Mavis Talking Books and Edubot

Our Organization

Mavis Computel

What is the name of your solution?

Mavis Talking Books and Edubot

Provide a one-line summary of your solution.

Providing quality basic education for out-of-school children in local language with AI Chabot support for Learning Facilitators

In what city, town, or region is your solution team headquartered?

In what country is your solution team headquartered?

• Nigeria

What type of organization is your solution team?

For-profit, including B-Corp or similar models

Film your elevator pitch.

What specific problem are you solving?

According to UNICEF, Nigeria has about 20.2 million children out of school - the highest in the world. 

There is already a shortage of teachers for the in-school children with a recent report from the Universal Basic Education Board (UBEC) stating that of the 694,078 teachers needed at the primary school level across the country, only 499,202 teachers are available. Reports show that in different geopolitical regions, up to 50% (and up to 70% in other regions) of the available teachers are not qualified.

Most of these out-of-school children are in the hinterland areas where English - the language in which most education is done in Nigeria, isn't the language of their immediate environment - indicating that the teachers they need should be conversant with the language of the immediate environment of the learners, further reducing the pool of teachers that can have any sort of transformative impact on the learners. 

Though the introduction of technology is a good way to bring structured quality content to the learners, conventional education technologies available such as mobile phones and computers face their own challenges in hinterland areas when it comes to the availability of power and internet. Due to the poverty in those areas, providing such materials for the learners brings security issues as well because those devices are desirable to ordinary members of those communities. 

Concentrating these devices in the hands of the teachers alone leaves the community with the same problem that if these teachers improve themselves, they leave these hinterland areas in search of greener pastures, leaving the learners with the same problem they had at the beginning. Those who don't improve themselves are often even afraid to properly use these technologies to improve their lessons further reducing the possibility of improved learning outcomes. 

This system also makes it hard to carry along those with learning difficulties and they are often left behind as the teacher carries along at the pace of the fastest learner or at least at the average learning pace of the learners leaving those with learning disabilities behind and often times unable to participate in such interventions. 

What is your solution?

Our solution is a combination of two technologies, aimed to both foster learner-centered education and Learning Facilitator empowerment. The first technology is the Mavis Talking Books with the second being the Edu-bot - the Mavis AI-powered WhatsApp chatbot. 

The Mavis Talking Book simply consists of the Mavis Pen and the Mavis Book. Tap on the Mavis Book with the Mavis Pen and enter an interesting and interactive audio-visual world with lessons, games, and songs. With the content delivered in the language of the learner's immediate environment, assimilation is easier, and learning outcomes are greatly improved. 

The Learning Model involves in most cases, small-group learning where learners sit in groups of 3 and share one Mavis Talking Book kit. A learning facilitator can monitor a good number of these small groups, moving around to ensure that the learners are learning. 

This method also makes it very possible to group learners according to their learning capacity and level to ensure that the learners learn at their own pace and are not intimidated by the speed of other learners. A link to the  product video can be found 

To enable Learning Facilitators (who sometimes in these hinterland areas could be just respected members of the community) to know what to do when facilitating their lessons, we have introduced a WhatsApp chatbot. Ordinarily, seeing that these Learning Facilitators come from these underserved communities getting those with the quality, experience, and confidence to innovate around the ed-tech solution is very difficult. The chatbot is basically like having an experienced coach with the Learning Facilitator. They can navigate to whatever lesson they're doing with the Talking Books and receive step-by-step guides on what the objectives are and what they should do with the learners, eliminating their fear of new technology and giving them the confidence they need to facilitate their lesson. 

Who does your solution serve, and in what ways will the solution impact their lives?

Our solution serves two main categories of people: 

1. Learners in underserved communities: These children oftentimes don't have access to quality education, have limited dreams, and are easily coopted into insurgent groups, further worsening the security situation in Nigeria. Providing them access to quality education in a language they understand improves their overall wellbeing, gives them something to hope for and puts them in a better place to benefit from other interventions. The group learning model also develops their sense of community and responsibility. 
2. Learning Facilitators: These can be teachers in the area or respected members of their community. These people also use the Talking Books to improve their subject content expertise. They use the chatbot to build their confidence as they get information on how to particularly conduct their Mavis lessons. This symbiotic way of learning also fosters a good relationship between the Learning Facilitator and the learners. 

The ripple effect reaches the community coalition officers, the parents of the children and the community as a whole.

How are you and your team well-positioned to deliver this solution?

