UNESCO’s report on Transforming Learning and Skills Development notes that delivering education well is not only a fundamental human right, it is also a critical ingredient of building solid foundations for the future, empowering people not just to develop the skills they will need for the workplace, but also ensuring that they can unlock their potential as members of society.

UNICEF estimates that there are 450 million school-age children in Africa in 2025, and this population is predicted to swell to over 600 million by 2050.

However, although 75 million more African children are enrolled in school today compared to 2015, the number of out-of-school children has increased by 13.2 million to over 100 million during the same period.

For Africa to actively participate in the global digital economy, it’s a continent-wide imperative to unlock not just access to education, but access to the resources that will help children thrive in education.

Harnessing technology to provide educational resources

Millions of children across the continent are eager but struggling to learn or are dropping out due to the high cost of quality education, outdated materials, and overburdened teachers.

Schools also struggle with reliable web access – the Global Education Monitoring Report found that Africa has the lowest school connectivity globally, with most schools lacking even basic electricity, making reliable internet rare. Mobile penetration in Africa is far higher, yet many learning platforms are built for the web.

In 2020, frustrated by their own experiences, and tired of witnessing how young Africans were held back by a lack of access to quality education, a group of entrepreneurs started Afrilearn International Limited. Their goal was simple, but ambitious: to democratise access to quality education across Africa using a mobile-first solution.

The company started with ClassNotes.ng, which quickly became the #1 education platform in Nigeria, empowering students with curriculum-based class notes.

By July 2022, Afrilearn had reached 1 million learners across Nigeria and Africa, a major step in delivering quality education to undeserved communities.

Now, this AI-powered K-12 learning platform is on a mission to make world-class education freely available to all African children by making learning fun, using gamified experiences to engage school learners with their studies.

The Afrilearn App for Students provides a comprehensive library of study materials and homework help. Learners can master a subject using the class notes, video lessons, quiz materials and games on the app, earning coins, and winning rewards along the way, while parents can track their children’s progress through learning reports.

Afrilearn also provides adaptive practice for local and international exams through Exambly.com, which provides free exam practice for entrance, admission and matriculation exams across Africa.

Supporting educators is part of the process

To support educators, Afrilearn has built and refined its new AI-powered School Management Software, which is a smart platform for learning, administration, and managing school fees, reports and results.

The company collaborates with Schoolinka, a leading African teacher-training organisation, to co-create and distribute professional development resources, onboard teachers onto Afrilearn, and support schools with continuous training. This has significantly improved teacher adoption and classroom impact across the schools Afrilearn serves.

A constant evolution

The School Management Software offering was developed as part of the first cohort of the Microsoft and NVIDIA African GenAI Accelerator Programme.

The collaboration allowed Afrilearn to leverage Azure AI and cloud infrastructure to enhance automation, learning personalisation and school analytics on the platform.

The company created a rebuilt, AI-powered SMS programme during the Accelerator Programme, and plans to introduce upgrades including adaptive learning profiles, predictive analytics and automated fee management for schools, and offline-first learning flows. Teachers will soon benefit from enhanced AI tools for lesson preparation and assessments.

With Microsoft’s support, Afrilearn uses GitHub for its engineering workflow, enabling the company to release updates faster and with fewer errors.

Visual Studio Code is the team’s preferred integrated development environment, as its integration with Axure extensions, debugging tools and GitHub repository reduce friction across engineering tasks.

Collectively, these tools, alongside Azure, have improved delivery speed, strengthened reliability and enabled the team to build a more stable, scalable AI education platform. And for a distributed team working in multiple countries, Microsoft’s collaboration tools, Teams and Sharepoint, have proven invaluable for daily contact and communication.

Broadening access to education across Africa

To date, Afrilearn has reached more than 4 million learners and more than 800 schools across more than 10 countries.

