Recent Innovations and Progress in EdTech Development in Africa

I recently had the privilege of speaking at the Startup Abuja EduTech Conference 2024. Standing on stage was an incredible honour, especially after being behind the scenes for so long and being deeply involved in venture building, research and working closely with teams across different digital technology ventures.

During my talk, I focused on the conference theme, New Innovations and Technologies in Promoting Education in Africa, with a particular emphasis on Recent Innovations and Progress in EduTech Development in Africa. This topic is close to my heart, not only because of the transformative potential of edtech in Africa but also because of my journey in the industry, where we’ve been working to address these challenges head-on. In this article, I aim to expand on my speech, diving deeper into the key points that time constraints prevented me from fully exploring.

The Role of African EduTech Entrepreneurs and Ecosystem Players

What I have realized in Africa is that we’ve often been in a constant race to catch up with global advancements. However, the effects of globalization have sped up this pace, especially in the era of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, which is characterized by the Internet and renewable energy.

One of the major challenges we face as we have always found ourselves trying to catch up is because of the infrastructural deficit, specifically in areas like connectivity, power and in education, the lack of furnished classrooms. But these are not the only issues. The fundamental problems are slow educational development and weak education capacity due to factors like inadequate political commitment and financing, outdated curricula, teacher shortages and poor teacher performance.

For teacher shortages - some data suggest the problem is acute in sub-Saharan Africa, where 70% of countries face teacher shortages at the primary level and 90% face shortages at the secondary level. In some areas, the numbers are extreme — for instance, in Gupa Ward, a community close to where I come from, I recently saw data that there are about 30 teachers for 30 schools, not just that but the teachers are affected by poor remuneration, limited training, cultural barriers and poverty.

Despite these challenges, we have recorded some successes with many educational innovators who are inspired by these problems. And ventures or startups like ULesson, Gradely and others have shown promise. While conducting market research and travelling across the continent, I met with founders in Nairobi-Kenya, Addis Ababa-Ethiopia, and Nigeria, who are working on innovations in STEM learning and using gaming to improve learning outcomes.

In Nigeria, ventures like Flexisaf and Edves have been in the space with similar strategies and product delivery to the venture I am scaling now - Tespire, and this has positioned all of us to bring about change in the edtech ecosystem particularly the management and system segment of the ecosystem. But at Tespire we are doing things slightly different, as we have started with the semi-urban areas of Nigeria and very recently we were in Kano to rub minds with the locals on how we could gain their social trust and to have them have the belief that these technologies aren't far from them and this is the right time to join the digital train.

Our work at Tespire has been a journey of persistence and adaptation and we have been able to contribute to do these new innovations from the get-go. Around 2015, I began assembling my first team to build one of Northern Nigeria's first modern tech companies (For those familiar with JD Lab).

COVID, AI and startup trends spurred us on and we wanted to do all of what we do bigger, given that there were a lot of young and smart entrepreneurs building the next big ventures and coupled with the fact that some of these ventures started around the same time as us, and I started to believe that this was time to position better and we can capitalise on our 6 years journey to create more value in the educational sector, that was how Tespire was born in 2022, today we are worth about $1.5M and in the coming days we would take it to $10M then to $100M and beyond day by day…

And this is how we are scaling by tackling infrastructure and connectivity issues with an innovative approach. For example, we provide schools with a comprehensive package, including tablet devices with pre-established internet access, helping them embark on their digital journey. Our data-driven approach enables us to create personalized learning experiences and assess areas of improvement before advancing toward AI-based solutions. In our initial research, we discovered that companies using AI to solve learning outcomes often lacked the foundational data needed for effective implementation. Consequently, Tespire is prioritizing a data-first approach, positioning us to better serve the educational ecosystem in the long run.

Thus, you can see that the connectivity is present, with options like Starlink and telco routers available, but these educational institutions often cannot access them due to cost or other barriers. Our ultimate aim is to ease the process of acquiring tech and to transform the entire sub-Saharan African education system into a data-informed ecosystem.?

Progress Made Across Africa

Tespire’s story is part of a broader trend however let’s look at these ventures, AltSchool Africa, for example, is bringing virtual classrooms to students with the necessary regulatory compliance like fully accredited from the right agencies, with Alt-School you can earn a diploma no matter how busy you are, by just signing up online and paying tuition in instalments, Meanwhile, Miva Open University in Nigeria, founded by the same visionary behind ULesson, provides in-demand degree programs accessible from anywhere in the world, recently I saw that they were celebrating over 1,000 new students from around the globe.

Enablers in the ecosystem aren’t left out either, like Co-Creation Hub, founded by the current Nigerian Minister of Communications, Innovation and Digital Economy, Dr. Bosun Tijani, they are providing vital support through initiatives like a MasterCard Foundation-backed program, CCHub helps startups in the edtech space. They select around 10 to 15 edtech startups in Nigeria and offer them funding to build the early stages of their innovations. Northern Nigerian-based companies like Schoola have received $100k in support to build an AI tool that enhances lesson planning for basic school teachers.

Government bodies are also doing a lot, with organizations like NITDA (National Information Technology Development Agency) providing venture-building skills and support for startups, we can’t also forget the work done with the Startup Act where Nigeria is one of the first few countries in which such frameworks exist.

In addition to my work with Tespire, I have invested in an innovation hub, nearly ready to launch its pre-accelerator program, aimed at supporting edtech startups in Nigeria and Ghana.

These initiatives underscore a shared commitment to reimagining education across Africa, particularly in regions historically underserved by traditional educational models.

Predictions for New Innovations and Technologies

AI has become a major discussion point in the tech space. Generative AI is increasingly used for various corporate tasks, from writing emails to developing business plans and even coding. In many cases, we’ve seen our engineers use it to refactor code or solve bugs. I've also heard about how undergraduates utilize generative AI for assignments, studying ahead in their courses or even further where lecturers generate images for STEM-oriented lessons and trends for commercial-oriented students.?

PwC’s Global Artificial Intelligence Study estimates that AI could contribute up to $15.7 trillion to the global economy by 2030. Similarly, a report from Goldman Sachs suggests that generative AI could boost global GDP by nearly 7%, adding around $7 trillion within a decade. These projections underscore the transformative potential of AI and Africa’s edtech sector stands to benefit significantly.

I foresee startups like EduKoya in Nigeria adopting generative AI to help students prepare for exams. I know an innovator here in Kaduna-Nigeria who is developing AI-driven lesson planning tools to support teachers in under-resourced areas.

For us at Tespire, we are tilting towards predictive AI, where would be leveraging data to create better outcomes for players in the education ecosystem. We will see use cases such as how schools can predict turnover in terms of fee collection and enhance learning performance because we can tell from what subjects and topics students are failing from and how they can improve their performances with the right informed decision and not just this, if we are fast we are also looking at solving teacher shortages by looking forward to profer solution for areas where schools are underserved.

Conclusion

Africa’s journey in edtech is still unfolding, we’re witnessing an era where innovation is no longer restricted by geography or resources. I can tell you that there are hundreds of young, smart entrepreneurs out there striving to solve these problems and they are doing it fast and with great energy.