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AfroTalez: traditional folk stories come alive through ICT

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Elizabeth Kperrun is the winner of the “ICT for Children” Grant, a special recognition offered by Fondazione Mission Bambini within the framework of “ICT for Social Good” Grant. The Grant was created to reward the project that better represents the usage of innovation for childhood. Elizabeth is the co-founder of Lizzie’s Creations, an initiative that aims to revive the African traditional culture and storytelling through digital tools. She creates fun educational mobile apps that teach kids using Africa’s native languages.

By Viviana Brun

 

Researchers have shown that many children in Africa do not speak their country’s lingua franca (typically English, French, Portuguese or Arabic) as a first language. However, these same children are expected to learn in these languages. This creates a unique problem, making the assimilation of what is being taught harder and generally extends the learning time. According to the UNESCO,  the best way to educate children is through their mother tongue. Fluency and literacy in the native language lay a cognitive and linguistic foundation for learning additional languages. Some people argue that producing learning materials in a variety of African languages is too costly in economic terms. Elizabeth and her team tried to face this issue, creating a suite of mobile applications which educate African children using their native languages.

Elizabeth noticed that there is a lack of culturally relevant educational material for African kids on the popular app stores. So, she started creating quality content that allows kids learning in their native languages, which has been proven to speed up their understanding. The direct beneficiaries are the children aged 1-10 who directly use the apps and learn the basics (Numbers, Letters, Object recognition) as well as important cultural values.

AfroTalez 

Afrotalez

“Folk stories were a great part of my childhood. Apart from the obvious entertainment factor, I learnt a lot of life lessons and morals from folk stories and I do not think they are a culture that should be forgotten”, said Elizabeth. Afro Talez is an application that narrates traditional African folk stories, teaches morals and life lessons to children aged from 2 to 10 years old. It’s an app structured in episodes, the first story is already available and it’s titled “The Tortoise, Elephant and the Hippopotamus”. This story extols the intelligence of folk hero ‘Mr. Tortoise’, who usually faces and overcomes challenges in new and unexpected ways. If you are wondering about the advantages of going digital, in the app you will find some features as interactive games on standard classroom lessons such as counting, object recognition and more. Download the app and start exploring Lizzie’s Creations world.

Teseem, first words

Tesem

Teseem-First Words is the second app series developed by Lizzie’s Creations. This app teaches kids their first words in English as well as in some major African and Nigerian languages, including Hausa, Swahili, Igbo and Yoruba, by using locally relevant scenes and objects children are familiar with. For example, they could learn words related to colours, numbers, body parts and more just touching the screen and interacting with the nice animation.

A freemium business plan

The two apps are monetized using in-app purchases. Users can download the app and use it for free, but there is certain content that is available for a small fee or via rewarded video ads that allow users to unlock the premium content for a few hours by viewing a targeted relevant video.

 

Go to Elizabeth interview.

 

Photocredits: Lizzie’s Creations

 

Meet Henri Nyakarundi, the winner of the “ICT for Social Good” Grant

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Henri Nyakarundi is the CEO/Founder of Ared company and the winner of the “ICT for Social Good” Grant, organised by Ong2.0 within the Innovation for Development Programme. In Rwanda, Nyakarundi developed Shiriki Hub, a mobile solar kiosk, which offers customers a convenient low-cost solution to charge their phones, to browse the web and to have free offline access to digital content such as news and information on health and education. The Scientific Committee of the Grant evaluated Nyakarundi’s project as the best one among the 233 applications received.

We asked him some questions to get to know him better and here is what we discovered.

By Viviana Brun

 

Let’s start from the very beginning, where are you from and what’s your family and education background?

I was born in Kenya but grew up in Burundi but we were refugees from Rwanda. When I graduated high school in 1996, my parents decided to send me and my sister to the USA to continue our studies because the region was unstable. Burundi was at war and Rwanda was recovering from a genocide. We got our Rwandan citizenship in 1995.

 

What did you study and where?