More than 80% of users report achieving improved learning outcomes within a week of consistent usage, while the AI-powered personalisation improves learners’ grades by up to 52 percent within eight weeks of consistent study. Schools implementing the Afrilearn management software have saved more than 10 administrative hours per week and have boosted their fee collection by 35 to 40 percent.

The Afrilearn team has big ambitions to scale into additional countries across Africa, deepening partnerships with UNICEF and the African Union to scale their impact. In addition to Nigeria, Afrilearn serves learners in Ghana, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Gambia and the wider diaspora.

“At Afrilearn, we’re the ecosystem closing the gap between Africa’s potential and its future, where no child is left behind because of where they live or how much their parents earn. We’re especially excited about our upcoming product upgrades that make personalised learning even more accessible to children at home and in school,” says Isaac Oladipupo, CEO at Afrilearn International Limited. “Our goal is to reach 10 million learners across 12 African countries in the next 36 months. We believe that every child deserves a quality education that positions them for future success.”

Afrilearn and eight other startups worldwide developing digital solutions to improve access to digital services will receive equity-free investments in USD and/or cryptocurrency through the UNICEF Venture Fund and UNICEF CryptoFund and a year-long mentorship with UNICEF’s technical and programme experts and partners.

Nigeria currently has over 200 million population base. Of this number, 80 million (40%) can’t read or write. 120 million (60%) can’t engage beyond religion and metaphysics. 170 million (85%) can’t build or create anything meaningful.

Founded by Isaac Oladipupo and Gabriel Olatunji-Legend in 2019 to solve this problem, Afrilearn integrates genius tutors, animators, and developers to provide affordable, world-class education for young Nigerians and Africans anywhere. The Chief Growth Officer, ‘Lamide Johnson, while commenting on this said “our work at AfriLearn remains pivotal to innovation in the educational sector in Africa. We are happy to be recognised by UNICEF, and we remain committed to empowering high school students to access global learning that gives them a advantage in their respective careers”.

Widely described as the Netflix of Education for young Africans, Afrilearn offers richly animated and curriculum-relevant video lessons, class notes, practice tests, live classes, and a personalized learning dashboard that empower high/secondary school students (Ages 6-18) to study at their unique pace in and outside the classroom via Web, App, and data-free Dongle subscription services.

With this timely investment and backing from UNICEF, Afrilearn is expected to develop a world-class artificial intelligence-powered personalized recommendation model to make learning fun and immersive for young Africans, across its mobile app and web platforms.

According to UNICEF, five of nine startups in this round of investments are female-founded/co-founded, bringing the Fund’s overall female-led/founded portfolio composition to 43%. The cohort also expands the Fund’s geographic reach to Indonesia and the UAE.

Launched in 2016, The UNICEF Innovation Fund has made investments in 126 frontier technology solutions, in 68 countries, that have the potential to create a positive change for humanity.

It is also part of the success story of various successful African and global tech innovations like Imisi 3D, MomConnect, Innovation Lab China, Yuudee App and many more.

‘Lamide brings a wealth of experience in the media and education sectors to the role, having previously worked for KTN Global Alliance Africa as Country Lead, the UK-Nigeria Tech Hub as Country Director and Ventures Platform as Director of Partnerships and Engagement.

With over ten (10) years of experience, ‘Lamide has designed, developed, and implemented digital skills, entrepreneurship, investment, policy, and capacity-building programs for startups and entrepreneurs, creating solutions for Africa’s urgent problems, promoting job creation, and providing access for communities. He is a Mandela Washington Fellow and a Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Goalkeeper..

As CGO of AfriLearn, ‘Lamide will leverage his expertise to drive the company’s growth and expansion plans. He will be tasked with identifying new opportunities for growth and developing strategies to increase the company’s market share. ‘Lamide will work closely with the company’s leadership team to develop and implement new growth initiatives while building and maintaining relationships with key stakeholders in the industry.

“I am excited to join the team at AfriLearn and contribute to the company’s mission of making quality education accessible to all Africans,” said ‘Lamide Johnson. “My experience in the media and education sectors, coupled with my passion for innovation, makes this an excellent opportunity for me to drive growth and impact across the continent.”

