Solution

What specific education challenge is this solution trying to resolve?

Access to high quality early education and care. People are lacking a systematic program to use.

Where does this solution fit into a global or local (digital) educational landscape?

Children's rights and the Sustainable Development Goals are still not fulfilled. We are simply working to implement those old documents and agreements. Parents need support in implementing them. If you think, this may even sound too simple. But why is the information at the level of the authority, and why is it not given directly in a concrete way to the people, the parents who work with children?

Parents are a bigger group than teachers, who could also use this solution. We developed the program during the pandemic, in an exceptional situation, when access to professional early education and care was prevented. We could provide help to parents who take care of their children when they are for example in refugee camps or living in other not-ideal circumstances.

How does your solution work, especially for new users?

We want to make the solution accessible for anyone who has access to the internet. The content needs to be digestible for anyone, and the non-educated audience needs to be able to work according to the program. Offline adaptations of part of the program are also an option.

The parent opens the application, reads the instructions, watches an activity video, and then does the required preparations such as collecting the needed supplies, and then does the activity with the child. Then they can move on to the next activity. Activities are done one at a time and they are related to different subjects, which are associated with developing a child’s life skills. For example, mathematical skills have been combined with other transversal skills, according to Finnish pedagogy. Under normal circumstances, we would train teachers to combine them, in this case we will complete it for the user, the parent.

How well-known, popular, or used is the solution in Finland? (To what do you attribute this success?)

This product is not in use in Finland and as we do not do public PR, and this product is therefore not broadly known. In schools, half of Finland's first-grade classes use a technology project with our pedagogical story-narrative, and also other solutions that are available for Finnish kindergartens/schools are widely distributed.

This is not important to us because we work primarily elsewhere. Of course, Finland as a reference can be valuable.

How safe is it to use this solution?

One of our advisors is Finland's leading GDPR expert, so we are not lacking in expertise. However, with this solution, only the parent is the user, which means we have access to the parents’ emails, which we use only to be able to see how the users progress in the program (how many activities they have gone through).

Scalability, Impact and sustainability

Scale is a result of multiple successful implementations in a variety of contexts. How can the solution be scaled up to reach a larger number of learners and schools?

We require a local partner whose interest is to tell the local parent why the program is relevant. Another requirement for scaling is that parents need to have access to the internet.

Identifying and finding a suitable local partner is of utmost importance. We need to collaborate with a local partner who wants to speak for the program with their existing audience or someone who has the resources to reach the audience. The solution must be recognized for its value and the partner needs to be able to reach the target group. Once identified, we open the content database of the solution to the local partner, for they must have access to the whole platform to see how the program is progressing related to their context. During the implementation phase, we allow them into the development environment. We must be able to trust our partner. Either we transfer the development responsibility directly to them to make necessary changes/adaptations, or we keep it with us and accept change requests. The preferred process depends on the partner.

Share an implementation success story/quote to describe your scalability.

In China, the adaptation was done well in a way that the entire UX was modified to fit local tastes, tasks, videos and other content, and the production was made by the Chinese in a Chinese home environment. Complete adaptation. The soft launch is now running. This is a commercial version. The dream would be to be able to shoot videos in homes and other user locations in different parts of the world to form a truly global experience for all parents.

Explain your Operational model / Business model

This program was originally developed for the commercial side, but we have noticed that the model resonates also on the not-for-profit side. We want to see how the parent app could succeed where the need is most dire, and make sure that it is in the best possible use. We could hand over or sell or licence the program (in regions that see benefit in such a solution) to an organisation with the capacity to scale it further.

Is it possible for parents, teachers, schools, municipalities, governments, CSR/NGOs/Funds to become users/customers of your solution?

If this were to be a commercial product, it would be a continuous annual subscription for parents. In underserved market, partners can decide which model will be developed/feasible. It's about whether parents want to pay or whether someone wants to sponsor it to them.

If this were to be a commercial product, it would be a continuous annual subscription for parents. In underserved market, partners can decide which model will be developed/feasible. It's about whether parents want to pay or whether someone wants to sponsor it to them.

How do you measure the impact, or effectiveness, of your solution?

One condition is that the local partner appoints a research partner so they can make an assessment or audit locally. We are very interested in the reports of local universities.

Ecosystem

Who are the necessary people and roles needed to ensure a successful implementation of your solution?

For us coming from Finland, the local authority services of different countries, the embassies, and their support are important. You have to be grateful for them, but at the same time we are thinking about how those services should be developed to be even better. We compete with so many solutions in other countries, and they have so much more funding, such as the British, Israeli, French or Australian.

In certain international programs, as a Finn, I am the only one who has no financial subsidy from my country. Financing and possible labels and certifications from authorities are important ways to support small innovations. With the new Finnish government, the matter is potentially not getting better—we need to be resourceful when working together with the Global South and other developing areas. We must stay connected and actively participate so as to not be forgotten in international ecosystems.

How can local innovators, startups or organisations collaborate with you or the solution?

The local learning environment is supported by a digital global community. But we do not, of course, want a global central unit, but rather do need to interact with the local ecosystem, celebrating local differences. We need to notice that as a global village we have so many things in common and at the same time we should rejoice in our cultural differences, holding on to our own values and respecting those of others. That's how we have built our program—a super sweet entity. We showcase the world of children, seeing how the Chinese build their own program, and how they develop their own in Zimbabwe. The diversity is intentionally visible and appreciated.

How can local stakeholders, including educators, policymakers, and parents, be engaged in the implementation of the solution?

All our functions are designed for global implementation. We focus on things that are universal and leave the selection of the local cultural content to the local experts to decide. This supports future curriculum-based skills development ideas, where skills such as pre-mathematical skills are universal. Mapping has been made in relation to the goals of different countries, but we still need local partners for the program to be successful and rooted in the local culture and context.

How do you collaborate with the ministry?

For example, in Tunisia, we have provided training to the Ministry of Education in a World Bank funded initiative and are currently negotiating with many others. We are thinking about our implementation model in Africa in relation to the official local systems. The role of early childhood education varies in official documents and the consequences are country-specific.