I did my high school at Ecole Française de Bujumbura and my university at Georgia State University in Computer Science. I graduated in 2003

 

Who had the biggest impact on your career?

My mother. My mother was the backbone of our family, she put us through college, had a full-time job and running businesses on the side to pay our tuition. Even though we were refugees in Burundi, we were able to get the best education, her work ethics and discipline was unmatched. She owns her home in a time where it was difficult for women to own properties. Every time I am down, or want to give up I just remind myself of the struggle she went through and I quickly move forward.

 

Why did you decide to turn back to Africa and why did you choose Rwanda as the country to live in?

In 2009, I started coming back to Africa on a regular basis, and I started seeing how the narrative of the continent was changing. Innovation was booming. In the US, I had reached a plateau and iI did not feel that I can have any positive impact there. Because Africa was and is facing so many challenges, I knew this is where I can best apply some of my skill set.
Rwanda had changed dramatically, it was easier to start a business, today you can register a business in 4 hours, they have good infrastructure, great place to pilot new technology and of course the fact that I was Rwandan also motivated me more to start there.

 

I read somewhere that you are “an entrepreneur at heart”, is this true and what does this mean for you?

It means at least to me, I was born to be an entrepreneur. I started my first business when I was 20, and I fell in love with it even those it took me 10 years to build my first successful business. I almost quitted school to pursue it full time even then but my mother let just say deter me from quitting. I love solving problems and I believe that is what an entrepreneur is all about.

 

How do you create Shiriki Hub? Where the idea comes from?

Initially, Shiriki Hub was supposed to be a simple charging kiosk. The idea came from my travel in Burundi and Rwanda and seeing people having their phones but always looking for a place to charge them. I was not planning to build my own product. In the beginning, I was looking for an existing product but could not find one. I was seeing charging solutions at the airport, and I thought it would be great to have that on the streets of Africa to help people. That is when it all started. I hired a designer and an engineer and then the journey started.

 

What is the biggest challenge when, as you said on Ared website, you do business at the “base of the pyramid”?

First, people mindset, bring innovative solutions and innovative business model it takes time for people to understand and adopt it, so you have to spend a lot of time educating the people.
Second, building a technology suitable for the terrain of rural and semi-urban Africa is extremely hard.
Finally, building a sustainable business at the base of the pyramid is extremely hard.

 

What’s the aspect of your job that keeps you awake at night?

Running out of money before we can scale, finish our technology and build a sustainable business. This is hard and it requires strong financial backing for us to be successful.

 

What is the best professional advice you’ve ever received?

Never give up no matter what, there is always a solution to a problem.

 

What role that ICT could play in strengthening the local development and the business ecosystem in Africa?

I believe ICT is the key that will bridge the information gap that exists with low-income people. Access to information is key to improve someone’s livelihood. However, it is still considered a luxury in a lot of communities. As we are facing global warming, and Africa will be most affected continent, accessing key information to minimize the effect of global warming will be a matter of life and death in the future.
Also ICT has open the door to a new generation of entrepreneurs, all you need now is human capital and an internet connection to build an app. I believe ICT has opened the door to a new set of creative mind and has given hope to a whole new generation of young Africans.

 

How can Shriki Hub be considered an inclusive business?

Shiriki Hub is specifically targeting low-income people, especially women and people with disabilities that have no other opportunities to make a living. We also focus on refugees that are, a lot of time, not included in any economic opportunities of the countries they live in. A lot of people are willing to work, want to work but because they do not have a college degree or come from poor families they lack option and this is why Ared was developed.

 

What’s the price for a phone charge? And for browsing the Internet?

In Rwanda is 10 cent, the internet is sold in increments of 5, 10, 30, 60 minutes and it is free for the 5 and 10. They pay 30 cent for 30 minutes and 50 cents for 60 minutes.

 

In terms of revenues, what is the core business of Shiriki Hub?