AfriLearn has experienced rapid growth in recent years, aiming to provide affordable, accessible, and quality education to Africans through technology. The e-learning platform provides video lessons, practice tests, live classes, and a personalised learning dashboard through its app, on the web, and via data-free dongles for students aged 5 to 18 across English-speaking West Africa.

“We are thrilled to have ‘Lamide join us as our CGO,” said Isaac Oladipupo, Founder and CEO of AfriLearn. “His wealth of experience and passion for innovation will drive our growth and expansion plans as we strive to make education more accessible to all Africans.”

Our team had a brief chat with ‘Lamide Johnson.

Could you please tell us about your professional background and work prior to co-founding AfriLearn?

I started my career with the Ventures Platforms as Chief of Staff and, later, Director of Partnership and Engagement. It was a great time working with Kola Aina, finding bold startups and supporting them to build smart solutions that solved urgent problems. I later joined the UK-Nigeria Tech Hub, first as Deputy Country Director and later as Country Director.

I spent my time designing and launching digital transformation projects. It was great to see how we could leverage partnerships with international development and, more importantly, the convening of Ecosystem Support Organisations to catalyse impact at scale in the Nigerian tech ecosystem.

Once I was done here, it became clear to me that supporting a startup is much more integral to my passion, and I decided to join my friend – Isaac Oladipupo to build AfriLearn.

What inspired you to join AfriLearn, and how did it happen?

My motivation is simple – African children deserve a good education. One of the life-changing experiences of my life was enrolling in Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University, USA. It was the pivotal moment I needed to accelerate my career.

Thanks to the Mandela Washington Fellowship for making this happen. Only 67 leaders were selected as prestigious African leaders, and we were all placed in US-based universities. That number only scratches the surface of the demand for education in Africa. If more people can get a chance to better education, Africa will be a better place. Young people will have the foundation they need to get decent jobs, and they can better impact their communities. 

What is your background, and how has it prepared you for your role as Chief Growth Officer at AfriLearn?

I am skilled in designing learning management systems, learning materials, designing curriculum and learning content, and facilitating learning sessions. I am deeply rooted in the tech ecosystem, with active partnerships and networks that will catalyse growth. I have spent my time building brands from the ground up, and I bring all of these skills alongside business storytelling that will better place AfriLearn as a leading EdTech platform in Africa.

I have a Master of Business Administration, with certifications in Neuro-Linguistic Programming. All of these are very useful in my work as Chief Growth Officer.

Can you tell us more about AfriLearn’s curriculum and how it prepares students for the professional workspace?

One of the most innovative products we have built at AfriLearn is “Classnotes”, a disruptive e-learning platform that provides Complete Primary and Secondary Education content, which helped thousands of students to stay learning throughout the lockdown.

I am most fulfilled about this product because it gave young children (and teachers) access to education even during the global pandemic.

What are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced driving growth at AfriLearn, and how have you overcome them?

Our stiffest challenge is the lack of adequate infrastructure for our students. To access our platforms, you require devices, internet and, more importantly, electricity.

To combat this, we have made all our courses available offline. We have also secured partnerships with Development Finance Institutions and Ecosystem Support Organisations, who are keen to support us by providing devices and internet to our users.

We are consistently exploring different models to help us give access to the most vulnerable and marginalised communities in West Africa.

What is AfriLEarn currently building?

We are currently working on leveraging artificial intelligence and gamification to increase the interactions and completion of our e-learning courses. We have carried out immersive surveys to understand the behaviour of our users, and we would integrate AI to boost our courses, content and user experience.

What role do you see AfriLearn playing in the future of tech education in Africa, and how do you plan to position the company for long-term success?

We will become the forefront of education for young people in Africa.

What advice do you have for other EdTech startups looking to scale and achieve sustainable growth?

You have to keep building. The product makes all the difference.