On Powering Education with Technology - A Conversation with Ismail Eleburuike

Episode Transcript

Claire  00:14

Hello and welcome to a new episode of Narratives of Purpose. My name is Claire Murigande. I am a scientist by training, a TEDx speaker and your host on this show. This podcast is dedicated to amplifying social impact by bringing you inspiring individual stories of ordinary people who are making extraordinary impact within their communities and around the world. If you're looking for a programme that showcases unique stories of changemakers, stories of people who are contributing to make a difference in society, and at the same time, you want to be inspired to take action, then look no further, you are in the right place. So get comfortable, and listen to my conversations.

 

Claire  01:02

On this week's episode, I continue to discuss education with my new guest  Ismail Eleburuike.  Ismail is based in Sweden, he is the founder of School Try, the leading provider of efficient education application technology in various African countries. In this conversation Ismail shares with me his vision to power education with unified technology, and how his company is helping educators and students to realise their potential. Please take a moment to rate and review our show wherever you listen to your podcasts. And for now, listen to Ismail's journey and his mission to bring innovation to education.

 

Claire  01:48

So welcome to the podcast Ismail, how are you today?

 

Ismail  01:51

Thank you, Claire. I'm fine. It's my pleasure to be on your podcast today.

 

Claire  01:57

The pleasure is all mine. Actually, I'm really happy to have this conversation with you because I'm really looking forward to learning more about School Try - you are the founder of School Try. But before we go into the specifics about School Try what is it exactly and what you do? Why don't you introduce yourself to our listeners and tell us a bit more about who Ismail is and what is your background?

 

Ismail  02:19

I originally come from Nigeria, in the West Africa region. When I was young, my father used to be a businessman. And he travelled to Belgium, bought computers and shipped them, then bought cars, and then put computers inside those cars and then brought them to Africa. So I took one of the computers and I got introduced to programming at an early age. And I love computers so much and coupled with the fact that my father is a businessman. So you know, I got introduced to business. And also I love technology in the beginning. I did my university degrees in electrical engineering and telecommunication. So then I decided to come to Stockholm in 2008 to further my education in telecommunication. Then I said "well, let me go for some education in management and leadership". So I had project management and leadership training in MSC as well. And then I joined Ericsson, as a software developer, I was Googling discovered, I was put in some exciting projects. I was part of the team that deployed the first version of 4G network from the research and development department. And I was given an award for being in that part of the team and also taking a very key role in that team. After that period, I was given some ability to lead in agile management. So I did that for three years, I was working in development, testing and research and development. I was also part of a team that started 5G network, then I moved into cloud computing within the same directory while in a different organisation. So I was part of the team that also participated in the Ericsson Cloud transformation. In total, I worked in Ericsson for seven years. And I got an offer from a British Firm to manage four countries in the Nordics. I mean deploying delivers faster cloud infrastructure, and so on. So I was hired. And then after a couple of months, an American company bought that company. And I was also given that particular role to manage the four countries in the Nordics deploying services globally. That gives me a lot of exposure. I got into meeting clients, I developed my sales and marketing skills that actually transformed me a lot. Then I started to wonder... and I always love to combine technology and leadership, and also impact society. Then I started thinking, I mean, I've been learning a lot of things from a long period of time, from technology to business or marketing to sales. And I started to think, "what else can I do?" I think it's time for me to start looking back to my roots. And that's why as we started thinking about ideas, what can we do to solve the African problems, we started building some of the platforms in FinTech, we got stock due to regulations. And then I talked about education. "Why can't I focus on education, I don't need anyone, for me to be able to service the education industry, in terms of digitalization and transformation." And then we came about School Try, which is a platform that connects, in real time, the school, teachers, the parent and the student on a unified platform to be able to have accessibility and conduct all their daily day to day activities digitally. So ranging from attendance, ranging from elearning, virtual classrooms, everything that has been done in the classroom, can be done on the School Try platform, they can operate on this School Try platform, while offline, where they are physically present. They could also use the School Try platform outside the school to be able to connect with all the school stakeholders and give assignments to students, teachers can grade students, and the parent comes up with accessibility to everything that has been done to their works in the school. That's been so exciting. We started that journey about three years ago, we launched the first MVP 2019. And then we started deploying to schools in Africa, we started with Nigeria, we went into Ghana, we are now in South Africa, with some partners trying to deploy it there. We are also in Malawi, now training some of the potential partners to deploy the School Try platform. In total, we have close to 400 schools on the platform, and more than 50,000 users on the platform today. So for me, it's all about impact. We've seen that educational transformation in terms of digital platforms is very vital for the development of Africa and the society at large. So I believe that School Try plays a very key role in this digital transformation. And we've gotten a lot of feedback from society. And they are so pleased with the platform, based on the impact it had to the students, to the teachers, and to the school administrators at large.

