When COVID-19 emerged as a clear and present danger, we in the Hub innovation team were forced to rethink our plans for 2020. We previously told you about our work and how it looks to support and scale innovation with real people in real life. Now we had to reassess what this would look like and how it could be most effective in responding to global school closures. 

This blog was originally posted on the Center for Global Development blog with data used from the EdTech Hub’s database of interventions. Our database, which was initially limited to sub-Saharan Africa, now has a global scope. As the blog suggests, there is a need to increase the database’s representation of interventions in other regions. Please add your EdTech intervention to help us grow it!

With schools closed for hundreds of million students around the world, many have hoped that ‘EdTech’ can help keep children learning via internet, apps, and mobiles. A new database published by the “EdTech Hub” shows that though use of edtech products serving African countries has doubled in the last month, the total number of users is still very low, and most were viewers of one TV show. That, coupled with the fact that most firms come from just a few countries, suggests that edtech in Africa is far from maturity.

This is part of our coronavirus (COVID-19) and EdTech series.

On 21st April, we launched a call for ideas for EdTech in responses to coronavirus and the lockdown of schools around the world. 

Three weeks later, we’ve taken a slice of the first 100 responses and analysed the data. Combining this with conversations our team is having every day with technologists and innovators around the world, we’ve sought to answer: what do these innovators need right now? In future blogs, we’ll cut the data in different ways to answer other questions.