We have 3 revenue streams.
1. We share revenue with our micro franchisees on the sales of digital services like airtime, internet, gov services etc….
2. We offer advert on wifi network and we also can do survey or campaign for our clients and corporate partners or NGO’s
3. Finally, we starting to collect a lot of data, and we working on adding IOT technology then find buyers to some of the data we plan to collect like CO2 levels etc…

 

What is the average net revenue per month that Shiriki Hub provides to kiosk operators?

Micro franchisees generate on average 100$ a month on all services they provide on the kiosk. The goal is to add more services to increase both or our revenue.

 

What is the relationship between kiosk operators and Ared company during all the business phases?

We are partners, therefore we work closely together. The reason why we pick a micro-franchise model is that it’s a win-win situation. We provide the training, support and maintenance and the micro franchisees takes care of the end users. This is the key to being sure that the whole value chain is fluid enough so issues can be addressed quickly.

 

Where the kiosk components are made and why?

Battery and panels come from China, the wheel from Australia, the router system from the USA and the frame is made locally.

 

Is the government supporting somehow the social entrepreneurs in Rwanda? What could it be done better?

Not yet, we need tax law to better support social entrepreneurs by offering a tax credit, for example, NGOs are exempt from taxes, but because we are for profit we are taxed like a traditional business even those our focus in social impact first. We need our own tax categories, we need better access to funding, grants for R&D, we need an easier way to work with local government so we can reach to more communities on the ground. The government need to facilitate partnership so we can work together and speed up the impact. One of the biggest challenges in Rwanda, is that urbanization has banned a lot of the street vendor business and people are not given alternatives. The bottom line is we fighting the same fight, better the lives of people, if we do not work together we might fail on the fight against poverty.

 

How many kiosks are now operative and in which countries?

We have 25 solar kiosks in Rwanda, we just launch in Uganda in May, we just received most of our licensing so we plan to start our pilot project in November with 5 kiosks.

 

What is your message to social entrepreneurs?

If you do not have the passion to help others and solve huge problems do not become a social entrepreneur because it is harder than traditional business. Patience and extreme focus is the key.

 

What are your plans for the future?

Expansion, expansion, expansion. More than 400 million people live in poverty in Africa, so the need of solutions like ARED is in high demand, We want to be in 20 countries in the next 10 years, implement around 100000 solar kiosks. But first we need to finish our product development, we working on adding IOT technology on the kiosk to better monitor the kiosk on the ground and collect additional data.

 

Discover more details about the project

Photocredits: Ared

 

ICT for Social Good: 233 innovative projects from the world

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233 innovative projects from 57 countries all over the world, this is the positive outcome of the first edition of ICT for Social Good, the Grant organised by ONG2.0 – within the Programme “Innovation for Development” promoted by Fondazione Cariplo and Compagnia di San Paolo – in collaboration with Fondazione Mission Bambini, to sustain and support innovative ideas created with a bottom-up approach in low-income countries.

by Viviana Brun

 

An education app in the local language for spreading African culture and history while supporting children in learning.
A mobile health system to inform and share basic medical information via SMS.
Smartphones as a tool to connect and inform farmers about market trends and cultivation methods for improving and increasing the agri-production.
Hot-spots installed in rural areas to let people access information through the Internet or via preloaded content.
ICTs as a way to manage the medicine supply in health centres.
A YouTube channel as a tool to raise awareness about the risks and the modalities of international trafficking in human beings.

These are only a few examples of the 233 innovative projects we received from 57 countries all over the world. At a first glance, candidates demonstrated a high level of competence and creativity in the use of ICT for local development.

Mapping innovative projects

In order to allow everybody to explore and compare the different projects, we collected on this map all the local innovators who applied for the Grant. By clicking on each waypoint you have access to some basic information. The map is designed to be implemented and to host more and more information over the time.

Stories of social innovation

All the applications we received show an interesting cosmos of stories of social innovation: innovative projects, created with a bottom-up approach and able of generating a positive social impact at the community level. These initiatives represent a precious material for raising awareness in the world of international cooperation, paving the way for a new approach to local development. Indeed, all these projects show how important is to have a critical and propositive approach to ICT4D and to give value to local talents and professionalisms engaged for social change.