 

Claire  07:30

Tell me a bit more about your team. Who are you working with? Where are they based? And how do you collaborate all together?

 

Ismail  07:35

When I started the innovation, it started with me. Then when I needed to write the architecture, I had to take some of the Indians, firstly, to the first six months or so to make the MVP. And at some point when we see that we need local support. Then we started to hire newly graduated university students in Nigeria, who are very good in programming - they have programming backgrounds, so we could coach them to be able to live up to our expectations. So we hired these developers in Nigeria. Then I also had my CTO, Chief Technology Officer is also in India, but based in London. So he did his education in London. And it works in London as well. So I pitched the idea to him. And I gave him some equity in the business. And he joined the team as Chief Technology Officer. So we have the Chief Technology Officer in London, we have email developers in Nigeria and Abuja. And then we have customer support in Abuja, and Lagos, Nigeria. And also we have them in Ghana, as well. And because of the COVID era, all the support to the school has been done on Zoom. So you see my team in Nigeria, again, supporting other areas of division without leaving their premises. Another exciting thing I would like to tell you about the team, it is that we got there from nothing. They basically just knew the basics. So that's also one of the impacts that we as individuals at School Try we've made on people in Africa, that we are able to bring out the potential in them. I will tell you a story of my product manager today. The first day, he told me that he wants to work with us. I wanted to share the screen with him to show him the School Try looks. And I told him, "can you see my screen?" And the guy told me "How can I see your screen? I mean, what are you talking about?" So I said, "Just look at your screen, you will see my screen is being shared." he said "Yeah! I can see your screen. Wow!" You can imagine this guy knows nothing about technology. But I can tell you today based on the coaching, the mentoring, and development and training we have given to him now as the product manager of School Try. Managing all the customer requirements, managing the development team ensuring the quality assurance of the product. And we also have some of our financial guys in Stockholm, have two angel investors in Stockholm here in Sweden. And we also take people from all over the world to give training to our team in Africa, I'm pretty sure we invite you one day to give some talks to our team in Africa.

 

Claire  10:20

That would be great, absolutely honoured to do that. And one thing I just wanted to mention as well, for our listeners, for those who are probably not used to this abbreviation, so you already mentioned MVP a couple of times its minimum viable product, correct? And was also wondering, what is your outlook at this point, right? You have partners in South Africa, or at least you're working with partners in South Africa? Are you looking at other specific countries? Is there anything you can share at this point?

 

Ismail  10:45

Our vision is very clear. We want to transform education in Africa. And we want to be the leading edtech to provide that solution and deploy to the entire continent of Africa in the next three to five years. That's our vision.

 

Claire  10:59

Now, going a bit more into detail. I'm sure that maybe some listeners are wondering what exactly is School Try. So walk us a bit through that, how do you go about that challenge of access to internet? And perhaps if you can tell a bit more of what it is exactly you offer for these different schools?

 

Ismail  11:15

So the internet is growing very fast in Africa. And I can tell you, we have presence in every nook and cranny of Africa, using School Try today, even in the northern parts of Nigeria, in the villages, people are connecting with School Try. Aside from that, going off the internet, which I also believe, of course, is a challenge. If you look at Sweden, we have 99% internet penetration. Africa doesn't have a 99% Definitely. But it is growing very rapid, very fast. On the other hand, the way we are built to try is to make use of a very low data usage, because of the African environment. And we also provide some ability for the users to prepare materials offline, whenever they have an online network or they are online, then they can upload those materials like lesson notes, like assignments, download it, when you have internet, then they do the assignment offline. And then they put it online when they're on the internet, the same thing goes to grading. When you have 70 students in the class, all you need to do is download the Excel file of all the 70 students, go back offline, and record their grades. And then whenever you're online, then you upload the results and automatically upload them on the system. And the student can check on their mobile app, they can see the results anytime they're online. And parents can also see the results in real time. We know that it's not 100%, or we don't have full coverage today. But it is very, very promising. I mean, the rate at which the internet is increasing on a daily basis. And the way we are also thinking is we're thinking of 10 years, 20 years time down the line. So we believe by the time we have full coverage, School Try is already ready to solve all the problems, we are even moving ahead like talking about artificial intelligence, blockchain. We're talking about different kinds of solutions that can enhance even better education much more better.

 

Claire  13:15

You said before that you've had some feedback from society. So tell me a bit more about that.

