is lacking in many homes and institutions around Africa, the problem intensifies when we look at rural sectors of Africa. While low cost mobile somewhat provides a viable alternative to access MOOCs, not all MOOCs have optimised their content delivery for low end mobile systems.

Whether you are dealing with sporadic power dropouts in South Africa or Sierra Leone or exorbitant broadband internet access prices in Namibia or Mozambique, getting stable and fast internet access is still a hindering factor in many parts of Africa.

The above notwithstanding, MOOCs have the potential to enhance the efficiency of Africa’s public education systems (the so called ‘Ivory tower’ problem) if the political/academic will and social dynamic in the various countries is present.

What do MOOCs mean for me as a young African student or professional?

MOOCs mean that even without instructions or assistance from your lecturer or employer that you can gain world class knowledge, skills and accreditation by participating in a MOOC of your choice. The access problems notwithstanding, you can take courses in various fields offered by top elite universities such as Harvard, MIT or UCT at little to no cost.

The information and course content might not always be accurate or appropriate for your locale but nevertheless being able to study ‘Computer Science 101’ from Stanford University (The creators of Google studied there) in the comfort of your home or local library beats having to raise local equivalent in USD currency to attend the course physically. Never-mind the normal entry requirements to get into some of these ‘elite’ universities.

Some platforms such as Coursera or NovoEd, usually for a fee, also provide certification and accreditation upon course completion which is recognised by companies and institutions around the world.

MOOCs can also assist young entrepreneurs, if you are able to beat the internet access hurdles, you can enhance your skills cheaply and thereby decrease the risk of your business venture failing.

MOOCs in Africa

What do I need to access a MOOC?

  • Somewhat stable Internet access
  • A desk/laptop or smartphone/tablet
  • A willingness to learn and discipline to hold yourself accountable for finishing a given course

P.S. Many post 2013 Samsung smartphone/tablet devices ship with the ‘Samsung Learning Hub’ applications which provides access to a select number of MOOCs. If you are lucky to own an Apple device, they also ship with the iTunesU application which provides an extensive selection of MOOCs.

How do I find a MOOC that interests me?

A Google or search engine query is usually an easy enough method to find a suitable MOOC. For example the search: ‘Computer Science MOOC’ will return a good number of actual MOOC websites that offer such a course. Another search query method is ‘University name – class name MOOC’ e.g. ‘University of Cape Town Medical Science MOOC’.

Some prefer to research their most suitable MOOC by referring to ‘best of’ lists, which list MOOC platforms based on some or other criteria. We have included some of those lists below and more can be found via a search engine query (such as searching for ‘Best MOOCs’)

We’ve found MOOC List an excellent resource for people who really want to get specific. It is a comprehensive database of most MOOC courses available on various platforms to date.

We are happy to answer readers queries regarding MOOCs. Please either leave a comment or mail us for a reply.

Namibia to include coding in national curriculum

On the 26th of February 2016, UNESCO held a stakeholder meeting to discuss the findings of the YouthMobile coding workshop held in November 2015 which also served as a feasibility study to include a coding and computational thinking element into the Namibian public school curriculum.

The YouthMobile Initiative attempts to introduce young people to computer science programming (learning-to-code) and problem solving (coding-to-learn).

What is coding and computational thinking?

Coding refers to the creation of software for various platforms such as desktop PCs, mobile phones and other automated systems. Computational thinking refers to an open ended cognitive process that encourages arriving at meaningful answers using decomposition, data representation, generalization, modelling, and algorithms.

DSC_0636
Group picture of meeting participants

It was the second meeting to be held to plan how the Namibian implementation of UNESCO’s YouthMobile program will move forward in 2016 and beyond. Stakeholders present included amongst others:

Coding Workshop meeting
Maurice Nkusi of CTL at NUST center, Dr. Perien Boer head of Education faculty at UNAM left, NYC officers right

The coding workshop outcomes and findings, presented by Teaching and Learning unit of NUST Director Maurice Nkusi, highlighted the need to update the computer studies component of Namibian public school curriculum and how YouthMobile could serve as a platform to be leveraged towards that outcome. 2 functional application prototypes were demonstrated by workshop participants and the remaining certificates awarded to those not present at previous award ceremony in 2015.

“Coding refers to the writing of software for various platforms, be it desktop PCs, mobile phones and other automated systems.”

Tech Guys & UNESCO YouthMobile coding workshop meeting
Daisry Mathias, Youth Advisor at Office of the President of Namibia

It was decided that 3 additional regions are to be targeted during 1st half of 2016 beginning with a ‘Training of Trainers’ phase with additional logistical support from The National Youth Service and NBII.  Simultaneously UNAM and NUST are to assist in reviewing how open source derived course materials developed for YouthMobile by The Tech Guys can be implemented into the national curriculum.