In the coming months, we have planned to tell the stories of the protagonists of ICT for Social Good Grant from their personal point of view. We will collect all these interviews in a special section on the website of Ong2.0.

Next steps

The first session of the selection process has already started. A jury of experts (selected among the actors involved in the “Innovazione per lo Sviluppo” Programme) is currently working to verify, one by one, that all the applications are eligible and congruent with the Grant statements. The candidates considered formally valid will be invited to provide the full documentation and a letter of reference from an authority that can be either internationally (UN agency, development agency, international NGO, etc.) or locally recognised (University, research centre, government, regional institution, etc.) attesting the real implementation of the project. The Scientific Committee of ICT for Social Good will be in charge of the final evaluation.

The members of the Scientific Committee are – Guglielmo Gori from SocialFare, the first Social Innovation Center in Italy, – Martin Burt, Founder and General Director of Fundacion Paraguaya, a Paraguay-based NGO focused on microfinance and entrepreneurship, – Ottavio Crivaro, CEO of Moxoff spa, a company specialised on the application of mathematics for the innovation and design of services and products for companies, – Mario Molteni, Senior Fellow of Ashoka for E4IMPACT, a foundation that offers MBA in Impact Entrepreneurship in five African countries, – Giulio Quaggiotto,Innovation Advisor of the Prime Minister’s Office of the United Arab Emirates and Associate to the well-known English foundation Nesta.

The winners will receive a money prize. Moreover, they will be invited to Italy to attend the final event of the Innovazione per lo Sviluppo framework, that will take place in Milan on November 2017. Italian entrepreneurial and research entities will be present in order to know the project and, possibly, sustain it.

 

 

The ICT for Social Good Grant is organised by Ong 2.0, CISV, Fondazione Mission Bambini, Opes Impact Fund, with the financial help of Fondazione Cariplo e Compagnia di San Paolo and the collaboration of SocialFare, E4Impact, Nexa Center, MoxOff, Calandria. Media partner: Agenzia Dire.

Birth registration is a child’s right

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A name and nationality is every child’s right, enshrined in the Convention on the Rights of the Child and other international treaties. Yet the births of nearly one-fourth of children under the age of five worldwide have never been recorded. This lack of formal recognition by the State usually means that a child is unable to obtain a birth certificate. As a result, he or she may be denied healthcare or education. Later in life, the lack of official identification documents can mean that a child may enter into marriage or the labour market, or be conscripted into the armed forces, before the legal age. Registering children at birth is the first step in securing their recognition before the law, safeguarding their rights, and ensuring that any violation of these rights does not go unnoticed.

Most countries have mechanisms in place for registering births. However, coverage, the type of information obtained and the use of resulting data can differ, based on a country’s infrastructure, administrative capacity, availability of funds, access to the population and technology for data management. Rates of registration vary substantially among countries, due to these and other factors.

Large differences can be found in the coverage of birth registration among regions. Central and Eastern Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States (CEE/CIS) has the highest level of birth registration, with 98 percent of children under 5 registered. This is followed by Latin America and the Caribbean, at 92 percent, and the Middle East and North Africa, at 87 per cent.

The lowest levels of birth registration are found in sub-Saharan Africa (41 per cent). In Eastern and Southern Africa, only 36 percent of children are registered by their fifth birthday, while the rate in West and Central Africa is slightly higher, at 45 percent.

 

Percentage of children under age five whose births are registered by region.

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Source: UNICEF

 

Many UNICEF country offices are exploring the use of mobile communications technologies, including cell phones, to increase birth registration coverage. As a result, access to reliable data in real time is being used for planning and decision-making.

Mobile and digital technology can be used to obtain timely, accurate and permanent records.

In Uganda, UNICEF and a private sector partner, Uganda Telecom, are piloting a mobile and web-based technology to digitise birth records, making the birth registration process faster, more accessible and more reliable.

