Ambassador to Kenya, Elkanah Odembo, speaking at the Books for Africa Gala

So I’ve returned from the Annual Books for Africa Gala that I attended and spoke at last week in Minnesota, and can say that the accomplishments and plans for future achievements were even more impressive than those shared last year. This years gala focused strongly on the need to educate children in reading and writing, so they can be well positioned to benefit from the electronic resources that are becoming available in most African countries. While the power of the Internet and the educational capabilities it provides are unrivaled, students in African nations will only be able to leverage them if they have built a solid academic foundation first.

The gala was highlighted by a speech from the Ambassador to Kenya, Elkanah Odembo, who repeatedly touched on the need to continue providing students and teachers with the tools to gain a mastery of reading and writing, so they can then be empowered by the Internet and associated information superhighway that is beginning to make itself available in Kenya and surrounding countries. He acknowledged the unbelievable educational capabilities of resources like Course Hero, and pushed hard on the need to make sure every child was well versed in reading and writing skills to ensure that they are prepared to use these assets.

Delivering my talk

As a speaker myself, it was thrilling to share the success of the Course Hero Knowledge Drive, which has jumped from 7,000 books donated to 43,000+ in just over a year. It was even more energizing to view the reaction of those in the audience though, from the Ambassadors all the way down to the newest supports of Books for Africa, as they could easily see the power that this student driven movement is having. Making education more accessible for learners and educators around the world is at the core of everything Course Hero is doing, and the power behind that mission was perfectly captured by the numerous students, teachers, and administrators that came up after to ask about how they could get involved, and help bring Course Hero and the Knowledge Drive to their schools, from Duke all the way to St. Thomas University.

Megan Mallory of A Hand in Health and I at the Gala

Building off the focus of the speeches, and how proper reading and writing instruction will play into the use of the Internet, many of the following conversations revolved around how we could leverage the resources that Course Hero currently provides, like our Courses and Flashcards tools, to help teach and test students in these areas. Could we build a course that teaches middleschoolers basic English as a second language? Could we build a course that teaches highschoolers intermediate English or business writing? Could we create flashcard sets that help strengthen basic English reading skills? Or English vocabularies?

Course Hero is here to help everyone learn more effectively, no matter where they reside. The main educational focus in continents like Africa must remain on the basic building blocks of academics, and providing students and teachers with the resources they need to become great readers and writers. Books are currently the most important asset in that area, but opening conversations as we did in Minnesota, and working through how we can leverage the current and future resources that Course Hero provides to benefit learners and educators in Africa is an exciting next step, and speaks to the power that we have to benefit the entire educational landscape.

It will be very exciting to ask and answer the necessary questions to determine how we do so in the coming months, and to work together with students and teachers around the world to make sure we provide the very best academic resource possible.

Since that first trip, 36,000 more books have been sent to children abroad. That large yet simple number concisely highlights the tremendous success that has been achieved by the Course Hero Knowledge Drive and all those who are involved. The Knowledge Drive has now been launched at over 120+ campuses, and with the tremendous efforts of 150+ bright young student leaders at each of those universities, there are now thousands of students across the country uniting together to help make education more accessible for learners and educators both here and abroad.

While the accomplishments and growth have been fantastic to see, it is even more energizing to know that there is still tremendous room to succeed and lift the Course Hero Knowledge Drive to even greater levels. If this is what we have accomplished in a little over our first year, imagine what we can accomplish in the one to come. Beyond bringing the Knowledge Drive to 100+ additional campuses and making sure we provide the very best academic resources for students at those universities here in the US, we are exploring applications for our Courses and Flashcards tools to provide accessible learning solutions for underserved communities abroad.

This second trip to Saint Paul helps highlight the significant progress in the Knowledge Drive’s mission to build the very best learning resource for students. As a speaker at this years gala though, which also includes Elkanah Odembo, Kenya’s Ambassador to the US and Mr. Oluwasegun Ibidapo-Obe, Nigeria’s Ambassador to the US, this trip validates the powerful impact that Course Hero is having as it revolutionizes the landscape of education, and confirms that there is tremendous support to continue doing so from every corner of the educational world.

While it will be nice to celebrate and speak about the accomplishments of this past year, it will be even better to map out the future of this movement, and how we will work together with the individuals and groups involved with Books for Africa to turn that path into a reality. That is something that I look forward to sharing when I return, and am excited to do an even greater job of helping everyone learn, share, teach, and achieve at an even greater level, both here and abroad.