 

Ismail  13:20

We just developed it without talking to the customer. Then we went to the market and the market says "no, you have all these features, but it doesn't solve our problems. It doesn't, we can't use it." So they signed up, they saw the beautiful interface of School Try, they signed up and they signed out. And then we started gathering feedback from them. Especially in the grading part. Because we have in Africa, some people use American Standard, some people use British Standard, some people will use a blended standard, like African/British. So it becomes very difficult and challenging for the development team to see how we can solve all these problems on our platform? Over a period of time, after getting all this feedback, we went back to the drawing table, tried to look at the problems, and tried to understand what they needed. And then we prioritised them, implementing them and then rolling it out for them. So I can tell you to date: Last year 2021, I did not get a single call from any clients. That's why we could use it in any African country, right? No matter any kind of standard - British Standard or American Standard, or is it blended, our platform takes care of it. We made a complete dynamic and flexible system. You configure the system the way you want it to be, and then it solves your problems for you. So if you have American standard grading, you just need to go to the system, configure it yourself, and then it gives you the output that you want. So we put all the requirements into the platform, and then we solved their problems for them. 99% of our customers are very, very happy today. And then They will not have a reduction trend in the feedback concerning those kinds of complaints. Now, what we are getting from the clients now is much more than the features. Because we signed a partnership agreement with the National Association of Proprietors of Private Schools in Nigeria, they have close to 80,000 schools in this association. And School Try was made to present I mean, among other vendors, and we are selected to be the best company that can partner with them to solve their problems. So now after they have been using our platform for the schools, now they want us to develop to transform their association more and to digitise our environment, they do a lot of this manually, like they do unified examination with all your decision for the 40,000 schools, 80,000 schools, everybody has to submit a paper, send money, and then they now need to send exam paper to the to the location of the school today, we got a request from them to help them digitalize the entire process which we have done, then we are also getting some feedback like can you build content for us, we are not a content company. But due to this association, now we are looking at how we can build content using their resources for themselves to build content for them. This is not very easy, because it's very resource intensive. And we are also looking for investment as I speak so that we can support this mission to the highest level. You talk about internet devices, many schools don't have computer devices, we are looking at how can we partner with many of these companies like Apple, like Microsoft, Ericsson, in the developed country, whereby they can use laptops from all these companies, can't we just refurbish it, and send it to Africa for the schools to use? We are looking for this kind of partnership, how we can get these devices, get funding and see how we can, you know, even develop our mission to the next level. There's a lot of challenges. But like I said, we've seen from the beginning, how we have progressed right now, and the customer feedback has actually reduced, we now see more demand on the future, on more penetration of the platform to even the villages, I told people, when I present School Try have not only building School Try for the elite schools, I want to build this platform for the entire education system, from the low level, to the medium level, to the highest level of education and they will get the same benefits.

 

Ismail  15:46

Do you envision that you might be able to influence as well, the way education is provided in terms of content?

 

Ismail  17:49

If you look at the contents, they are asking for it. But we know that it is very resource intensive, you need to have the subject matter aspect in every subject area to produce that content, there will be a lot of iterations in that content before there will be, you know, finally put in the platform. School Try is built in such a way that if we have the right resources, and the right collaborations, we can actually just add access content, you have all the menus, because we build that platform, meaning that if you want to add content to it, it will just be managed content. And from the top layer of the education, you can actually put contents there. And all the teachers will have that content within one second. Because we already provide a platform technology that accommodates this content. So we just need to put the content on the platform.

 

Claire  18:46

So it basically won't be an issue for you to provide the content per se. It's more of a question of finding the right partners who are subject matter experts to make sure that that content that is available is put together, right?

 

Ismail  19:00

We have the technology platform already that can serve that purpose. We are just engineers, right? We need the subject matter, which we can also plan. We can have a department in our company that produces that.

 

Claire  19:14

And in terms of parents and students, do you have any feedback or which impact that has had for them?

 

Ismail  19:20

I can quote one of the parents that I have, yeah, so "it's a wonderful app now. I underrated them because I could not access my target or anymore. Well, now the system experts have upgraded the hub. And I can now view every icon I want kudos to the School Try app team." One of the parents also said "this is really a good app that gives me the opportunity as a parent to easily track attendance and performance of my child in the school. I love the fact that I can also easily interact with the school teachers and whenever there's an emergency situation about my child, especially when it comes to security nowadays." So we've gotten a lot of positive feedback from the parents, from the students. And definitely there's also a challenge that not all parents have accessibility to mobile devices where they can download mobile apps and have access to these things. So what we did in those things is that we also offer SMS. So they could send SMS from the platform to those people they could see, oh, you can send SMS and they will see it in the school, on the platform, to circulate information to the parent. One of the things we've got from our users is "how come new School Try? I opened in the last six months, when I opened in this month, again, it's like a differential entirely. Like, it makes my life much easier." Because we are developing everyday, we are innovating, we are thinking ahead. Like I said, we want to think like 10 years down the line, 20 years down the line, because the next generation of parents, they're actually under the age of 20 today. So we could say that the parents of today are 40/50. But the next generation of parents, they had a computer age parent, so they could not even live with anything other than technology. So we are basically very ready for the next generation, I can tell you this.

