Our Journey to Impact – EdApp X UNITAR launch Educate All

Today marks a huge milestone in the EdApp journey with the launch of the Educate All initiative in partnership with the United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR). Together we are embarking on a mission to increase access to free, high-quality, and impactful education, helping empower and educate millions of learners around the world, notably providing access to those furthest behind and with limited opportunities. It’s our biggest and most ambitious project yet, with the greatest reward – free global education.

Attached is a letter from myself and Nikhil Seth, United Nations Assistant Secretary-General, Executive Director, UNITAR, outlining the initiative further, however as I reflect on the EdApp journey, I first want to share a few words on how this initiative came about.

Since our inception, we have been committed to reshaping corporate education throughout the world and it’s been humbling to have had so many customers join us on that journey. It’s remarkable to us that we currently process somewhere in the region of 1.5m lessons a month.

Over the last couple of years, we have seen the platform used in a wide variety of ways and have enjoyed constant feedback and evidence that our approach to learning is transformative.

A mobile-first microlearning approach for education

Whilst the concept of microlearning isn’t necessarily a new one, our unique approach in combining this methodology with the use of mobile and the accessibility and immediacy it brings means we have been able to solve problems that have long existed in the corporate learning space. As we have continued to build out the platform, and more and more large (and small) organizations began leveraging EdApp, we were buoyed by its broad application across many industries.

As exciting as this was, it was when we saw our platform deployed in the developing world that we began to realize its applicability outside of strictly corporate learning. EdApp was being used by community organizations as a vehicle to deliver adult education in parts of the world where access to learning could drive real change. In fact, the team quickly realized that we could play a key role in helping to provide ongoing community development through the power of education. Being at the intersection of mobile technology, data, and having direct relationships with passionate educators, we recognized that we had something that could make a real difference in the world. We knew that we could be a true catalyst for change and as a fast-growing technology start-up, and were well-positioned to make this happen. We changed our mindset to thinking more globally and started challenging ourselves to focus on making a real impact and social good.

In meeting with fantastic not-for-profits like Esperanza and AFS Intercultural who had started using EdApp in places like the Dominican Republic and Haiti, our new focus was further reinforced. Both of these partnerships inspired our teams to take advantage of this unique opportunity to help power education across the globe and challenged us to ensure our technology could truly stack up. Engineering attention turned to bandwidth concerns and limited coverage issues, looking at how we can scale into these areas. Project teams further began looking at learning inequality and found that in almost one-third of countries, less than 5% of adults aged 15 and above will ever undertake any education at work. These findings sparked the team’s interest even further. 

The ‘wow’ moment then came last year when we were lucky enough to meet Nigel Gan and other team members from UNITAR (United Nations Institute for Training and Research) who began to use our platform. It was in these meetings when we recognized that our missions aligned.

UNITAR was utilizing EdApp in countries like Iraq and Afghanistan assisting to rebuild communities through educating on the role of gender, female inclusion, and many more amazing initiatives. Their view is that adult learning and education has a crucial role in supporting the achievement of their Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) including those on climate change, poverty, health and well-being, gender equality, decent work, economic growth, and sustainable cities and communities absolutely resonated with the team and myself.

As Nikhil puts it “We are striving for a world in which individuals, communities and organizations are equipped with the knowledge and skills to overcome global challenges.” 

We knew it was something we wanted to be involved in, to prove our model and new mission at scale.

Democratizing learning with "Educate All"

The last few months have involved significant effort from the EdApp team, and today I am thrilled to announce our collaborative effort “Educate All”. The initiative will open up the EdApp mobile learning platform for millions of people all over the world and provide free access to high impact courseware to advance their knowledge of sustainability, leadership, business skills and more.  

To achieve this, UNITAR will be contributing their microlearning courseware to the Educate All initiative, helping to build a global learning library of high quality, impactful courseware. At the same time we will be opening up the EdApp platform to the public absolutely free of charge, enabling individuals, institutions and organisations access to the entire platform.

This means that any individual, anywhere in the world will be able to access this new library at no cost. Likewise, anyone looking to train a team will also be given the opportunity to enjoy all the features of EdApp, in exchange for their published courseware also becoming available to learners and teams around the world in this same library. 

Both UNITAR and EdApp feel our platform offers a unique opportunity to accelerate the UN’s vision to provide innovative learning solutions to individuals and organizations to enhance decision-making and better shape the future.

As the attached letter details, we are now calling on private enterprises, institutions, and thought leaders to join the cause and contribute courseware relevant to upskilling a global audience to the Educate All library. 

The UN has a successful record of partnerships with private companies, and this cooperation can play a key role in providing a further environment able to enhance the value of the private sector’s contribution to sustainable development and the value of its social and corporate responsibility policy.

We are striving for a world in which individuals, institutions, and organizations are equipped with the knowledge, skills, and other capacities to overcome global challenges. 

It’s been an incredible journey so far, seeing this initiative come to fruition and I’m looking forward to seeing where we can take it. 

Join us on this mission and let’s enroll the world together.

To learn more about #EducateAll visit https://www.edapp.com/contribute-educate-all