Our latest infographic addresses these questions and aims to help you make the smartest decision possible about which school is best for you. Check it out!

So how do flashcards work and why are they so effective? Take a look at our latest infographic, and get ready to ace your next exam.

The ability to learn anything and everything we want is at our fingertips, free, and just a mouse-click away. Over the last 10 years, the Internet has evolved into a massive repository of quality educational content as people of all areas of expertise willingly share their knowledge with a growing online audience.

Course Hero is meeting the growing demand for high quality online learning by building a new kind of interactive courses platform that can better deliver this wealth of existing content.  We’ve created and launched 22 free courses that fall under 3 learning paths: Entrepreneurship, Business and Web Programming.

To create these courses, we scoured the web for the best freely available educational content in all formats, whether videos, papers, articles, or webpages. We then broke the content down into digestible clips and reassembled the pieces into navigable learning paths. We layered in interactive quizzes and added badges, points and levels at different progress checkpoints.  This decentralization and gamification allowed us to create a scalable learning solution that is both high quality and engaging.

Below are 3 major problems we see with the delivery of most open online learning content today that Course Hero addresses with Courses:

PROBLEM #1 – Content Overload and Lack of Organization Online
There are so many videos (and many are simply too long to watch in one sitting and others are just too boring), websites, articles, blogs, etc. with learning material.  It’s like drinking from a firehose.  Which source is the best?  Where do I start?  Where do I go from there?  There often isn’t a complete learning path that you’d expect in a traditional course.  

COURSE HERO SOLUTION – Human Curation and Organization
So far, our small & passionate team at Course Hero has curated 22 courses from free learning content that we (a) find online, (b) think highly of, (c) organize, and (d) break down into small, digestible chunks.

PROBLEM #2 – Lack of Feedback
The vast majority of free learning resources don’t provide an easy, effective way test knowledge acquired.

COURSE HERO SOLUTION  - Create Assessments and Question & Answer Forums
We create comprehension questions for this content and deliver them through simple online quizzes and question & answers forums.  We’ll try to make these assessments more fun and interactive over time…likely with competitions and games.

PROBLEM #3 – Lack of Certification
I spend a significant amount of time learning all this content, and I can’t easily prove that I learned the content in the video, article, post, course, etc.

COURSE HERO SOLUTION – Gamification and Rewards

We offer users a fun way to signal they’ve mastered concepts and completed courses with game dynamics like points and badges that they can share.  We let students who complete our Entrepreneurship major enter a business plan competition, and we’ll give $5,000 and a pitch meeting with Ron Conway and SV Angel to the author of the best business proposal.  We let students who complete our Business and Programming majors submit their resumes, and we’ll review them for job and internship interviews at Course Hero. We believe that by offering real world opportunities, we’re giving individuals the chance to apply the skills they’ve gained through the courses they’ve taken in a way that can tangibly benefit them on their resume and in their future.

At Course Hero, we’re committed to delivering the best tools to help anyone who wants to learn achieve a quality education. We’d love help from passionate teachers, students and subject matter experts to create more courses.  If you’d like to help, please reach me at agrauer@coursehero.com.

This graphic outlines the financial and social costs of dropping out of school and explores the potential effectiveness of the President’s proposed solution. Check it out:

Me at the Banjul Fish Market

For my first couple days after landing in Banjul, I spent some time as a tourist exploring the coastline between Bakau and Brufut Beach observing the local artwork and handicrafts, exploring the beaches, and fending off the vicious onslaught of mosquitoes. (For the record, mosquito nets are just for decoration, not a preventative measure from getting feasted on while in The Gambia). In order to fit in with the locals and establish contact with necessary parties, I went and purchases my very own cell phone from the Africell network. This seemed to be the African version of dominant Verizon network in the U.S., and I was starting to look like a real poser with my local cell phone.

Megan and I with students

I connected with Megan Mallory, Founder of Hand in Health, and began the planning process for one of the craziest book delivery excursions I’ve ever imagined. Over the next several days, we laid out a schedule to meet with and assemble a philanthropic “Dream Team” consisting of the Founder and Executive Director of Books for Africa, Directors of the Nigerian Emeka Offor Fountation, the Nigerian High Commissioner The Gambia, the Mayor of Banjul, a World Bank Consultant, three physicians, a childrens book author, and three more dedicated volunteers.

