AgriColleges International

    

Awards Nominee Category: African ChangeMakers Innovative Education Award

Nominee Full Name: David Crouwkamp

Nominee Country: South Africa 

Company Initiative Career Business: AGRICOLLEGES International

Nominee Title Role: Partnership and Development Manager

Nominee Product/Service: Provide online agricultural education

Describe how your Company/Initiative/Career/Business is turning Africa problems into solutions in your community e.g. technology partnerships reach coverage:

AGRICOLLEGES is a modern cloud-based e-learning institution, using world-class technology as a platform to address the agricultural education gap in Africa and beyond, by providing students with affordable, accessible, and industry-relevant education and training in the fields of agriculture and related agri-industries. The technology is already proving successful.
The AGRICOLLEGES approach tackles the challenge from within the communities and alongside the communities for them to become self-sustainable and ultimately strengthening the agricultural sector of their economies.
ACI’s unique offering is the cloud-based teaching, training, and learning of Agri-Sciences by providing access to information in an online, blended and shared learning environment, available from anywhere at any time. All this at a quarter of the cost of a traditional bricks and mortar tertiary education institutions.
Our focus and outcomes:
• Change Perceptions
• Make Agriculture cool again
• Change teaching methodology
• Bring technology into the curricula
• Adapt the curricula to a changing world

 

How does the Company Initiative/Career/Business improve people’s life, impact, affordability and reliability?

Upon completing the courses AGRICOLLEGES has developed and continues to develop, students will be equipped with the skillsets and knowledge to make them more employable and become “agripreneurs”.
One of AGRICOLLEGS’s prime objectives is to develop a sustainable system that will enable us to support learners in need with bursaries and scholarships.
We have created an independent NPC to manage, assess and allocate all bursary and scholarship funds. The independent non-profit company Educate To Grow manages all bursaries and they also assist and monitor Agricolleges bursary students even if the funding was not sourced through Educate To Grow, but by Agricolleges directly. The additional benefits such as life- or soft-skills training ensures a well-rounded individual being.
Since launching our first course in March 2018, we have successfully graduated over 1000 alumni in 29 countries, with 13 being African countries. There are currently a further 150 students on courses.

 

How can this service product or solution be expanded to new markets or areas in Africa?

1- Partnerships like:
The Triple Helix partnerships: Maastricht School of Management, Stellenbosch University, and Agricolleges International. Focuses at looking for joint solutions across Africa.
2- Technology:
– Brightspace Learning Management System – D2L
– Student Information System- Opencollab
– Google Workspace
– Microsoft office 365
– H5P, Zip board
– Zoom, Skype, Slack, Trello
– Streaming of webinars or lectures .
3- Worldwide recognition:
– 30 Most Inspiring Digital Innovations (MIDI’s) of 2020 by Dutch NGO Partos.
– The German initiative The Futures Project.
– GES (Global Education Start-up) Awards.
4- Our reach in 3 years: Alumni from 29 countries!

Website: https://agricolleges.com/

Voting Timeline: July 15 to July 30, 2021.