A report by Ambient Insight earlier this year said that the overall growth rate for e-learning in Africa is 15.2% and that this space could boom in years to come.

It’s no wonder then that e-learning systems such as Obami are hoping to ride on that success and give millions of students new ways to learn.

Obami, which has offices in Cape Town, is an online tool that is described as a “social learning platform that lets communities connect, create, share and learn.”

Barbara Mallinson, the founder of Obami, shares her insights, challenges, hopes and dreams for e-learning in Africa.

VINCENT MATINDE: Could you explain what Obami is and how it works?

BARBARA MALLINSON: Obami is a platform that lets people create or join learning communities.

It marries the concept of social networking with e-learning, to bring about “social learning” - enabling educators and students to connect digitally, share and access educational resources, make use of communication and collaboration tools, and set or undertake assignments.

Essentially, to get going, a school (or college or learning centre) would register to make use of Obami. If the registration is approved, the school’s administrator can log-in and set it up in accordance with the school’s structure and its policies (i.e. defining relevant grades and subjects, as well as privacy and security parameters for different age groups), before creating accounts for other school members.

From then on it’s a simple case of teachers logging in and connecting with their learners.

VINCENT MATINDE: What specific need is the platform meeting in education in Africa?

BARBARA MALLINSON: Global education is facing a major shift. The traditional schooling model of printed textbooks, note taking and paraphrasing is fast becoming outdated as new technologies and processes – ranging from rich media content and social & mobile technologies to blended learning, flipped classrooms and big data – become more prolific.

Obami acts as a vehicle in supporting this change across schools and academic organisations in Africa.

VINCENT MATINDE: How did the platform start?

BARBARA MALLINSON: South African education is in a state of crisis. A major gap exists between the first world infrastructure of the private education sector and a massively dysfunctional public sector. According to the World Bank, the country currently ranks 143 out of 144 in terms of its overall Maths and Science education standards. Other African countries are not too dissimilar.

These sad statistics inspired me to try and make a difference to my home country and continent, and I saw this as an ideal opportunity to introduce a platform that would allow for any type of school (and its members) to benefit from emerging mobile and social technologies – it’s what Christensen Clayton describes as “new market disruption”.

VINCENT MATINDE: When was it founded and who are the founders?

BARBARA MALLINSON: Obami was first launched in schools in 2010 by Barbara Mallinson and Ennis Jones.

VINCENT MATINDE: How many users are being served by Obami.com?

BARBARA MALLINSON: We have over 30,000 users on Obami now, from all over South Africa and other Sub-Saharan African countries, as well as a handful from the UK and the US.

VINCENT MATINDE: What is your view on the future of technology and education in Africa?

BARBARA MALLINSON: I feel hugely energised when I think about the future of Africa. I believe that with the advances we’re seeing in technology adoption across the continent and the access to information that this provides, we’ll see an abundance of goods and services - that set out to solve Africa’s problems – emerge, putting us on an exciting development path forward. In my mind, there is no better place in the world to be than in Africa right now!

VINCENT MATINDE: What are some of the challenges the platform is facing in Africa?

BARBARA MALLINSON: Connectivity, and the cost of connectivity, is still a major challenge for Africans, but we’re seeing infrastructure improving and prices dropping – these are encouraging signs for times to come.

Another challenge that we have faced in growing Obami lay within the education sector itself. Getting schools to adopt new technologies can take a lot of hard work in terms of convincing them of the need to change and the time it takes for them to actually do so. With this quite often falling on the shoulders of just one person (like the computer teacher) who receives little support from fellow staff members, change management within schools has been somewhat taxing.

VINCENT MATINDE: What measures is the company putting in place to overcome that challenge?

BARBARA MALLINSON: Because of the infrastructure and connectivity challenges that Africa faces, we’ve ensured that Obami is not limited to just a desktop or tablet experience and have recently launched a lite version of the platform to suit “on-the-go” learning. This perfectly suits the African market, of which the majority accesses the Internet via mobile phones.

With regards to change management, we’ve learned what works and what doesn’t when it comes to rolling out the platform. For this reason, we work closely with schools to support them as they introduce Obami to their staff and classes. It also helps that there is a growing understanding of how social media plays a pivotal role in the lives of the youth, and this has resulted in schools becoming keener to embrace social tools.

VINCENT MATINDE: What are some of the achievements of the company?

BARBARA MALLINSON: Top 10 Most Innovative Technology in the World – Netexplo, Unesco, Deloitte, AirFrance,
Top 20 African Startup – Forbes
Top 40 Africa Startup - DemoAfrica

VINCENT MATINDE: How is the company making money?

BARBARA MALLINSON: We have a few revenue channels that we’re currently trying to grow... these are based mainly on media sales through our media platform (i.e. targeted advertising, content distribution, marketing research and event/job/company listings).

We’re also due to release a white label service, where schools and companies can customise Obami’s look & feel to be their own.

And, through partnerships that we’ve established with the likes of UCT and Rethink Education, we’ll soon be offering premium content and features that will give schools and individual learners access to some of the best, curriculum aligned content on the web.

VINCENT MATINDE: What is the uptake of the platform across Africa?

BARBARA MALLINSON: Whilst most of our user base is from South Africa, we are seeing an increasing number of schools and organisations starting to make use of Obami from other countries in Africa – namely Ghana, Namibia, Botswana and Zimbabwe. We’ve also established partnerships with other organisations that operate within the e-learning sectors of other African countries.

VINCENT MATINDE: What are some of the future plans for the platform?

BARBARA MALLINSON: We’re about to start shouting (very loud) about our own, virtual school that we’ve recently opened... it’s designed to let learners (whose schools may be a bit slow to adopt social and mobile technologies) tap into a network of educators, resources and other learners that are eager to learn in a 21st century world.