Our team consists of professionals and experts in Technology and innovation, strategy, teaching, and Basic Education, as well as psychology and behavioral insight into the learning patterns of children and learning facilitators. We are also situated in the North where most of the out of school learners stay. Our headquarters is in Abuja, the Federal Capital of Nigeria and so is easy to interface with the Headquarters of most of the organizations that we deal with. 

Our team lead is also the Engineer in charge of building out the Mavis Talking Books and the Mavis Chatbot. He has also been to all the areas where the Talking Books are being used, training the Learning Facilitators, interfacing with the local and international Organizations, meeting with the stakeholders, and most importantly, interfacing with the children and understanding their learning patterns. 

We continue to modify our solutions based on what we see on the field and the fact that the products were developed in-house means that making changes and additions to the product based on what is required in the field, developing new languages, and partnering with other Technology Innovations to make learning easier for the learners is very possible.  

Which dimension of the Challenge does your solution most closely address?

Which of the UN Sustainable Development Goals does your solution address?

• 4. Quality Education
• 5. Gender Equality
• 10. Reduced Inequalities

What is your solution’s stage of development?

Please share details about why you selected the stage above.

So far we have built out the Mavis Talking Books for literacy and Numeracy for Basic Education in English, Hausa, and Kanuri Language. We have served about 14,090 learners with the Mavis Talking Books and up to 283 Learning Facilitators with the Mavis Talking Books technology. 

We have worked with International Organizations such as the FCDO (DFID as at the time of implementation), International Rescue Committee (IRC), the US Embassy Abuja, and local organizations such as AreaI Africa, Teach the Child and other organizations in the country. These are the organizations that have sponsored the use of the Mavis Talking Books to different underserved communities from low cost primary schools in Lagos, to government schools in Abuja all the way to out-of-school children in Borno State and IDP camps in Abuja, Adamawa and other areas around Nigeria. 

We have also worked with organizations that work with special needs children mainly because of the fact that the audio visual nature of the Mavis Talking Books makes it easy for the children with learning disabilities to use repeatedly until it sticks with them. 

We have done multiyear interventions with some of these organizations, scaling up and expanding the project at each stage. One of such examples is our current work with the International Rescue Committee which is currently in its third phase  providing learning to out-of-school children in Borno state Nigeria. 

1. In the first phase, they did a feasibility and desirability study where it was seen that the learners and the Learning Facilitators found the Talking Books very helpful. We found increased attendance from the learners and an eagerness to learn. 
2. In the second phase, they did an implementation study to assess if there are actual improvements in learning outcomes for the learners. This second phase was also very successful and we can share the reports with you on request. Other research especially optimal sharing ratios for the learners were tested.
3. We are currently in the third phase where we are evaluating the effectiveness for scaleup. Things from the implementation research that would further help the Learning Facilitators with their lessons have been implemented. One of these is the Mavis Chatbot. So far the implementation has been amazing and the reviews from the Learning Facilitators show that it has greatly improved their ability to facilitate the Mavis lessons. 

Why are you applying to Solve?

There are several hurdles that we currently face and we feel strongly that Solve will be in the best place to help us navigate this terrain: 

1. Though we are a for-profit company, we deal with two main market targets: the NGOs, governments, and organizations that support out-of-school children that can't purchase the Mavis Talking Books themselves and are in dire need of education support and then there's the other side where we have regular parents buying the Talking Books for their children for after school support or even homeschooling. Knowing how to position ourselves is usually a struggle and we feel that Solve can help us put some clarification to this.
2. Most of our interventions are with Local and International agencies running their education programs and we come in to support their initiatives with our own programs. As a result, we are sometimes limited to the scope of what they want us to do and the roles they want us to play. Gathering our own evidence from our own fully funded program will help us get the required data and set relevant templates for implementing our programs with other organizations and governments. 
3. We've recorded more success with International and Local organizations. However, we know that for scaleup, we would need to further engage the governments to have their buy-in and support and this is something we haven't been able to do as well as we would love to. We believe that Solve's involvement, support, and training will give us more insight as to how we can approach this. 
4. We intend to go beyond Nigeria into other African countries. Adapting our solution to fit their requirements and the issues of international businesses is something we haven't cracked yet. With Solve's involvement, we feel we will get the required experience that will give us a head start in making this happen. 

In which of the following areas do you most need partners or support?

• Business Model (e.g. product-market fit, strategy & development)
• Financial (e.g. accounting practices, pitching to investors)
• Monitoring & Evaluation (e.g. collecting/using data, measuring impact)

Who is the Team Lead for your solution?

Chiemezie Ucheaga