2020 – A year of grit and resilience

The pandemic proved to be a watershed moment for the Edtech industry around the world. It brought a flurry of interest and investment in the market and saw Edtech become a permanent feature in almost all atmospheres of learning. However this rising tide did not lift all boats, for us in Pakistan – a country where the digital infrastructure is still in its early stages – it meant a revaluation of strategy and a doubling of efforts and resources expended.

The year 2020 saw us establish a new chapter in Rahim Yar Khan, a new more advanced lab in Mughalpura, our micro-startup Autome.me reach 10K followers and finally collaboration between our video editing cohort and Mertium.com. We achieved this and much more while schools across the country were closed and thousands of students were dropping out, for us, we did more than persevere, we flourished!

A little about our new chapter

In a first we expanded our operations outside of Lahore and established a digital skills program in Rahim Yar Khan in collaboration with SKIT (Syeda Khadija Institute of Technology). The program aims to equip young women with cutting edge digital skills like programming, web development and digital marketing. The goal is to improve employability for the women enrolled and create opportunities through which they can provide for themselves.

The program follows the same self-learning model applied to Khud schools in Lahore, where students learn on their own pace and are helped along by a trained instructor. In the coming year we are expecting the program to start rolling out finished products (websites, applications etc.) and are optimistic about the development of mini-startups, the likes of which we have already seen in Lahore.

The way forward

Having somewhat perfected our learning model, the focus for 2021 is going to be on scalability and sustainability. How do we spring board the program to reach more students to improve their employability is the challenge ahead of us. We have the following milestones etched out to achieve our goal in 2021:

• ·         Double the number of Khud chapters

• ·         Double enrolment from 250 to 500 students

• ·         Create reliable employment for at least 50 young adults

• ·         Enable at least 50 young adults to attend top colleges

• ·         Reach the $50,000 donation mark