Furthermore, it was discussed how Code.org, which has expressed interest in becoming a partner in the Tech Guys endeavour to positively disrupt the Namibian education system can become involved with an agreement has been formed with the education faculty at UNAM and subsequently other organizations to pursue the opportunity.

The program also received tentative support from the Office of The President represented by it’s Youth Advisor, Daisry Mathias, who stressed the need for the various players in Namibian digital innovation to stop operating in silo’s and form cohesive partnerships that could interface with government in a more efficient manner.

 

 

 

2nd Namibian Open Data Hackathon underway

2nd Namibia Open Data Hackathon

The 2nd annual Namibian ‘Open Data’ hackathon is underway at the Namibian Business Innovation Institute’s (NBII) Mobile Lab located on the Namibian University of Science and Technology (NUST) grounds. The hackathon event runs all whole day on the 5th and 6th of March, 2016.  Participants form teams and focus on one of 5 areas of public service delivery to create software enabled solutions to them. Follow up prototype presentations are to be held at 5:30pm at the same venue on Thursday, 10th March, 2016.

Lamech Amugongo working on tracking Windhoek's public transport.
Lamech Amugongo working on tracking Windhoek’s public transport.

“To create awareness around using open data to improve efficiency in Namibian social and civil service delivery.”

The event is organized by Lamech Amugongo, a software developer who has been active in the nascent innovation and open data scene in Namibia, and NBII’s Mobile Lab which provided the space and internet access.

What is ‘Open Data’?

‘Open Data’ refers to the idea that certain data should be freely available to everyone to use and republish as they wish, without restrictions from copyright, patents or other mechanisms of control. In the context of this hackathon that means accessing public data around social services and identifying where improvements using software based solutions could be made.

For example a UK based startup , TransportAPI,  aggregated all British public transport information ranging from bicycle lanes to city underground train schedules into an easily accessible API which is now used to build apps by various municipalities and businesses alike.

IMG_0397
Gervasius Ishuuwa working on the eHealth solution

Over 15 participants attended and created 5 teams that focused on creating software based improvements to service delivery in:

  • Water utility services
  • Medical health based services
  • City public transport services
  • Emergency response services
  • Food Bank access services

Lamech says he created the event to create awareness around using open data to improve efficiency in Namibian social and civil service delivery. Teams will present their prototypes at the Mobile Lab on Wednesday and are expected to present final versions at the national ICT summit taking place later this year.

A highlight of this hackathon event was that teams got to work with smartcitizen.me‘s Arduino kits which include various sensors for environmental data.

The atmosphere at this year’s event was lively with developers fully engaged in the projects they are working on. Participants remarked on how events of this type were sorely needed and must take place more frequently in the future. The event is expected to expand into different regions of Namibia in 2017.

IMG_0402 (1)

 

1st Namibian YouthMobile programming workshop gets underway

12316186_775511105909341_5888490420391510008_n

On 11th-23rd November 2015, The Tech Guys in conjunction with P.A.Y. Namibia and UNESCO Namibia held a 10 day YouthMobile Computer Science Principles workshop which culminated in 6 teams presenting 6 Android app prototypes built using the MIT App Inventor IDE.

12316316_775510492576069_6133915014607131251_n

17 students took part for an average of 5 hours per day exploring themes from digital literacy to how technology impacts their communities and how programming can be used to solve problems within their own communities. 12313606_775510622576056_8345678228013224713_n

The course material has been adapted from various open source repositories such as csunplugged.org, code.org et al. The aim of the workshop was to build at least 4 Android application prototypes aimed at creating a social impact within their communities. The teams managed to present 6 promising prototypes ranging from an SMS crime alert app to a University of Namibia campus navigation system.

Results from the workshop will be tabulated and discussed in an upcoming stakeholder meeting to be held at the UNESCO house in Windhoek later this week.

The workshop is part of a drive to reform the state of computer programming education in Namibia at a national level and also works as a short feasibility study which is to be extended in 2016.

