Inside the Hausa edtech platform bridging the language divide for Africans

Flowdiary is an e-learning platform that offers various digital skill courses in the Hausa language for free or at a very low cost. Flowdiary has more than 8,000 students enrolled across the country, training them in web development, graphic design and other digital skills that help them further their education and secure internships that help them advance their career opportunities.

Bloom Innovations or Bloom4STEM aims to inspire youth — particularly girls aged six to 15 — to pursue STEM education and careers to combat the shortage of female tech professionals in the area. Bloom4STEM visits local schools to introduce coding to students and teach them about web development, robotics and mobile app creation and also hosts mentoring sessions to help foster collaboration and personal and educational growth.

An Irish-based company, ALISON, provides free, high-quality e-courses to people around the globe in order to help close the gap between education and workplace skills. Particularly focused on providing access to areas where more traditional forms of education and job training are difficult to get, this approach is helping to change lives and the economy for the better.

As demand for career and technical education grows among high schoolers looking for alternatives to costly college degrees, companies like Stride Inc. have expanded online career training programs across the country, offering virtual career academies, hands-on practice kits, job shadowing, and live instruction in career tracks ranging from business to agriculture.

Before DOGE cut the program’s funding, Charting My Path for Future Success was helping students with disabilities learn ways to successfully transition from high school to college or the working world with greater self-sufficiency. Before it was canceled, 1,600 high school juniors enrolled in the program, learning how to set goals, take care of themselves and build their confidence and self-determination skills.

A partnership between Essex Tech North Shore Agricultural & Technical High School, and Local 22 trade union members is teaching students union norms and trade skills early in their career, connecting them to apprenticeships and greater career opportunities. Other states, including Maryland and Louisiana, have similar programs and students report feeling a greater sense of job security and that they can command higher pay from employers due to the expertise gained from the program.

The Surge Project and EmpowerED Birmingham uplift local youth by providing mentorships, tutoring, healthcare resources, workforce development programs and educational opportunities in various fields. In the program's 2023 pilot partnership with the National Training Institute for Healthcare technicians, 32 of the 40 participants graduated with a phlebotomy or EKG certification, and 19 of them were local high school students.

The Union Public School District is making efforts to encourage and support more students from underrepresented backgrounds to take advanced math courses. Instead of sticking with the traditional one-time placement test that determines a student’s math trajectory from sixth grade onward, Union schools offer in-school tutoring and longer class periods to support students who show promise in advanced math.

Mat-Su Central is a hybrid homeschool that provides a flexible, personalized learning environment for both students and their families. Each student receives an individual learning plan that takes the student’s strengths and weaknesses into account, while still ensuring they’re meeting course requirements for graduation. As a result of the pandemic and increased rates of bullying and anxiety among students, enrollment in this hybrid homeschool option has quadrupled over the past 20 years.

Since starting up in Nigeria in 2018, the Kayode Alabi Leadership and Career Initiative, has reached about 6400 rural teenagers through their Skill2Rural bootcamp project. The multi-day bootcamp rotates between a selected school, internally displaced persons camp, or a community center. Participants have co-created about 70 prototypes to minimize issues related to poverty and unemployment within their communities.