According to the website, “Hack-Ed is a global hackathon where creative minds tackle challenges related to education. HACK-ED is (Hack for Education) is an initiative to bring bright minds from around the world together, to collaboratively innovate solutions for today’s educational challenges. We believe technology with design thinking can enable faster and successful learning for the next generation of leaders and engineers. Join us as we unlock the possibility of digital learning.”
We participated as Team Low Cost Teaching Aids. During the hackathon, we built an app that lists academic and non-academic activities along with resources for building teaching learning materials. Our team consisted of 5 members. The team members of Low Cost Teaching Aids were:
- Kumod Kumar Sah, BSc CSIT, TFN Fellow 2018
- Nanshu Pokharel, BA Sociology, TFN Fellow 2018
- Niraj Mishra, BE Computer, TFN Fellow 2019
- Santosh Prasad Sah, BSc CSIT, Software Engineer
- Sita Thapa, BSc Nursing, TFN Fellow 2018
There were a total of 11 teams in the competition. The judges of the hackathon were:
- Sishir Khanal, CEO, Teach For Nepal
- Josue Rivera-Olds, Innovation Hub
- Timila Yami, Former Professor, IOE
- Kanhaiya Jha, Dean, School of Science, Kathmandu University
In the hackathon, each team was given 2 minutes for the presentation, 2 minutes for the demo and 6 minutes of Q/A. We had to fit the pitch within 2 minutes. The pitch is as follows:
Hello Everyone. My name is Kumod from Team Low Cost Teaching Aids. My team members are Nanshu, Niraj, Santosh and Sita. We are a team of Teach for Nepal fellows and alumni with a combined teaching experience of more than 8 years in a public school of rural communities in Dang, Dhanusa and Parsa and a software engineer with app development experience of more than 5 years.
Government has allocated Rs 134.51 Billion rupees for the education, science and technology in the fiscal year 2019/20. Education has always been a priority for the government and as well as the citizens. Public schools are the back bone of our education system. But our public schools are failing. We have been there. We have taught there. We know what is happening. There are a lot of issues. One of the issues is the blame game. A student says, “Classes are boring. I constantly loose attention. My future is not secure.” While a teacher says,” My school doesn’t have a lab or enough money to buy teaching learning materials and resources. Students make noises. How can we teach effectively?”
Same was the issue with us when we went to teach ourselves in those rural public schools, lack of teaching learning materials and resources. The schools are so low resourced that there are not enough markers and dusters, forget teaching learning materials. How? How can we be effective in such situations? It was a big question for us.
Our value of continuous learning and sense of urgency kicked in. With research and support, we tried to innovate in our classrooms. As a result, our students achieved remarkable results both academically as well as non-academically. Imagine a model of digestive system made out of waste materials, learning prepositions through play outside of the classroom, profit and loss with the help of drama, fitness routine as after school activity.
It’s so satisfying we did that. But we are afraid now. Our research, our knowledge, our technique may go down with us. As our Teach for Nepal fellowship has ended. Our activities will disappear.
How can we reach from 4 schools to 35,055 schools, from 4 teachers to 226,391 teachers, from our 1500 students to 80, 00,000 students? But there is a silver lining. We have a solution. An app that lists academic as well as non-academic activities. An app that provides resources for teaching learning materials. An app that has materials to develop soft skills in students. Low Cost Teaching Aids. If our finances are set, we will be rolling within few weeks.
Thanks.
The slide deck can be found on Slideshare.