12310651_775510475909404_1401899182000527891_n

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

5 do’s and don’ts for African tech startups

The first year of founding a startup is a gruelling ordeal in our experience, mostly because 90% of the time we did not know what the hell we were doing. While there are plenty of resources online that document the success methodologies of Silicon Valley startups to guide along budding founders in the developed world, material on startup advice for African tech entrepreneurs is not as ubiquitous. In retrospect, we can see how the lure of Silicon Valley success stories drives many tech entrepreneurs in Africa and across emerging markets to approach the startup founding process with a flowery naievity. We had to wake up and smell the coffee on more than one occasion.

dos-and-donts

This is Africa. Norms in governance, infrastructure, business and culture are NOT the same as western and other developed nations across the globe. Strides in development Africa has made must not be overlooked but we still face huge challenges such as raising internet penetration from around 20%,  empowering 50% who still live below the less than 1 USD/day poverty line and despite success in mobile payment platforms still 70%  of Africans remain unbanked further hindering economic participation. The opportunity to create profitable technologies for energy, transport, education, healthcare and banking are nowhere as lucrative in potential as Africa IMHO.

From our experience the (ongoing) quest of developing a ‘product’ not only involves groin-kick hard and confidence-shattering business lessons but also valuable lessons in cultural understanding and our responsibility as Africans. We had to learn that as fascinating a technology might be, if there is no local context to your solution or if you are not solving the big problems of instilling core competencies in the various baseline economic sectors of African economies then you should probably pivot (or cop out and move to the Valley). The dominant narrative of Silicon Valley’s slew of cloud and mobile success stories (Snapchat, Whatsapp etc…)  lull many an African entrepreneur into the false sense that creating an African equivalent of Facebook will make them rich tomorrow and cure all AIDS in the world. Any tool is only as good as its user and there are many tools created outside of Africa that can be repurposed to solve a problem in Africa but tech startup founders must be prepared to think critically about their solutions by really looking at local and cultural context.

Despite the challenges we face as an African tech startup, we are firm in our belief that harnessing technology to solve Africa’s big problems and create new ecosystems is the single most inspiring aspiration but it requires focus, critical thinking and rigorous planning/execution. We hope that by sharing some of our startup do’s and don’ts(in retrospect after we did the don’ts and missed the do’s) other founders may be able to avoid some of the early pitfalls of founding a tech startup in Africa. AFRICA IS NOT A COUNTRY, conditions differ greatly from country to country so please attempt to see the information through your own local context before applying this advice.

Do’s:

1. Write a business model canvas!

If you have not familiarized yourself with the business model canvas or BMC, it is high time you do so now. Once you have gotten the hang of it, act on it and then use feedback to iterate on it. Until success.

2. Document your process!

Keep track of your development process, even if you are following your own rules. There are many free tools that allow you to set up some sort of workflow from Trello, Asana, Slack, PivotalTracker the list goes on, a web search can go a long way. Documenting your process also has the added benefit of allowing you to hone your process as you go along identifying problem areas  in retrospect and making your workflow more efficient (which believe you me is something you REALLY want to do).

3. Keep the local tech ecosystem informed of what you are doing, stay active on the ground and on social media.

The tech ecosystem in many African countries is only starting to begin to take shape and many  of its pillars such as open data and digital bridges to civil sector are not in place. Community initiatives between startups and startup activity hubs can be used to foster the much needed open source sector of a local tech ecosystem. Engage the players in the tech ecosystem, even if you are competing. Chances are that somewhere in the near future, you will both need access to the same data sources.

4. Prototype fast, then go and talk to the potential user/customer base and your competitors/stakeholders.

Often we spend too much time hypothesising on the hypothesis, developing our blueprint ideas in isolation without getting feedback from users and stakeholder/competition. It might be that in some places engaging stakeholders/competition could be considered against the norm or counter intuitive but it is important to get as many perspectives from relevant product stakeholders concerned. This includes the people who are to use/buy it and the companies that could potentially compete against you.

5. Dream big but start small!

Identify the big problems, look at your local situation and identify where people are not being included, food agriculture, banking, energy, transport, health and education are usually a place good start. Then PICK ONE problem to solve and focus on it by working it from the ground up. Don’t do everything at once, baby steps!

baby5


 

Don’ts:

1. Don’t assume trends in technology application from the west/developed world are applicable in your local market!

Keep abreast of the happenings in the global tech ecosystem but do not be mislead by nice looking informatics in a The Verge or TechCrunch article. There is a lot of information in western/global tech media that is just not applicable to your local situation. Be inspired by the stories of success but do due diligence when researching feasibility of your startup.

2. Do not prototype before figuring out who your customer/user is!

Identify your target market before you develop a product prototype. ‘Everyone’ is NOT a market. Use local statistics to identify at least one demographic that is reflected in reality. Your prototype might end up serving no one but your own ego if its use is not targeted at a user/customer base.

3. Do not get too enamoured with your idea.

Do not fall so-in-love with your idea that you are unable to let go of it when it needs to change. Your startup must be adaptable to changing conditions as they arise.

