Mapping ecosystem, business modelling and usability testing of an Education-technology app for parental engagement in the early years among under-resourced communities in India.
THE CHALLENGE
India is in a reading crisis. Only 57.5% of children in Grade 3 are unable to read Grade 1 level text. - 2016 ASER report
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THE SOLUTION
A free mobile app that sought to promote emergent literacy and school readiness by encouraging parents and caregivers to read aloud to their young children between 0-8 years of age.
DEVELOPING ECOSYSTEM
Identifying a unique ecosystem for collaboration for effective execution
and outreach.
The first step was to understand the ecosystem in India (starting with New Delhi), based on which I designed a system for the propagation of the program.
Schools were the evident route, after a comparative analysis in the ed-tech community in India was done. But not many initiatives engaged other direct influencers like Angadwadi workers or health practitioners.
Through field research, interviews and secondary research, 4 partners across the aforementioned sectors were engaged.
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1 Anganwadi is a child care centre in India, started by the Indian government in 1975 as part of the Integrated Child Development Services program to combat child hunger and malnutrition.
2 Society for all round development
3 Katha is a not-for-profit and non-governmental organisation that works in the field of community development, child welfare, education and literature
4 Hindustan Latex Family Planning Promotion Trust
My role was to support and coordinate among this ecosystem. This included field visits for usability testing, developing strategies for outreach with each partner and overlooking performance.
MAPPING INFLUENCERS ACROSS DIFFERENT AGES
OF THE CHILD
Figure on right maps the web of influencers around a child across the target age-group for Early Grade Learning. This helps in visualizing the channels for engagement on an individual as well as community level.
Key influencers identified were classified as follows:
• R2K partners
• Potential partnerships
• High-touch interventions
• Low-touch interventions
• Other Influencers
Example of High-touch intervention:
Vaccination Centers: Target audience aligns with the audience visiting a vaccination center with high reception to a sub-product of a preventive medical service.
DEVELOPING THE PROGRAM AND PRODUCT TO ENGAGE MULTIPLE INFLUENCERS
• Inspiration for development
• Existing efforts
My role:
1, 2) Supporting Quicksand(HCDE partner) through backend coordination, and visiting the field to help conduct usability tests that included think-alouds and live storytelling with potential and existing users.
3) Supporting and monitoring partners training modules, sitting in on sessions to provide feedback.
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PARENTAL
ENGAGEMENT
Visualising channels of engagement through influencer mapping.
EXPANDING ECOSYSTEM
This initiative was launched at a roundtable conference that was aimed to foster partnership and networking opportunities among engaged stakeholders, raise awareness on the role of innovation in early learning, and gather feedback on improving and scaling such work.