I was privileged to attend the last day of the Injini South African EdTech Week 2023 in Cape Town last week, which was hosted in partnership with Wesgro and the Mastercard Foundation. EdTech is not seen as the most attractive business opportunity if you compare it with Fintech judging by the proportion of investment these industries receive. According to the Africa Tech Startups Funding report by Disrupt Africa, in 2022, 205 Fintech firms attracted 43,4% of total startup investment in Africa while EdTech (number 5 on the ranking with only 27 firms) received only 4.3% and saw a significant drop in value compared to 2021 funding.

Catalytic Capital

EdTech has a natural tendency towards a social enterprise as it often straddles goals to achieve financial AND social value. Dr. Frank Aswani, the Chief Executive Officer of AVPA (The African Venture Philanthropy Alliance) a Pan-African network for social investors, was one of the speakers on Friday. He explained that Africa seems to have an inadequate supply of social investment capital and advocated for mobilising and deploying more catalytic pools of capital.

Catalytic capital is seen as capital that is patient, risk-tolerant, concessionary, and flexible and an essential tool to support impact-driven enterprises and organisations that don’t have access to capital on suitable terms through the conventional marketplace. Catalytic capital unlocks investments that would not otherwise be possible — expanding opportunity, strengthening communities, and fueling innovation that benefits both people and the planet. EdTech is probably ideal for this type of funding as it carries the responsibility and hopes for trained and skilled talent to grow the future economy.

EdTech Solutions

Back to the conference, some of the EdTech firms who exhibited inspired me to consider what is possible in education. These firms were all part of the 2023 Mastercard Foundation Tech Fellowship program and I look forward to seeing the impact they make. Here are a few of the ones that captured my attention:​

• Click Learning is an NGO that helps underserved primary schools in South Africa improve foundational literacy, numeracy, and digital skills through the deployment of relevant online programs. 

• Code4Kids is a program that enables teachers to teach coding, robotics, and other ICT skills to students from Grades 4 - 9 through pre-made, curriculum-aligned lessons. Code4Kids offers multiple coding languages such as HTML, CSS and Javascript in a fun and easy-to-learn environment.

• Digify Africa is a chat-based learning platform that delivers interactive micro-learning through WhatsApp to low-income users in Africa. Lessons are accessible to learners wherever and whenever they want and at their own pace. 

• ​​FunDza Literacy Trust is a ‘library on a phone’ where readers, writers, and course participants can connect with FunDza through a mobile-friendly and data-light site. The platform publishes reading and writing materials that ignite a love of reading, specifically aimed at teens and young adults who have never previously identified as readers.​

• Reflective Learning is a data-driven solution that helps teachers identify learning gaps and provides personalised learning pathways to empower learners to catch up on their backlogs.

• ​​Resolute Education provides robotics and coding programs for schools and tertiary institutions. ​​

• Zaio is an online platform that provides highly interactive educational content on digital skills like coding, including on-demand live support, at a fraction of the expected cost.

With Waloyo providing access to computer hardware and internet access in underprivileged communities – each of the above becomes potential bolt-on solution. In fact, beyond this Injini cohort, there are magnificent companies that can support African youth to become prepared for a future workplace. This is the Waloyo vision!