4.Do not operate as a non entity, register your business.

Especially in the case when looking for funds in African countries which at many times will come from government sources, they will not understand how you are trying to ‘go lean’ by cutting registration costs. This is of course relative to your locale and situation, still we recommend it for accounting and protection of IP purposes.

5.Do not do set unreasonable deliverables!

Don’t put yourself up to building ‘A Wall of China’ and then cry in deflated pride when you cannot meet the project deadline you set for yourself for end of the week. Be realistic with your milestones, make them doable. If there are 10 deliverables on the project checklist for the week, set yourself up to finishing one rather than four a day. After having built the habit for completion by having small successes, then increase your workload. This ensures you won’t be discouraged by the enormity of your dream and just how far you are from achieving it after hitting your first big obstacle. Small careful steps chained together make a long journey.

How To Speak Startup in Africa

Startups1

Many a times have I sat with various people across myriad entities we engage with locally in Namibia and in broader Africa and have been met with incredulous stares followed by ‘Say What Now?’ at the language that we employ.

If you work in the tech startup space (or have recently binge watched HBO’s Silicon Valley), you will notice that people speak with terms and abbreviations which might lead you to wonder if programmers have applied Zip compression to the English language while speaking.

In Namibia, and I suspect most of the emerging economies around the globe, this lingo tends to leave even IT managers of large scale firms scratching their heads. That being said, there is a lot to say for tech startups in Africa creating their own set of flummoxing abbreviations but let’s leave that discussion for another day.

However, The Tech Guys is here to demystify startup lingo into a more common lingua franca. The tech startup nerds in Africa, after all, are worth trying to understand as they’ll probably be the integral puzzle piece for African prosperity in the 21st century and beyond.

So, without further ado, I give you How To Speak Startup(Try not to be too serious about it….seriously though.):

Tech Startup – An unfunded group of people with an idea that potentially solves a problem using technology. They probably don’t sell or fix your PC’s or do email server installations. Not to be confused with your workplace IT helpdesk.

Code – what software engineers/programmers do.

Disrupt – To make a previous way of doing things look bad by using technology to do it a new and vastly better way.

MVP(Minimum Viable Product) – A prototype of your startup idea, that usually is little more than a Powerpoint presentation.

Acqui-hire – A strategy for acquiring talent pioneered by Google in the mid-2000s that happens when a bigger company thinks your team is good but your idea is hilariously bad. Also called a “signing bonus.”

Failure – A bad thing that has recently put on a pedestal as something to be celebrated.

Cashflow Positive – Someone gave us a dollar.

Pivot – What happens when a company realizes its course of action is not living up to expectations. (See also, Failure.)

SaaS (Software as A Service) — It loses money.

Pre-Money Valuation – A number you made up.

Post-Money Valuation – A number that you made up alongside your VC with the addition of some cash. Your burn rate is probably too high.

“I work in PR.” – I am, in fact, in possession of several journalists’ email addresses.

Exit – Exits come in two different flavors for entrepreneurs: good and bad. Good exits happen when you’re “killing it,” your company hasn’t killed you yet, and another company comes along to buy yours. (See possibly, acqui-hire.) Bad exits are another way of saying you failed to disrupt much of anything besides your VC’s portfolio performance.

“I’m a serial entrepreneur.” – Person who had two ideas, both of which failed.

140505_DATA_JeanLucPicardVoiceRecog.jpg.CROP.promo-mediumlarge

The Space – Because calling the field in which they’re operating an industry, vertical or even genre is too hard, entrepreneurs like referring to their company as being a player in a given space. They especially like doing this when they know they’re in a crowded market. We don’t know why they do this either.

VC – 1) Venture capitalists raise money from wealthy individuals and institutions and dump lots of said money into young companies in exchange for a cut of the company. 2) An institutional dealer of pharmaceutical-grade Opium. (See also, Opium.)

Opium – OPM, or “other people’s money,” is an incredibly addictive substance to entrepreneurs that’s rarely respected or missed until it dries up.

“We’re doing great.” – We are not doing great.

SF / The Valley – 1. The place you refer to when convincing government officials that investing in tech initiatives is a good thing. 2. A place that VC’s and tech luminaries talk up as the greatest place on Earth that you must move to if you’re from anywhere that isn’t San Fransisco or The Valley.

“We’re growing 500 percent week-over-week” — Last week we had one user, today we have six.

“We’re not currently raising capital.” — We’re currently raising capital.

