A day reservoir have not been filled for more than three years because they has not been enough rain. But those are the headlines on aljazeera do stay with us because innovate africa is coming up next ill have a full news bulletin for you in just under thirty minutes thank you for watching. On counting the cost the problem with every year the rich and famous discussed making the world a better place but who moves are a foot. Across the african continent plus the link between seafood. In thailand counting the cost at this time on ill just do. This is innovate africa a new series highlighting innovation and creativity across a continent that is on the rise. Today and innovate africa solar powered taking high tech teaching to South African townships. Might cost tablets to bring local content to primary schools in kenya a disruptive intervention is what were doing and. Getting kids into coding using robots built from scratch. I has a hidden camera that is. One of the u. N. Aid to Millennium Development goals is to achieve universal primary education however with massive inequalities between rich and poor its a tough challenge in africa but innovative thinkers are coming up with fresh solutions. Nairobis i hope is a place designed for kenyan innovators as space where smart young thinkers can share their ideas. Here and soon began to explore the a shared passion for technology and. They are the creators of kenyas most successful you learning teaching it its called. Stopped. So tell me about the party that you started its called youre without much i know what does. It mean so any more in swahili means education and even more with our play on that word. Evil is an integrated learning system designed specifically for kenyan students ok so this is the main dashboard page once the students log in they come here and these are the six main subjects in our curriculum and the yappin clinics condensed content from prescribed textbooks brought to life with the inclusion of animations video clips pictures and music culture. By the factory tours of. All the specially designed low cost and easy to use tablets that also offer controlled access to the internet when he want to learn about doing an about kenya social studies notions that even so once we go and its just like a textbook these are all the chapters in the textbook and as you can see it really tries to visually highlight a lot of the key things that will come up in exams as im now off teachers to for not wanting to point in that yeah so are at least i guess what they call pedagogy expands this in on our team and their teachers by profession and they know the curriculum they know whats going to come up in exams and one thing to focus on but then we also have im going to focus with leading textbook publishers that have seen kids read their textbooks and go through the fans and so they also know which areas to focus and my legs. Interest to vittie in the classroom is a new concept for kenyan children under the colonial admission based Education System children were not encouraged to speak up or question a teacher what are you guys up to. What you are promoting interactivity is an important part of the concept now tablets are available in libraries like this one children are encouraged to explore the technology and interactivity on their own. Have done a few really interesting studies where weve shown students animations explaining a complex concept other students have just read about it or seen pictures and deftly the students that have seen the animation of better able to really understand and evaluate what that you know subject or topic is teaching. Just. Every two weeks were pushing new content every day one of the teachers is seeing something new that would enhance the naming opportunities. Like books whatever little time. Into explicitly its a moment to explain things but. I guess when we thought about Something Like vision twenty thirty and we realized that the people who are going to be running the economies in twenty thirty the people who are going to be reading and participating sitting in the classrooms right now were seeing that children are schooling that theyre not naming the learning outcomes and not proving that children are understanding concepts and weve tried to launch whats called the one Laptop Per Child Program so the governments keen to see other disruptive interventions in the space and learn from it. I want to start. Social studies struggle for britain so they actually made Digital Literacy mandatory for all teachers so thats an important step that the government saying that you know in order to be a teacher youve got to know how to deal with a digital device so people wish a small school in the column border district was the perfect. Testing ground. And the team chose this school to pilot the program so it would be good and then called the little folk over the issue. So why did you choose that particular school as the home of your Pilot Project it was the school that was struggling and the kids could really have benefited from Education Technology and they were definitely underserved academically and financially and i suppose it helped that they had more is extremely passionate about education and seems to be passionate about technology as well. Yeah hes a great person to run a school like that and run an initiative where a disruptive intervention is what were doing who kind of remember stuff we were thinking about. You or me. Yes i got it. But the momo. Very good in the beginning it was challenged when we started because my children the students some of them even from their homes have never seen such kind of devices something much of in our phones but with the time they enjoy using the tablet to enjoy using because of things like the deals photos so it makes it attractive to the children on the way to get the. Video. You have got it thank you very much. Video it is easy to understand see children some children learn in different ways some like watching and when they watch the exact thing it becomes easier for them to understand every scene a difference if youre looking at the results the kids are getting