Cambodia case study

According to the Cambodia Demographic and Health Survey (CDHS) 2010, just over 62 percent of children under five are registered in Cambodia, which is lower than the 2005 figure of 65 per cent. CDHS 2010 also shows a huge gap in birth registration between urban and rural, and between the rich and the poor. 60 percent of children live in rural area registered their birth comparing to 74 percent of children living in urban. There is gap between the rich and the poor as well with only 48 percent of the poorest children registered as opposed to 78 percent of the richest as shown in the graph.

Since 2011 MOI, with UNICEF support, has been implementing a pilot initiative in 32 communes of three districts in Kampong Speu, Prey Veng, and Svay Rieng Provinces to model the most effective ways to address the issues that cause low levels of birth registration. The pilot outcomes will also guide key stakeholders for policy and programme adaptation.

There are many reason for this situation:

  • Lower value of and demand for birth certificates
  • The form/design of the birth certificate is not durable especially for rural families, who are at higher risk of damage and loss.
  • Communes and districts often experience a shortage of birth certificate supplies causing inconsistency and delays in providing birth registration services.
  • Parents find the process of birth registration of newborn children – especially late registration – complicated and rigid.
  • The paper-based, manual monitoring and reporting system leads to poor data management, low information quality and irregular or late information flow.

One of the recommended action is to implement a monthly routine outreach and real-time reporting of birth registration through short-messaging services (SMS).

To help solve this issue, UNICEF Cambodia together with General Department of Identification (GDI) set up a pilot IVR platform using a combination of RapidPro and the cloud communication channels Twilio and Nexmo. This solution would, for the first time, help ensure communes would never be out of stock and babies could be registered as soon as possible – a vital protection method for children.

Each month commune clerks report the number of forms and/or books in stock either by responding to the automated monthly calls initiated by RapidPro or by calling the system. The data is then analysed by RapidPro. If the numbers of forms or books in stock are below a certain threshold, RapidPro will automatically notify the district level by SMS and the province level and GDI by email. The district officers in charge of re-supplying forms and books receive SMS notifications on communes that need restocking, helping to ensure communes will be equipped to register all children.

RapidPro is being used all over the world in a variety of ways to assist children and families, supported by UNICEF’s Global Innovation Centre (GIC). The GIC acts as a centre of excellence that is powered by a growing global network of UNICEF offices, specialists and allies dedicated to using technology that can have a large-scale impact on the lives of children.

 

Photo Credit: Margherita Dametti for COOPI

Source: https://blogs.unicef.org/east-asia-pacific/harnessing-mobile-technology-improve-birth-registration-systems-cambodia/

 

ICT for Social Good: a grant for local innovators

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We believe that innovation is a powerful local development force, capable of generating ideas that transform the life of the communities. This is the reason why we decide to launch “ICT for Social Good” – a grant for creative and groundbreaking ideas, using digital technology for positive social change.

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Financial inclusion: potentialities and drawbacks

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In the last years, financial Inclusion –  provide banking services to a larger number of users – belongs to the development agenda as a crucial element supposed to improve the financial requirements of those people who don’t have access to traditional financial services and eradicate poverty. That’s why we have seen a boom of new realities based on digital services that aim to go where traditional channels can’t.
However, as Gianluca Iazzolino – postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Oxford on media and democracy and consultant for the Mobile Money for the Poor (MM4P) program at UN Capital Development Fund (UNCDF) – tell us, “mobile money services can actually be dangerous in the moment in which they create new exclusions instead of inclusions”. Given the importance of the financial inclusion and its important digital part, Ong 2.0 offers a module on this theme, taught by Iazzolino, within the course ICT Innovations for Development.

by Federico Rivara

profile-picIazzolino warns us about the risks of the sector. “Today” Iazzolino tell us “the actors that provide digital financial services don’t limit their action only to mobile money (the digital transfer of money by means of mobile phones) but they tend to offer more services such as insurances and loans“. The reason is simple: these services entail larger profits to the operators that provide them.