Over the next several days we met with the big wigs from the Ministry of Education, public news broadcasters, and headmasters of different school districts. Everyone was extremely excited about our presence in their country, and there were always a ton of photographers and reporters around.

Me with the Mayor of Banjul

After organizing and labeling the boxes of books according to their intended destination, we made the five hour long journey in a cramped van to Bwiam where we stayed the night at a Hospital. We were met with a huge parade of enthusiastic locals who were celebrating our cause (and the fact that Hand in Health had come back since building the Sulayman Junkung Medical Library). They sang traditional songs and danced with more energy and passion than I have ever seen a group of people do in my whole life!

They sent us off on our journey to literally walk across the country and make stops at more than 20 on The African Book Walk. I was ecstatic to experience something so out of my comfort zone, but extremely nervous at the same time. The sun was beating down hard by 8:00 am and it was already about 87 degrees F with no breeze. We estimated that it would take at

least two full days of grunt work to personally deliver around 10,000 books in boxes that each weigh about 50 lbs. each. (This is not the kind of news anyone is excited to hear before they’re awake enough to register what’s going on).

When we finally pulled up to our first school on the border of the Senegal and The Gambia, the entire student population was already out on the highway waiting for us, cheering frantically as we approached. It was clear that these materials were not only needed, but very much anticipated by the students who would be using them.

DoDou and I

We continued for the next two days stopping at schools and unloading several boxes of books that were designated for the grades and subjects where there was the most need. As we neared the end of our journey and approached the northern border of The Gambia, I met one little 3^rd grader–DoDou– who made a huge impact on me. DoDou walked with me for at least three miles against the better judgment of his friends and proceeded to talk to me about the U.S. Technology and computers, his lifelong aspiration of becoming a soldier and going to college, and his family. While most of the student encounters I had were brief and hastened due to the quick nature of our book delivery, this one in particular struck a cord in my heart, and I will honestly never forget this little guy. His teacher finally had to track him down and bring him back to school, and he gave me a huge hug good bye and brought a tear to my eye.

Leaving The Gambia was bittersweet, but knowing that I made an impact in at least one student’s eyes was worth the entire trip, the (not kidding) hundreds of mosquito bites, and the awkward farmer’s tan I’m now sporting in the office.

With K-12 public education reform a hot-topic for Obama and the upcoming election in general, the massive expense eaten up by remedial education will be at the the forefront. Our latest infographic takes a looks at student readiness and some of the massive cost associated with being unprepared. Check it out.

Robbie and I. She gave me all sorts of goodies (like this mosquito net!) to help prepare for my trip

I’m sitting in the airport, and I feel like a little kid on Christmas morning waiting to open up presents. My heart is pounding. I’m totally sleep-deprived from packing all night. Despite having some gnarly hallucinations from the malaria prescription I’ve been taking, I can’t stop thinking about how excited I am to make my way to The Gambia.

Thanks to a last minute visit with my awesome nurse pal, Robbie, I am fully equipped for any emergency that The Gambia may throw my way. Talking with Robbie over dinner last week, I was reminded of how awesome it is meeting people who are eagar to share their passion for international travel with others.

To make sure I was fully prepared, she sent with me her enormous mosquito net, a ton of surplus meds from her last trip, maps, numerous recommendations on where to find the best deals and attractions, and a package for her “brother” she lived with back when she was in the peace corps. Somewhere along my travels to the past 10 or so countries, I must have scored some major karma points to be so well taken care of!

It may sound cheesy, but I’m a little overwhelmed with emotion right now because of where I am in my life today. In my first blog post, I talked about how this opportunity was presented to me, and I jumped at the chance to combine my passion for philanthropy and business development. The students and the passionate Knowledge Drive team I work with have been the foundation of this amazing initiative, and I am so proud to have the opportunity to see everyone’s hard work come to fruition.

My bed for the next 10 hours from Chicago to Brussels

At 4:25 pm on Valentine’s Day, I will be landing in Banjul and starting this highly anticipated journey with colleagues from Hand in Health and Books For Africa. For the next 10 days, we’ll be traveling across the Gambia distributing the 44,000 books everyone helped to donate.

And now it’s time to board the plane. Let the adventure begin!