Kibo School gets $2M to offer online STEM degrees to students in Africa – Nob6

When she was 10 years outdated, Ope Bukola’s household relocated from Nigeria to the US, the place she superior her research to later pursue a level in Economics. Uncovered to the top-of-the-line schooling on the New York College, she puzzled how her pals in Nigeria and different vivid college students in Africa might entry the identical.

Upon graduating, she launched into a quest to make schooling simply accessible, eager to pivot on alternatives within the American edtech sector as she gained expertise by means of roles that noticed her digitize textbooks at Palo Alto Networks and later function the product lead at Google Classroom.

By the point she left Google in 2019, Bukola knew precisely what she wanted to do to make high quality schooling accessible and inexpensive, and after years of planning and finding out the market, she was joined by Keno Omu and Rob Cobb to launch the Kibo School final 12 months. Omu is former dean at Africa Management College whereas Cobb is a grasp instructor at Flatiron Faculty who beforehand labored at curriculum engineer at Make Faculty.

Kibo is an internet faculty that’s set to supply a number of STEM diploma packages focused at college students in Africa. And, its take-off is being propelled by a $2 million seed funding led by Neo, a VC agency by the co-founder of Code.org. Future Africa, Pledges, Brooklyn Bridge Ventures, Transcend Community and a number of other angel traders additionally participated within the spherical. The brand new funding brings the whole capital raised by the startup to $2.4m after final 12 months’s pre-seed spherical.

“There are such a lot of younger individuals entering into the know-how workforce, and I actually assume the continent could possibly be the place for younger technologists, if solely our schooling system was as much as the duty. Our mission at Kibo is to offer a greater different to conventional schooling,” stated Bukola, who can be the CEO at Kibo.

“The first purpose for the seed spherical is to get the diploma program off the bottom. We have now been doing these quick lessons, and we’re going to maintain doing them and going by means of the method of making use of for accreditation. However our major focus now’s bringing in college students for our diploma packages,” she stated, including that by means of the quick programs launched final 12 months, the varsity has skilled 400 students in 13 nations in Africa.

The concentrate on STEM was validated when Kibo gained the GSV Cup, one of many largest edtech pitch competitions globally, in April this 12 months.

Kibo Faculty celebrates after successful the GSV Cup. Picture Credit: Kibo Faculty.

“The way forward for international expertise is African. We’re the youngest and the quickest rising continent. So, if you wish to resolve the world’s future issues, actually the younger persons are going to be in Africa. This isn’t only a charitable factor, it’s only a sensible factor as a result of Africa is the place the chance for development is,” she stated.

The college opened the appliance window for its full-time Pc Science diploma, its inaugural program, yesterday, and goals to draw 100 college students within the first cohort of the three-year diploma program, which may have college students paying a complete value of $6,000.

This system is accredited by Woolf, a collegiate college based mostly in U.Okay. As a Woolf member, college students enrolled at Kibo will earn European Credit score Switch and Accumulation System (ECTS) credit, that are transferable throughout the globe.

Kibo has opened up this system to college students in six cities throughout Kenya, Nigeria and Ghana, and people enrolled shall be required to reside no less than 100 kilometers from these cities, to make it straightforward for infrequent meet-ups. The college plans to introduce extra packages and to soak up new college students each quarter, beginning subsequent 12 months.

“It’s an internet diploma, however we’ve goal cities as a result of it’s nonetheless actually necessary to assist college students construct group. So, in each metropolis the place we’re enrolling college students, there’s going to be an advisor on the bottom, who will set up meet-ups each month,” stated Bukola.

Bukola famous that the constructing communities of scholars in several nations will be sure that the varsity retains its college students, and helps circumvent the frequent failures of on-line studying.

Studying at Kibo is moderated, not self-paced like most on-line programs, and college students are required to work on collaborative initiatives. They’re additionally paired with skilled mentors and must attend internships earlier than graduating. The college has additionally signed commitments with a number of organizations to supply internships and part-time work to its college students.

“The important thing for us is knowing that human connection is on the coronary heart of studying. So, you may’t take away individuals from the training expertise. And possibly the most cost effective factor to do could be to make the scholars watch movies and study fully on their very own, however that merely doesn’t work. That’s the reason we’re actually targeted on collaborative studying,” stated Bukola.

“We’re actually targeted on making it a really skilled diploma. It’s not identical to guide studying, college students will construct initiatives, after which one quarter yearly they should do an internship or an business expertise.”

Bukola stated they’re engaged on constructing a extra clever system that can automate a lot of the faculty’s administrative duties together with pairing college students for revision.