About the Model

Vision:  

To break the cycle of born-into poverty in West Africa through education, incubation and investment.

Overview:

West Africa, most specifically Interior West Africa (Mali, Niger & Burkina Faso) is the least developed region in the world and with as low as 5% (Burkina Faso) of university aged students enrolled in tertiary education it won’t improve. Our solution is to utilize Open Educational Resources (OER) to educate these students at low to no cost and then act as an incubator to invest in their ideas, bringing greater development to an entire region.

The Education Component:

Open University West Africa (OUWA) gathers and organizes open educational resources into three tracks:  an undergraduate program, a diploma program, and a certificate program that can be accessed online by college aged students across West Africa.  We advertise these courses, help provide Internet access to the students who wish to take them, and make local governments aware of this resource to hopefully accredit it.

We currently have 40 students enrolled in our undergraduate program.  Our first class of students will complete their degrees in 2015.  This first class accesses our curriculum remotely, using their own Internet connection.   

The Diploma in Computer Science and Certificate in Entrepreneurship are offered to students @CafeAccra in Ghana.  We opened this Internet cafe in April 2012, to address the internet connectivity issues our students were facing.  Students will complete these programs in 3 to 6 months.  At the completion of the Entrepreneurship program, one student team will win funding for their start-up idea.