before using the tablet and using in the move to after first of all their exam results shot through the roof and we saw that they were doing so much better but also their social environmental conch. Business the way that they looked at the world and the people around them we saw that that changed the first subject which we saw a vote a big improvement all sides initially when we started our main school was at fifty six to sixty one but. Today we are beyond seven attempts to reach eighty which is very good we are targeting ninety and this has really made the children feel like we can make it and going to make. It. Across africa the combination of science and technology could be the formula for accelerating development. Is going up to meet him in the beta believes that coding is set to become one of africas most important languages this is a place where we build robots. Then no t. Otherwise known as the buckmaster is a robot builder entrepreneur and teacher you know a robot is actually everything that include games everything hes the founder and c. E. O. Of the Metro Institute of innovation and technology in ghana. Fans and how you and very well can you show me where the students are yeah they and the lab currently. So generally the students come here during School Holidays and over weekends absolutely lives shows a lot of dedication on their part yes because youre mean during the day theyre busy with their schoolwork so we can holiday is the best time for them to come along and some new skill is your students this is my students some of the morning everyone then leads an extracurricular coding course for children of all ages in order to. Spread his passion for robotics we want to build a new generation of people the kids in this particular generation thing we just dont have to. Part for the smarts are the power and the smarts of the teachers i mean does the fact they are born into technology so this is a test that he also loves robotics he is just about fourteen years and getting ready to go to high school kindly and hes building a robot to sort the major problem robot to really explain what youre doing here i can see that theres some kind of relationship between what youre doing on the screen and its. Program in the real world so that when it sees an obstacle it stops it makes it to well blame people are working you can see so do need people to give a damn about and what kind of other robots would you like to build in future rewards that can help when theres a fire somewhere people need to receive whats going to be sent into the fire because there was a lot gets hit in it and so the. People in the plant being there will see so youre really interested in helping people its a move away from the traditional style of educating with a teacher standing in front of a classroom and children sitting in a desk and receiving information why do you think this works so well with our children think when it comes to robotics one thing you know if youre going to excel in that field youve got to have that. Fantasy to imagine things that doesnt exist and try to you know make it happen just meant he loved games a lot. Actually to write his own games. What kind of games do you like i like in the thing you know that it is such an adventure and especially since so if i. Like do with good things its actually actual science. You. The making good. When were teaching the kids we just dont want them to learn and to vacuum we want them to see rule i want them to appreciate mathematics when i love it big problem you have to break it down into smaller chunks and when you start little by little anybody this would not always do the kids math three ways and once you take that approach you know i believe that kids will really have the advantage of a mindset and you find that the the programs what theyve learned here the games that the of building the programs that theyre writing do you find that that inevitably has a knock on effect to their schoolwork that their acts are proved definitely definitely because you know when you are designing game for example you need to understand physics a concept principles of Motion Dynamics kinematics trying to use a bot as a tool to inspire the study of science and. When its clash fiores a use in robots so that if were talking about a scientific principle newtons first law of motion so then we just want to memorize the facts we can actually use robots and we can demonstrate it for them to really see that look and the law really works. Most of the robots in bens lab a made from scratch when hes not teaching ben in his skull of the waste dumps the useful material. He believes that students should not be spending money on parts creating robots from either waste is one of the skills he promotes. Because actually an old cassette player has been discarded there. And there are a lot of component that we can use. That we can use for mechanical construction. And other components that we can use for some of our designs maybe the head of the robots you know we can actually use Something Like this. How. Can you guys busy with. Where they actually come from and one of our robots you call yes this is called that was actually a spy sutherlands for us so that in some time we really want to see whether the working of the airplanes maybe just maybe sat around some of that station for us so i has a hidden camera you know so you might not really aware that hes watching you but is watching. You see. Everything. The camera is also intelligent enough to to actually see use recognize faces so what happens is once a sees a phase you can actually i mean know you by your name could spend testing. As you can see these where these are some of the projects made by kids really. Then pays regular visits to schools across the country to drum up interest in coding and robotics so you just call me from pointing out by that point he says it was just me you know i mean we have two thousand five hundred students across the country it was you we expose them to that feel you know they always get a better idea of how to go about things so irrespective of what you want to do if you want to be a