Dacod Magagula and Laine Boyle are South African entrepreneurs assisting students in Africa to study through FoondaMate, an Edtech platform they launched on WhatsApp.
They launched FoondaMate in august 2020 in South Africa after they found out that hundreds of thousands of students in the country were not able to learn due to the lock don of schools as a result of the pandemic and the lack of required technology products.
So, they created a method for students to study online making use of WhatsApp. The platform helps students without adequate access to the internet to learn with the aid of localized chatbots.
Students use the platform to search concepts, download research papers, do simple mathematics calculations, and define words.
They derived the name from siSwati, which translates to “study buddy”. Boyle described the WhatsApp API as “messaging a very knowledgeable friend”.
To access study materials, search the web, or download practice questions and memos, a link was made available where you’ll see a WhatsApp web-like interface on your screen asking you to send ‘hello’.
Intending users can click the green “Go to Chat” button and click on “Open WhatsApp” if they have WhatsApp installed on their devices. Users will be redirected to chat with Nelson, a chatbot.
FoondaMate wants students to prosper irrespective of their available resources at home or in schools. The company believes that talent can be distributed equally, but opportunity is not.
The startup plans to change this by providing opportunities to everyone that makes use of the platform. The majority of students have smartphones which is an advantage they can leverage on.
Traditional educational materials like textbooks and group tutoring are quite expensive when compared to FoondaMate that will offer the same service through WhatsApp.
FoondaMate makes use of WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger that users already installed on their smartphones. This does not require too much memory compared to many other apps.
Users are engaged in their native languages which creates a unique form of user excitement that takes users into considerations while providing access to education. FoondaMate is available in 10 different African languages, however, they also have their own challenges.
“Building FoondaMate is challenging because we are not only building a technology but also introducing it to communities,” Boyle says.
It’s pretty tricky because the majority of their users have never interacted with a chatbot before. So, ensuring that users understand they are not chatting with a human is tough.
“We had users who wanted to become friends with Nelson, the chatbot, asking to meet up or have phone calls. That indeed is a challenge,” Magaluga reveals.
“We have had to change our approach to make sure students actually understand that they are interacting with a bot so that they are not disappointed when they can’t hang out with their new friend,” Boyle expounds.
However, the edtech startup has recorded massive success since its launch in August 2020. FoondaMate has reached over 130,000 students within Africa, Latin America, and Asia, who have downloaded over 1.8 million practice questions.
Though South African users dominate users of the platform, however, people in other African countries like Eswatini, Lesotho, Zambia, Nigeria, Zimbabwe, Tanzania, Malawi, Angola, and Kenya also use FoondaMate.
FoondaMate’s users also come from Latin America such as Colombia and Brazil, while users in Asia are from Indonesia, the Philippines, and Malaysia. And FoondaMate is working on expanding to these areas.
