Education in a Suitcase working with Sliding Through Foundation to help African students access higher education

The non-profit organisation Education in a Suitcase, which is centred around a teaching system developed by scientists at the University of Iceland, last week received a grant of ISK 5 million from Kristján Gíslason of the Sliding Through Foundation. The grant will be used to help students from the poorest regions of Africa access higher education. Thanks to the non-profit organisation, its benefactors and the teaching system, students in Kenya were able to access education during the pandemic despite the fact that schools were closed.

The teaching system is called tutor-web and contains educational material, for example in subjects like mathematics, statistics and computer science, as well as exercises that help students master the material. The system was developed by Gunnar Stefánsson, professor at the UI Faculty of Physical Sciences, and Anna Helga Jónsdóttir, senior lecturer at the same Faculty, in collaboration with software developers. Over the past decade, it has been used to teach statistics and mathematics at the University of Iceland and Icelandic upper secondary schools, as well as in Kenyan schools as part of the Education in a Suitcase initiative, established in collaboration with Kenyan academics.

Rewarded in SmileyCoin

Students who do well on the exercises can earn SmileyCoin, a cryptocurrency, which can be stored in a virtual wallet and used to buy various products and services. The non-profit organisation manages this part of the tutor-web project and the University of Iceland is among the benefactors, with a representative on the board. 

"Education in a Suitcase raises funds to help student from poor neighbourhoods in Africa, mainly in Kenya, get to university by giving them opportunities to practise and master the knowledge they need to pass university entrance examinations. A secondary project is Smiley Invest, which was founded to make it easier for investors to support operations in Kenya by buying SmileyCoin on the market. The organisation already has 1 billion SmileyCoin and holds regular meetings with investors to draw in more benefactors," explains Gunnar, adding that tutor-web and SmileyCoin have both proved extremely popular.

The Education in a Suitcase project in Kenya provides tablets for students and servers containing tutor-web educational material. It is designed in particular for secondary schools and universities where internet connections are limited and the electricity supply is unstable. "The organisation originally donated tablets in schools, thereby providing students with access to educational material through tutor-web, including exercises to learn the content required for the Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education," says Anna Helga.

The system was extremely useful during the pandemic

Kenya has been severely affected by the pandemic over the past two years, and responded by closing schools for an entire year in an attempt to slow the spread of the virus. "We moved operations to the public libraries, which were not closed. The libraries are given a few tablets that they can lend to students and students earn SmileyCoins by completing exercises through tutor-web. Students can use the cryptocurrency to buy small things like fruit, snacks, scratch cards for data storage, period products, food for families who cannot afford it, and even the tablets themselves," explains Gunnar, adding that the library set-up is now established in around 20 locations across Kenya, with around 1500 users.

Gunnar points out that one of the problems non-profit organisations face in Africa is making sure that the money goes to the right place. By using cryptocurrency and blockchain technology, this can be guaranteed. "Each tablet, for example, has its own QR code and a library is not sent new tablets unless the old ones have been sold for SmileyCoin," he explains, adding that no system in the world is comparable to tutor-web and nothing like SmileyCoin is used in other web systems.

Sliding Through Foundation supporting the project in various ways 

Kristján Gíslason of the Sliding Through Foundation is well-known in Iceland after the popular RÚV series documenting his travels. During his time in Kenya, Kristján visited a few people involved with Education in a Suitcase and covered the project in his recent book Andlit Afríku (The Face of Africa), as well as the fourth episode of the Sliding Through documentary about his travels in Africa. Kristján and his wife, Ásdís Baldursdóttir, set up the Sliding Through Foundation to support various causes, in Iceland and abroad. 

The foundation has already funded equipment purchases for two of the libraries in Kenya and recently donated around ISK 5 million to the Education in a Suitcase project. The main idea behind this grant is to expand into more of the places that Kristján visited on his journey across Africa. Kristján presented the leaders of Education in a Suitcase with the grant last week.

"The Sliding Through Foundation has also brought different Icelandic organisations together. For example, Education in a Suitcase is now collaborating with ABC Barnahjálp and Íslenska Barnahjálpin so that the schools and homes they work with have full access to tutor-web through tablets provided by Education in a Suitcase, thanks to the support of the Sliding Through Foundation. This teamwork enables us to help even more students from some of the world's poorest regions get to university," says Anna Helga. 

Introducing tutor-web to more African countries

Education in a Suitcase has also worked to improve access to education for girls in Kenya. For example, in Moyale, which is an impoverished and barren region near the border with Ethiopia, librarians came up with an initiative to encourage more girls to participate. "A female librarian was hired and she went around knocking on doors to explain to parents that it was safe for their daughters to visit the library. After that, the proportion of girls rose from 0 to 30%. Over 200 students have also bought tablets for SmileyCoin there," says Anna Helga.

The system has also been implemented in schools in the refugee camps in Ifo and will shortly be introduced to a library in the Kakuma camp in Turkana County. Further expansion is planned for the near future. "The project will be established in three new countries this year and next year, thanks to the grant from the Sliding Through Foundation; first in Ethiopia and then Malawi and Rwanda. ABC Barnahjálp has also decided to trial the system in Burkina Faso and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is looking for ways to implement it in Uganda," says Gunnar.