An app is born

Edukite is transforming education

While studying at business school, two engineers, Vineet Ladia and Aravind Venkataraman, noticed that education lacked innovation, and were searching for opportunities to create innovative products that could fill gaps in mathematics and science.

“We felt that we could make a tangible difference in this field with our passion to ‘go out there and change the world,’” says Co-Founder and Director of Edukite, Vineet Ladia. Here Vineet explains how the solution they came up with, an app, makes learning easier, how this can impact education on the continent and shares some of the company’s successes.

Releasing The Kite

Launched in 2006, Edukite is an education solutions company whose flagship product is the Edukite Learning app, a learning tool for students from grades four to twelve. The app has been downloaded over 250 000 times since it was launched in January 2021.

“We did a lot of research in our second year of business school and identified content delivery in the classroom as the biggest area where we could come in and make an impact. And that was how Edukite was born,” says Vineet.

“The Edukite app is a complete learning tool built for the modern-day classroom for both teachers and learners,” Vineet explains.

“This is in contrast to most other solutions such as ebooks and PDF documents loaded on tablets which are being rolled out on a large scale in some provinces, but are really just very expensive versions of paper textbooks.”

“We did a lot of work at the coal-face of education with schools, teachers and learners to prove the impact that the Edukite software could make.”

Tailored to the CAPS curriculum, the app uses 2D and 3D animated videos to take students through various learning experiences such as simulations, interactive activities and virtual experiments. Concepts are explained, with assessments and exam paper solution videos as well, tracking the performance and progress of the learners.

“We also design, build and operate interactive labs equipped with the latest educational gadgets and purpose-built content that uses virtual reality and augmented reality to explain complex science and technology concepts in a simple and fun way,” adds Vineet. “The objective is to kindle the interest of learners in STEM subjects and lead them toward STEM careers.”

Within six years, they had delivered their solution to over 100 schools in South Africa. When the Northern Cape Education Department adopted the Edukite Life Sciences’ solution for all high schools in the region, in 2016, the impact was felt immediately, with matric results for the subject improving by 10.9%.

“That was hugely gratifying for us,” says Vineet. In February this year, the Northern Cape province rolled out the Edukite app to all 13 000 of its matric learners.

“Just seeing the extensive usage of the app, the time learners spend daily on the app, which we track through our servers, is testament to the value which the Edukite app is adding to every learner’s life!”

The app is offered in English, teaching six subjects: Mathematics, Life Sciences, Physical Sciences, Geography, Accounting and

Business Studies. Learners are assessed not only on their knowledge, but also on the application of that knowledge.

“Randomisation of questions and the numeric values within questions ensure that cheating is minimised and learners can retake the same test to keep improving their performance,” explains Vineet.

“Once the test is completed, the software provides instant feedback on the overall performance and also at an individual question level. These results can be stored for future reference. The test analysis section also includes a step-bystep solution for each question and the content to be reviewed when a learner hasn’t answered that question correctly.”

Touching More Lives

The app is available in two versions: online and offline. All students need is a device, whether it’s a cellphone, tablet or laptop. No internet connection is required, which allows students to overcome infrastructure challenges. The increased access to devices allows Edukite to reach more learners through their application than would have been possible when their journey began.

BY FIONA WAKELIN AND KOKETSO MAMABOLO

understand. Most of us are visual learners, so using the visual medium, using 3D, we take the learners inside a human heart to see its structure, and take them inside a DC motor to see how it functions.”

Not only is the app helping learners, it’s also helping their teachers, making their work more efficient: “More time is being spent in doing application-based work in the classroom and more complex problems that often feature in matric, and other year-end exams.”

“The online app is available on a monthly subscription directly for the retail user, who may be a teacher or a learner,” Vineet explains. “For provincial departments of education, where the focus is on the offline app, we offer various options: one-year, three-year and five-year licences where the department pays the licence fees and their teachers and learners can access the app for the licence duration, with free updates to both the app and the content.”

One of the key focuses of the Edukite app is to make learning fun, engaging and immersive also vary. We carefully tailor our offerings to the local curriculum of each country to offer more value to end-users of our products in these countries.

“We are a technology-driven education company and not just a tech company looking to scale fast with standardised cookie-cutter solutions for the entire world with no attention to learning needs,” says Vineet.

Looking ahead to the future of Edukite, Vineet shares their vision: “To become one of the top e-learning and ICT players in the African continent and a partner for national education departments in rolling out educational technology solutions.”

“One of the key focuses of the Edukite app is to make learning fun, engaging and immersive,” says Vineet. “We, at Edukite, as content creators, spend a lot of time and energy in creating storyboards as to how any particular concept should be introduced to a learner.”

“The power of 3D cannot be overemphasised. It helps explain abstract and complex concepts in a way which is very easy to

Given the scale of the Northern Cape rollout, the provincial education department was offered a perpetual licence, with no recurring costs. Edukite is looking into expanding the pool of subjects that the app covers.

“Edukite is highly scalable and we are proactively looking to grow in the rest of Africa and make an impact in the lives of teachers and learners across the continent. At the same time, we are very conscious of the fact that curricula across different countries have their differences and the contexts

They’re also aiming to offer the subjects in other languages, making the app even more inclusive.

“On the technology side, we’re looking to partner with strong consumer technology brands in South Africa to bundle our solution with smartphones and tablets for the retail market.”

The app is free to download and is available on various app platforms. Download the app and see for yourself the difference it can make.