 

Claire  21:17

We are almost at the end of the conversation, and what I like to do during these episodes with all my guests is I ask the same set of three short questions, just to get a little bit of a sneak preview into what kind of books you're reading, or what type of music that you listen to. And my first question is the following. Do you have a specific song that you're listening to on repeat, I would say these days or if you're not very much of a music listener, what book are you reading at this time?

 

Ismail  21:46

If I start with music, I like to cool off my mind a lot with Akon, for instance. And there's also this lady called Asha, She's based in France. And she's also from Nigeria, she talks a lot about the culture of Africa. And also, if you look at Akon, it is a mixture of both culture and also the modern ways of thinking. And in terms of the books that I read. There's a book I normally read, which is Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill. And we also have this Millionaire Success Habits by Dean Graziosi. Apart from books, what I do most of my time nowadays is listen to a lot of motivational talks, by Steve Jobs, and also Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos. I watch all their stories of how they developed and how they transformed from zero to billions of dollars. So for me nowadays, because of so many things I do, I don't usually have a lot of time to sit and read on paper. But while I'm doing some things I'm listening to motivational talks, I do a lot of multitasking like watching these people when they talk which is more or less like fluidic. Sometimes I listen to your podcasts. They're very interesting

 

Claire  23:13

My second question is, do you have a specific book, perhaps in the past now, or piece of music that was important for you at some time in your life?

 

Ismail  23:23

I mean, this, Rich Dad, Poor Dad, I don't know if you know Robert Kayosaki. And the way it talks about his dad is a professor and is a 'poor day'. And the other is just like high school graduates and is a rich guy. And the way the rich dad thinks and the way his poor dad thinks they are completely different. So I read that book, actually. And it's really transformed the way I think.

 

Claire  23:50

And then last question, is there anything you would recommend in terms of reading music for our listeners, something that you say people have to read, or people have to listen to?

 

Ismail  23:59

In terms of music, I mean, like I said, a lot of the music of these two people I mentioned, because they talk about African cultural heritage. And for me, that's where I come from. That gives me the ability to reflect on what has happened in the past, and how can we help this society to be transformed and also meet up with the Western world? They always say that there's a saying, "there's wisdom in music," because when you pay attention to the recordings, it also teaches love. So for me, it creates unity. So it's really good to listen to that music that actually talks about unity by love. Because we need to love ourselves if we want to transform this life.

 

Claire  24:45

It's been really a great pleasure for me to speak with you today to learn more about School Try and the more you explain to me how your approach is and what I see the impact you've had so far, and where you're looking to in the future. I'm really confident that you can only be even more successful. So thank you so much for joining me today and for sharing your journey and for talking about School Try, is there one last message you would like to share to our listeners?

 

Ismail  25:10

Well, I would say that in life, one should never think about oneself alone. When you succeed, try to see how you can impact on all the millions of people that need to succeed as well. You try to bring other millions of people to be successful. And to do that, it comes with patience, perseverance, and loving each other. Just start something, then be patient about it, and then be persistent and never give up. If you don't give up, then I think the sky is just the beginning. And the same thing, I'm preaching to the audience now, I'm pushing it to myself, actually. Because it's very, very challenging to transform millions of people based on what level you have been transformed to. It's not an easy task. It takes a lot of energy. But be passionate about it. Don't give up, be patient and persevere. And the results will eventually happen.

 

Claire  26:10

I like that. I love it. Be passionate, patient and persevere. So thank you so much for sharing your journey. And I'm sure that even our listeners, some people will find a way to impact other millions as they have been successful as you just shared with us.

 

Ismail  26:25

Thank you. I really appreciate your time as well. Thank you so much for bringing me to your podcast. And I look forward to engaging with you even more in the future.

 

Claire  26:40

An innovative app changing the education system, one school at a time, while transforming the lives of students, teachers and parents. That is truly visionary. Check out School Try and their website at schooltry.com Thank you so much for tuning in today. I appreciate you taking the time. That was episode 31 A Conversation with Ismail Ismail Eleburuike. Make sure you leave us a review everywhere you listen to podcasts. And if you like what you're hearing, remember to share our show within your network. And also you can connect with us through our social handles or our website at narratives-of-purpose.podcast page.io Until the next episode, take care of yourself, stay well and stay inspired.