The risks of the system are several and lead us to a current hot topic: the circulation  and availability of a huge number of data. The financial services mentioned before make the tracking of the user’s data possible. Consequently, the fintech companies can have a precise knowledge of the client’s credit score (the creditworthiness of a person). “The new excluded are therefore those who don’t have constant revenues coming from informal channels, as often occur in African countries realities“. Those who are invisible and don’t produce data might be excluded from a policy, for instance, because they are not considered.
Similarly, Iazzolino explains, independent operators of this business is realistic only for people who already run other activities. For example, in the over the counter (markets not regulated according to the official rules of a specific area) remittance business, the intermediary agent between the user and a company is often a person who already manage other enterprises and who can afford longer-term investments. 

m-pesaThe pursuit of profit, as already mentioned, is a basic element for the development of new platforms. But, the incomes barely go to the areas in which these platforms work. Look, for instance, at M-Pesa. This is a service that allows payments and money transfer through mobile phones. Today M-Pesa is a solid reality that works in many European and African countries. Safaricom, a communications company, launched the platform some years ago. Vodafone is the majority shareholder of Safaricom, based in London, where the larger revenues go.

 

The potentialities of the digital financial services can reach a lot of levels. For instance, government-to-person payments  are becoming more popular. Through this system governments can pay, for instance, salaries and retirements benefits of their citizens, decreasing the transaction costs. The authority and role of the state have to be clear. Otherwise, some services could be in the hands of powerful actors that stand between the citizens and the state in an intermediary layer. For instance, MasterCard has realised the opportunity coming from the identity cards in Nigeria, the most densely populated country of the African continent.  Similarly to other countries, a lot of people don’t have documents due to weak register offices. Therefore, MasterCard agreed with the Nigerian government to release 120 million of National Identity Smart Cards that allow people to have a document but also to make payments. On one hand, these companies help governments to overcome such a big issue but, on the other hand, “these systems can give incredible power to external actors that can keep in check a state“.

These projects look at the so-called bottom of the pyramid, the poorest and largest global group. People belonging to this group do have bargaining power, knowledge and entrepreneurial capacities. What is still missing is the market. Iazzolino moves our attention to another curious point. “Interestingly, the financial inclusion is part of the development agenda since the Maya Declaration, occurred in 2011, a year in which it was very clear how the markets of the north were saturated while the south ones are still explorable“.

“To know the technological tools that make the financial inclusion possible is necessary in order to understand how we  can set a flexible system that looks at everybody’s needs”. We have to face the discussion now since the fintech industry is increasing every day and the paradigm has to be fixed. To know specific cases, design money transfer strategies helpful for the development strategy and understand how financial inclusion can really reach everybody are some of the aspects that Gianluca Iazzolino will present in the module “ICT for financial inclusion“.

 

Photo credit: whiteafrican Mobile Phone with Money in Kenya via photopin (license)

ICT Innovations for Development: a new long-term online course

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ICT Innovations for Development is a certified long-term online course, with renowned international lecturers, seed-funding opportunities and 20 scholarships – are you ready to put your educational growth at another level?

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RapidSMS: an example of mhealth application

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Mhealth tools can be deployed with many functionalities, such as: data collection, point of care, logistics, remote monitoring, treatment adherence, education awareness, training, and disease tracking. Read more

Technology is a new kind of lifeline for refugees

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Imagine you’re a refugee leaving home for good. You’ll need help. But what you ask for today is much different than it would have been just 10 years ago.

“What people are demanding, more and more, is not classic food, shelter, water, healthcare, but they demand wifi,” said Melita Šunjić, a spokesperson for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.

Šunjić began her work with Syrian refugees in camps in Amman, Jordan. Many were from rural areas with basic cell phones.

“The refugees we’re looking at now, who are coming to Europe – this is a completely different story,” Šunjić said. “They are middle class, urban people. Practically each family has at least one smart phone. We calculated that in each group of 20, they would have three smart phones.”

Refugees use their phones to call home and to map their routes. Even smugglers have their own Facebook pages.