politician and he gets engaged in the baltics he sees technology. This week later i will influence the kind of policy he makes that we have to be able to you know at this with enough intelligence ok so that it doesnt move anyhow most of the time they land in the forget but with this you know the one to actually varies out and its for feeling its rewarding they want to reward. Thank you thank you thank you i believe strongly that it is time we really redefine. Education because the ng down i know those who have been running depend on all system for the british education that they put in place for us we really need a radical change you know we should be able to identify peoples interests passion alley and then put them at the right place to give them their rice stuff and i think that the theyre going to excel so this is the kind of future we want all of you to be part of thanks. I believe that now in the central every kid must court every kid must go just as you lead basic math issues you should know how to quote if people can now see problem in an attack and to solve the problem i think we will call it a long way as a nation makes me think that like makes me feel i could think their head you know and the world is moving in the world is not waiting for anybody. To. Burn is part of governors ongoing commitment to include i. C. T. In the School Curriculum but computers and technology require power in parts of africa where Electricity Supply is limited new ways are being flown to. The continents most abundant resource a sub. Just a few kilometers outside of johannesburg is tembisa a township with thousands of black South Africans were forcibly relocated during the years of apartheid. Under the old white regime School Children were taught specifically structured curriculum designed to prepare them only for menial work and. It would bring equality to the South AfricanEducation System isnt working progress. Many schools still have limited resources and little or no access to actual city but things are looking up temby says as a new word which means promise and here at how much of a primary School Children a part of an exciting new era one which could connect them to a brighter future. For. This small containers damaging the playground is a fully operational classroom and i. C. T. Hub. Designed by Amber Technologies its called edi education delivered intelligently and its entirely solar powered. And you know the area quite well you grew up im from yeah actually i grew up here or schooled here. Who is a member of the amber team who has been working with the department of education to identify suitable test sites for the project so you know the area and the needs and what kind of environmental challenges the students face quite intimately definitely understanding the environment as well you can and you know be part of a Development Initiative with transforming and empowering a community so these are the solar panels up here most of the solar panels ok its taken years to get the project up and running and this classroom is the first of its kind in south africa and a big part of the whole concept behind the classroom is the fact that it is solar powered by interesting internet yammering or shine obviously in developing communities we have an interest city cutouts you know so this allows the school to be empowered whether theres electricity or not some of the lessons still continue in. The classroom maybe high take the delivery and installation is simple and quick. Its fully operational as soon as the solar panels are installed mobility is one of the most important things in developing communities because you want to be able to say i want to build a classroom in a week so it can be transported here so you know it can be built so this particular one in the school took about half an hour to assemble. This is interesting so this would be and the learning environment and show its quite different from the classrooms that you went to school in in tempe so when you were growing up here you know i remember back in the days i used to have a big back heckles and in my times of textbooks in their size books and like that you know now each and every child has got an ebook now you have an easy learning you have one book for all the lessons but youre. Quiet because plugged in place so the curriculum would be the same for each and every child in another school it would be the same designed as an Education System that is approved by the government bake wittman allows you to be able to engage with the curriculum but you have been given so the teacher can communicate directly with the students and they can make communicating talking to each other for team work as well as. Waiting to get. This unit is not only designed to provide the Learning Space but also to supply power for the rest of the school. It can be used like a generator in areas where there is little or no Electricity Supply. Today miss p. Will be taking the first formal lesson in the classroom and im joining them ok john thank you thank you no complaints by the. Public. Ok this is going just going to take us to the full facts of the joint have to. Do anything for you. Before we begin i receive i want you guys to play a game i never they. Testified i say im going to face the raid that killed you get this is for you me right here you are. Its ok because you know that the rest that. I bet. I think you would like to be that way it is all i was going. Thank you ill keep close with you if youve got to watch. Piece that is a link here it is clear. That its a good idea oh they play the whole. Project maybe in its infancy but already has the full support of the department of education. The eighty units will hopefully provide the energy needed to drive a new era of learning for south africas children. Playing doesnt quite sound as good as it should but maybe i need to get one of these at home. On saturday theres more. Today theres a mood of optimism among africas educators that the learning revolution is a reality here the future of education is in the super hands of tech savvy innovators using science and technology to craft Homegrown Solutions