The two new challenges of the 21st century are: increasing education demand from the developing world and growing eldercare demand from the developed world. The current modalities of providing respective services within traditional scopes have limits and require a paradigm shift.
Gible tackles the two issues simultaneously by matchmaking the two demands – transforming elders’ social activity with children into education service to children.
From our volunteer activities and academic research, team Pluscope witnessed the critical value of English education in improving children’s lives in Africa and the effectiveness of virtual interaction with children in remedying the elderly’ social isolation depressions in Canada. The big surge of the young population in Africa and of the senior population in the developed world (over 20% and almost 25% of the population, respectively, by 2040) is a great challenge to the world but also an enormous market opportunity.
Gible was developed after years of preparation: (1) identifying schools in Ethiopia, Kenya, and Tanzania, as well as retirement facilities in Canada for collaboration; (2) conducting feasibility survey with the elders, students, and schools; and (3) testing the local internet infrastructure and the quality of video chat between schools and facilities. In parallel with the development of the system, Pluscope created educational content tailored for video interaction. Since 2018, both the system and the materials have been tested at four different locations in three countries (Ethiopia, Kenya, and Tanzania).
In 2019, Pluscope launched 7-week after-school classes in Ethiopia and Tanzania. The time difference between Eastern Africa and Eastern Canada makes participation more convenient. We also observed that schools put more than one student to a tutor, expanding the solution’s reach to students.
In 2020, after further configuration of the program’s suitability to different users’ demands in 4 other countries (Madagascar, Rwanda, Tanzania, and Uganda), we plan to distribute Gible to more schools in Africa. To match more students in the pipeline, we are crowding in more tutors from different time zones, such as England and Korea. Also, we are diversifying Gible’s curriculum, widening the points of interaction beyond English education, including mentoring and global citizenship.
Pluscope already has 9 partner organizations that operate across and beyond Africa and Northern America. Pluscope will build more partnerships with foundations dedicated to making computer labs and schools around the world to expand Gible’s reach in developing countries and continue to improve the class with seniors in developed countries.
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