I’m really excited to be here and I’d
imagine you’re nine years old and in
third grade you wake up at 530am and
even though it’s freezing cold you head
to school carrying a bag of choco so
that your teacher can use it to warm to
make a fire and warm her hand so she can
write on the board a broom to sweep the
classroom right before class starts and
a wooden brush to clean the toilet I
know it’s pretty unsanitary but it is
what it is the whole time you are
walking to school you’re dreading it but
you know you have no choice but to go so
it’s quite a long walk you get there
around five minutes per six you’re five
minutes late and you can already tell
what is going to happen trembling you
walk into mrs. K juncus class where she
sits you hand her the bag of charcoal
and then she tells you to lay down grabs
a big stick and hits you 12 x 12 times
on your behind while your classmates
watch so of course you are frustrated
you’re in pain and you never want to go
back to school again but you will every
day because you know this is your life
and you’ve been told many many times
that this is what school is about just
get used to it so at least at this point
you clearly understand that learning is
not meant to be fun it is something you
just have to go through something you
just have to endure this is how my
learning experience my school experience
was growing up in a small town in the
I was really hopeless and to be honest
I’ve been on a manhunt for mrs. gazonga
ever since so if you meet her here
please let me know because she and I
need to talk she’s wanted but perhaps
your learning experience was a bit
different maybe you had you can even
recall a time when you had fun learning
something right you probably remember
the details because you actually had fun
doing it well things changed a little
bit for me in in secondary school where
for my chemistry class we had to do a
lot of different experiments in the lab
and I can still remember pouring
glycerol water and dry ice into a flask
and watching these fog field bubbles of
carbon dioxide form it made me so
curious about natural science and and
that to me was fun so these are the
lessons that stick with us because we
actually had fun doing it right and to
some extent they even shape our lives so
think about a time when you had fun you
know learning something that I stuck
with you throughout the years and then I
want you to think about this what if
what if all kids in Africa could also
find the fun and learning meet key
banake due to Barack and their friends
from Krakatoa football team if these
kids represent the Tanzanian population
only three of them will go to to nursery
school or kindergarten and why they’re
there they will share one teacher one
teacher with 97 other kids of course
they’ll all go all 10 of them will go to
class one but by the time they get to
class for only three of them three of
them would have mastered class to level
reading and math
only six of them will complete primary
school and less than three of them will
go to secondary school so it’s a pretty
you know and it’s very likely that why
they’re there there will be beaten and
intimidated on a regular basis like I
was it’s a pretty bleak outlook for
cabana kadu chu Baraka and their friend
luckily there are some exciting projects
happening across Africa trying to
address the issues that they are facing
from ultra-low-cost private school
chains to technology education
technology projects like SMS tutors and
Android apps and even a global learning
x prize for teaching basic numeracy and
literacy so I’m really excited about all
these projects that are happening and
I’m incredibly hopeful for the education
prospects of Africa’s next generation
but the problem is there is another part
of the question that’s missing and that
is lenna motivation so whether kids are
one of Finland’s awesome public schools
or using online resources while being
homeschooled or you know letting outside
writing on red earth using sticks like I
did when we didn’t have enough
classrooms for all these kids the
biggest determinant of their learning
success would be their own motivation to
learn so why does someone want to learn
right that is something we have to think
about why does someone want to learn
some educators unfortunately choose fear
you know to get kids to want to learn
beat fear of failing an exam fee of
dropping out or in so many cases here in
Tanzania just fear of you know
get being beaten for getting an answer
wrong yet neuroscience research has
shown that stress and intimidation
activate filters in the amygdala which
is that the brains gatekeeper and
prevents information from reaching
certain cognitive networks that actually
store that information so in essence
when we are scared or stressed we
comprehend less of what we are trying to
learn so why don’t we instead of fear
use fun to motivate learners studies
have shown that kids who do more puzzles
at home have better special skills on IQ
tests and that advanced lego playing in
preschool actually predicts higher math
scores in high school another study has
shown that kids are more likely to
recall a statistics vector that included
jokes about relevant topics and in
Bangladesh kids who watch the local
version of Sesame Street amor have us
have 67% sixty-seven percent higher
scores than those who don’t watch in
these kids don’t even know that they are
learning I’m right here in Tanzania kids
who watch ubon go kids which is an
educational cartoon that teaches math
