Pakistan has the second highest number or out-of-school children in the world. This figure currently stands at 22.5 million. Both enrollment and performance decrease as children move from the primary grades towards the higher secondary grades.
The Orenda Project’s mission is to use technology to bridge the digital divide between private and public schools in Pakistan by providing engaging, high quality digital education to the masses. For the past four years, Orenda has brought the national curriculum to life, through animated videos and interactive quizzes via its digital platform Taleemabad. The app has found its way to over 700,000 children all across Pakistan, from Kashmir in the north to Gwadar in the south and contains animated videos and interactive quizzes for K to 5 grades.
The Orenda Project aims to increase the education opportunities for children living outside the major cities of Pakistan by expanding both the curriculum and reach of the Taleemabad app to Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities. They plan to achieve this by developing the app for KaiOS phones, thus tackling the affordability and accessibility barriers. The Orenda Project also plans to launch their B2B solution for low-cost schools by developing an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system to further improve accessibility for the underserved segment.
Orenda is one of the start-ups supported by the GSMA Innovation Fund for Mobile Internet Adoption and Digital Inclusion, which was launched in April 2020. It is funded by the UK Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO), and supported by the Deutsche Gesellschaft fȕr Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH, the GSMA and its members.
Learn more about the GSMA Innovation Fund here.