African youth taking initiative

Kolawole Olajide founded Funda, an e-learning
tool with four other young graduates
Offers students short courses with
flexibility ,remote access through South African
schools
Olajide says success is due to a strong
founding team, playing to strengths
Hopes to become a major education
technology provider in Africa
Every week, African Start-Up follows
entrepreneurs in various countries across the
continent to see how they are working to make
their business dreams become reality.
- Fresh faced and full of energy, five
recent graduates sit around the conference room
table. They all hail from a different African
country, and they all have big dreams about
revamping education in their continent for a
digital era.
These are the headquarters of Funda in Cape
Town, an online training platform that's been
partnering with universities in South Africa to
provide short e-courses for users. Helped by a
single private investor, the tech education portal
is looking to harness a growing demand for online
learning by allowing students to log into classes
remotely.
"At Funda, we develop learning management
systems and provide content development
services to higher institutions to take their
courses online so that the general public can
access them at a cheaper price," says Nigerian-
born Kolawole Olajide, one of Funda's founders.
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The flexibility that comes with e-learning is just
one of the many reasons Olajide says the online
education tool has found success.
"It's responsive to the students' schedules," says
the 22-year-old entrepreneur. "But also managers
who want to do courses but are too busy to do
them can now use [Funda] and sign in when they
get back from work and access the resources
online."
Olajide came up with the concept for Funda --
which means "to learn" in Zulu -- at university
when he found he couldn't take school home. He
had hoped to start the company in his homeland
of Nigeria, but the obstacles were too great.
"It was very difficult because they were not
digitally ready," he recalls. "They did not
understand what I was trying to do. The second
problem I faced was internet penetration in the
country. I thought South Africa was more stable
so Funda had a higher chance of success there
because many people already have the Internet."
Alongside four other young entrepreneurs --
Kennedy Kitheka (Kenya), Jason Muloongo
(Zambia), Sameer Rawjee (South Africa) and
Kumbirai Gundani (Zimbabwe) -- the e-learning
portal took shape and each founder provided a
different perspective for the startup.
None are over the age of 25, yet these innovators
are simply doing what is natural to the millennial
generation -- using technology to find solutions
to problems they've experienced.
"The future of the continent lies in how educated
people are. All the major problems can be solved
with education. Education is the key to the
future.
Kolawole Olajide, co-founder of Funda, an e-
learning platform
"We bring together the problems we've seen in
different parts of Africa and we are all trying to
create together solutions to the problems we
have experienced in different parts of the
continent," says Olajide.
He adds: "I was aware of user experience because
user experience of technology in Nigeria was not
very good. One of the other partners was keen on
developing the mobile application because he said
in his area of the world, there are more mobile
users. So we are bringing together solutions made
by the problems we've faced in Africa."
Olajide explains that Funda offers a free mobile
app that can be downloaded to a user's
smartphone. Students can access the e-learning
portal via a keycode provided by the university
they are registered to.
"At the moment, [mobile] is very limited. Mobile
phones are good for getting your results,
educators checking attendance reports and all
that stuff. But the real core experience is from the
desktop machine."
Since its launch in 2009, Funda has been
recognized by several international bodies,
including the United Nations Development
Programme and the World Economic Forum. It
has also received a number of accolades,
including the "Best Tech Innovation and
Education" award at the U.N.'s World Youth
Summit in 2012 and Mazar's "Best Sustainable
Business Model" prize.
Looking ahead, Olajide has big plans for the
startup. "Our major goal is to be a major
education technology provider in Africa," he says.
"So we're just trying to strategically position
ourselves, so when Africa is ready we would also
be ready."
For the time being however, the company's main
focus is creating sustainable growth before
proceeding to roll out the platform across the
continent.
As for Olajide, the passionate Nigerian says he is
determined to keep on working to help increase
accessibility to education in the continent.
"The future of the continent lies in how educated
people are," he says." All the major problems can
be solved with education -- education is the key
to the future."