and science have significant improvement
on math quizzes compared to those who
don’t watch and those who watch to bongo
kids on a regular basis are more likely
to say that math is their favorite
subject so after bungo we’ve been
working hard to bring interactive and
fun learning to kids across across the
continent in each episode baraka cuban
aikido and their friends use their
brains to solve problems and help their
friends out whether they are moving
thousands of rats to a new home to help
if i’ma out or they are putting defenses
against a mosquito army or whether they
are throwing a birthday party for a
lonely giraffe right on his birthday
they mask tamiya obongo use their brains
and they always do it with plenty of
laughs and sing along songs so we are
getting a lot of great feedback from
kids of course they’re like oh my gosh
we are learning so much and this is fine
but parents and teachers are also you
know buying into this idea that learning
can be fun and I think we have to even
think beyond that and start looking for
new ways new delivery mechanisms to
bring this interactive learning to kids
so we’ve seen this work well at to bongo
where you know throw an SMS interaction
system kids can actually register
through any mobile phone and get
personalized feedback from their
favorite cartoon characters on average
they are answering 50 questions per day
50 questions it wasn’t assigned by a
teacher it won’t be graded and it’s not
mapped to the national exam they’re just
doing it because it’s fun they enjoy it
and that’s where we want to go that’s
what we want um so we’ve been learning a
lot about what makes kids laugh what
pics their curiosity what inspires them
and we are taking these lessons with us
as we try to reach more kids but
remember my question I asked what if all
kids all kids in Africa could find the
fun and learning there are four hundred
and forty million kids in sub-saharan
Africa so we have a lot of work to do
and we have a long way to go about a
quarter of households in Africa have
access to TV so we have to leverage the
exponential growth of mobile technology
internet access to bring fun learning to
kids across the continent and we can’t
do it alone we have to join forces with
parents and caretakers and make these
resources available to them so that they
too may be empowered to guide their kids
in fun learning and it’s really
important for kids to have localized
content you know I I totally understand
because when when I was growing up I
didn’t see people you know when I was
looking at kids content or whatever I
didn’t see people that looked like me
until I watched Lion King and I was like
whoa did they say hakuna matata like for
real I think I was just jumping up and
down as like mother can’t rewind this
thing like they said how could never
touch that I couldn’t believe it just
like Hakuna Matata was enough and I was
so excited and I watched that movie over
and over and over again and to be honest
that movie has made life easier because
now when people ask me oh you speak
Swahili how does it sound I’m like
Hakuna Matata and everybody gets it
right like okay topic closed but you
know kids need to see people who look
like them people who come from similar
backgrounds achieving great things they
need to hear stories jokes and songs
right in their own context and be
inspired to create great works of their
own so we all have a part to play to
help kids become self motivated learners
I’m not saying we should all go out
there and create cartoons or gamified
apps no but I encourage us to have a
more holistic approach towards education
better home or at school or in
extracurricular activities I challenge
all of us to look at education like we
look at other products no one creates a
product and then goes around beating
people forcing them to consume it no you
don’t see that being done anywhere right
no one takes a product to market without
first testing it over and over and over
again with a bunch of people to make
sure it actually works
so why why do we do that with education
we cannot continue to create this office
made education solutions and expect kids
to be receptive right children innately
want to learn they always looking at the
world you know finding new things
touching things and you know if we
curate content and deliver it to them in
a way that works they will absorb it we
won’t have to force them we won’t have
to force them so instead of us you may
we know what works for kids let’s make
kids part of the process let’s engage
with them and find out from them what
actually works let’s not bring kids up
in this you know way of like stop stop
that stop that or in Swahili ahead a lot
echa echa well is telling kids to utter
instead encourage them to learn explore
and tap into the innate joy of discovery
let’s make learning fun once kids have a
strong reason as to why they should
learn they’ll become strong agents in
their own education love and learning
and sticking it out so yes we have a
long way to go to bring top quality
education to get across Africa but if
kids like burrata Cuban and Karrueche
could find the fun in learning like I
did while mixing solutions in my
chemistry class while dancing to a math
song with mom and egg a while you know
learning to count while racing against
in gadera these kids will move towards
education as education moves towards
them and I believe that in our lifetime
we will revolutionize education faster
by meeting halfway thank you [Applause]