“I don’t remember a crisis or refugee group where modern technology played such a role,” Šunjić said.

As refugees from Syria continue to flow into Europe, aid organizations are gearing up for what promises to be a difficult winter.

Emily Eros, ‎a GIS mapping officer with the American Red Cross, said her organization is working on the basics like providing food, water and shelter, but it’s also helping refugees stay connected. “It’s a little bit difficult because it’s not just a matter of getting a wifi station up, it’s also a matter of having someone there who’s able to fix it if something goes wrong,” she said.

The new demands are equally critical and challenging to meet, said Kate Coyer, director of the Civil Society and Technology project at Central European University in Hungary, which is also helping to provide refugees with charging stations and wifi hotspots.

“There are two kind of distinct problems really – how do you bring wifi to places and then also how do you bring in electricity and ways for people to charge their phones,” Coyer said.

As borders and routes constantly change, it becomes both more important and more difficult for refugees and aid organizations alike to share information.

Access to technology, information and communication, Šunjić said, is beginning to be regarded as a basic of humanitarian aid. Of refugees who have no way to stay in touch, said Šunjić, “one of the first things they buy when they come to Western countries is mobile phones.”

Listen the podcast here.

Originally written by Sally Herships

Featured in: Marketplace for Monday, November 9, 2015

Photo Credits: AKOVOS HATZISTAVROU/AFP/Getty Images “Refugees use mobile phones to take pictures of a map upon their arrival on the Greek island of Lesbos after crossing the Aegean sea from Turkey on September 21, 2015“.

 

Open Badges, a new digital standard to get recognition for skills you learn

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Learning and training opportunities equip people with new skills and competences every day. The question is just how to acknowledge and value those skills to optimize their visibility and share-ability. Say hello! to the degree 2.0 thanks to Open Badges and Bestr.

By Eloisa Spinazzola, translated by Simone Ravaioli.

Along with the ever increasing amount of data we collect everyday also constantly grow the skills we acquire outside our regular jobs or formal education by attending events, online trainings, and specific courses. Let alone the chance to participate to summer schools, workshops, or weekend retreats. But our crave to learn may be inhibited by the need for some sort of recognition for those learning experiences.

Here comes Bestr to help. A project co-signed by Mozilla and Cineca to make personal skills and competences visible and easily share them with the rest of the connected world. It is done by issuing micro-credentials – called Open Badges – which certify the acquisition of a skill obtained through a variety of different learning paths – non necessarily formal.

The launch of the project

The project was rolled out on July 4th 2015, kicking off with the first initiative called “Giardino delle Imprese”, a training program aimed at developing entrepreneurial skills for high school students. At the end of this non-formal educational path participants will receive their first Open Badges issued by the Bestr platform and will be able to share them through their socials.

Open Badges

If only Open Badges were the same ol’ certificates, then nothing new. Instead they are a visual representation of a skill, digital and portable, containing a set of metadata associated with the competences acquired through a particular (learning) experience. Badges make skills visible and acknowledged as an Open Standard globally known as the Open Badge Infrastructure (OBI).

Bestr, more than platform 


Just like Open Badges are more than certificates, Bestr is more than a Badge Factory. In this first release user will be able to collect their Badges into their profiles, share them on their socials and embed them into LinkedIn for example. Once the full functionalities of the platform will be available (Early 2016) Bestr will become an exchange place between learners, employers and learning providers. For the Learners it will offer personalized learning and experience pathways, for Employers the possibility to orient the learning providers by endorsing skills the market is interested in and find talent to match their skill need, and for Learning providers it will provide a marketplace to promote their training offering and disseminate their culture and brand.

A futher innovation opportunity for ONG 2.0

ONG 2.0 will be among the selected pilots of Bestr. The added value for ONG2.0 will be the possibility to issue Open Badges for its online courses. Participants will then be able to share with their networks their digital certificate leveraging its innovative and social potential.

Sharing is always the viral beginning of a new collective knowledge experience.