Are you an EdTech startup, teacher, entrepreneur or developer that is passionate about leveraging technology to improve education in Zambia?

Accelerate the growth of your startup during a 3-day series of workshops & intense one-on-one consultations with experts who will help you hammer out the details of your business & get your startup into the best possible shape. Experts will work with you & challenge you on key aspects of your business including your business and product strategy, your understanding of users’ needs, education impact, and investor pitches.

 

What is it?

BongoHive in partnership with Injini is accepting 12 Zambian Start-Ups to a Bootcamp and Ideation programme, where they will have the opportunity to polish their EdTech ideas, and learn from a panel of experts and stakeholders from the education and technology sectors.

At the end of the programme the 12 Start-Ups will have the chance to Pitch their Innovations to a panel of judges, from which one winner will be fast-tracked to the Injini EdTech Incubator, a 5-month part-time Incubator programme where start-ups from across Africa are selected every six months, provided with investment, an ed-tech dedicated support programme, and help to scale their innovations across the continent.

Who can apply?
Anyone with an edtech startup, idea, or an interest in edtech even though you don’t have an idea yet.

The EdTech Entrepreneurship week is open to all entrepreneurs, teachers and developers who are committed to developing innovations that aim to solve an education problem using technology. We welcome applications from pre-idea stage, idea stage, all the way to startups that have an MVP and even some revenue provided the startup is less than 3 years old.

As much as we are open to all innovations, we have learnt that certain types of edtech innovations lend themselves well to the African business environment, and are well-aligned with good pedagogy and implementation reality, and are focused on education problems that suit technology solutions including:

• Edtech to upskill & improve youth employability
• Adult learning, short courses – Getting adults to content cheaper and easier than orthodox learning can
• Online tutoring, or tutor matching
• Out-of-school practice solutions (supplementary education) so students learn when no learning would otherwise take place, and use proven practice techniques
• Handling school payments and school data
• Tools for teachers (e.g. lesson plans, subject knowledge primers, help with admin)

However, do not worry if (1)your innovation doesn’t not fall in any of the above categories because we will seriously consider any solution that is backed (or at least not contradicted) by education evidence and has good product-market fit, (2) If you don’t have an idea yet because we will guide you on some key education challenges to develop solutions for

Why EdTech?
We believe that education will be the great engine of Africa’s future development. However, across the continent, high quality education for all remains an elusive concept- millions of children are still out of school, millions of those in school are not actually learning, and worse still, for the lucky few that manage to complete school, millions find themselves unemployed because they lack the right skills required by the modern job market. We believe that local innovations will be key to solving Africa’s education challenges and our mission is to support them.

Why should I apply?
The EdTech Entrepreneurship Week is inspired by the ‘Injini EdTech Sprint’ which was designed by Injini-Africa’s first EdTech incubator. 2019 will be the first time that the Sprint will be offered to startups outside of the Injini incubation programme as part of a new partnership between 5 technology incubators across Southern Africa.

In Zambia the Sprint Week will be run by a team of edtech & technology experts from SAIS Partner & Injini. It is a 3-day series of workshops & intense 1:1 consultations with these experts to help you hammer out the details of your business & get your startup into the best possible shape. We’ll work together with you & challenge you on key aspects of your business including your business and product strategy, your understanding of users’ needs, education impact, and investor pitches.

Come prepared to work extremely hard – we highly recommend that at least 2 key members of your startup are available to participate for the duration of the sprint week.

Top performing startup will get automatic entry to the penultimate stage (due diligence) of the admission process to join the Injini incubation programme.

About Injini – Africa’s first EdTech Incubator

Injini is the first EdTech dedicated incubator and investor on the African continent. It is the only opportunity for EdTech entrepreneurs based anywhere in Africa to get industry specialist mentoring, support, scale up and funding introductions, and early stage funding. Since October 2017, Injini has incubated 16 startups (invested in 14) from 7 African countries including South Africa, Zimbabwe, Kenya, Ethiopia, Tanzania, South Sudan & Nigeria. Injini’s investment portfolio includes a range of innovations tackling problems across education stages. Our startups include Slatecube, ScholarX, BlueBic, Lightbulb, Zelda, Uthini, Learning Factory, Syafunda, BirdTracks, M-Shule, eLimu, Accelerated & Yo’Books.
Injini’s offices are in Cape Town (South Africa).