UI/UX – A portmanteau of UI (“User Interface”) and UX (“User Experience”) often used by design-challenged entrepreneurs when referring to the aesthetics and usability of their product when actual understanding of good design principles is fundamentally lacking. Used in a sentence: “Our Push for the ‘Find My Goat A Date’ app is crushing it because of our design wizard who is slinging some hella dope UI/UX.”

“We’re a design-centric organization.” – We don’t know how to code.

Non-GAAP Profitable — What companies that are very unprofitable like to claim. The idea that non-cash costs don’t count is usually the sort of sickness you see here.

“I’m the business guy.” – (See: Growth Hacker.)

Gravity — What The Tech Guys is trying to escape using maximum thrust. (Yes, we are going to build rockets.)

Growth Hacking – Sales, marketing and associated activities, but with a label that incorporates the word “hacking,” because nontechnical people want to call themselves “hackers” too.

“We’re seeing great gross margins, and so are investing in growth given our strong, SaaS unit-economics.” — We lose money.

“We’re stomping on the gas pedal, given our strong SaaS unit-economics, and are actively seeking additional capital to power our sector-leading growth.” — We have lost all our money and need some of yours, please.

“We’re Killing It!” – Your dreams and investors’ dollars are probably being killed.

We hope this helps you navigate your encounters with tech nerds or wannabes.

This is a modified version of TechCrunch’s Alex Willhelm and Jason Rowley’s 2014 article with some adjustments to locally contextualize things ;-)!

Thank You 2014, 2015 Leggo!

2014 was a tremendous year for the Tech Guys having

We would  like to thank the following entities for their partnership at some point or another in 2014:

[huge_it_gallery id=”2″]

In the following year, prototyping our product will be our paramount agenda as well as strengthening current initiatives and engaging the budding startup community in Windhoek.

We hope to meet you all again in 2015 along this long walk to freedom from gravity ;-)!

AMPION Venture Bus in Namibia

The AMPION Venture Bus competition touched down in Windhoek on the 10th of November with the participants accommodated at the Safari Hotels (who were generous enough to sponsor us a conference hall and free wi-fi on short notice). The actual event hosted by us which included a hackathon and startup pitch sessions took place the next day(11th November) at the NBII Mobile Lab located at the Polytechnic of Namibia Innovation Village.

Ampioneers arriving at the Polytechnic of Namibia's Innovation Village
Ampioneers arriving at the Polytechnic of Namibia’s Innovation Village

36 participants came together to travel from Harare to Cape Town and build 9 startup teams of which E-Maji, a device to monitor biological water contamination at source, was chosen as winner at the final pitch held at AfricaCom 2014 in Cape Town. This year saw an awesome batch of participants with various backgrounds from MIT graduates, former Vodacom managers, investment bankers and of course developers from Africa and around the globe.

A total of six Namibian participants qualified to board the bus. Two of those, Anastacia Shipepe of team MEM(a platform to facilitate growth for SME’s in Africa)  and Harry Moon of team DaMark.com (a platform to bridge the gap between formal and informal business sector in Africa) represented Namibia in 2014.

IMG_4745 reduced
Ampioneers at the AMPION Venture Bus event in Windhoek.

With help from SAIS, Microsoft,  NBII, Red Bull, Intouch Interactive Media and information.na we managed to host a great event where participants got to hone their startup ideas during the day’s hackathon and a gruelling afternoon pitch session presided over by a local and international panel of judges.

We had the chance to meet some awesome people and facilitate the first Namibian participants and make some noise about startups to get interest in Namibia going. To follow up on the bus coming to Windhoek, we will be facilitating meetings between Namibian and SADC tech hubs to find points of synergy in the upcoming months. We will also be working with local players in innovation to expand the Venture Bus idea in a local context.

Prof. Jurgen Sieck of the Berlin University of Applied Science giving a talk on innovation in the mobile space at the AMPION event in Windhoek.
Prof. Jurgen Sieck of the Berlin University of Applied Science giving a talk on innovation in the mobile space at the AMPION event in Windhoek. Juha Miettinen, CTA of SAIS to his left.

We are also happy to announce that SAIS, Leap Namibia, information.na and Microsoft are already onboard for next year’s bus. We’ll keep you updated on how the movement grows going forward and thank you for your support!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

APPLY NOW FOR THE AMPION VENTURE BUS 2014!

 

What is Venture Bus?

 

40 entrepreneurs on 1 bus for 5 days through 4 African countries! Designers, business experts and developers meet on the Venture Bus and team up (usually into 8 groups) to create innovative startups providing solutions to local challenges in Africa, specifically Namibia in our case. Yes, the Venture Bus is coming to Windhoek! Whoop!

Continue reading “APPLY NOW FOR THE AMPION VENTURE BUS 2014!”