Google.org announces $1.5m grant to Siyavula
Invites SA to answer 1 million maths questions in October
In July, as part of a $50 million commitment to address global learning gaps, Google.org granted $1.5 million to the non-profit arm of Siyavula Education to provide free access to its maths practice service for 150 000 South African students and a further 150 000 in Nigeria. Today, Siyavula started this process by announcing its #1MillionMaths Challenge to kick start learner preparation for end of year exams.
Siyavula is inviting South African learners to complete 1 million maths questions on its digital learning platform in the month of October. For the #1MillionMaths Challenge, Siyavula will provide free access to its premium online maths practice service for all Grade 8-12 learners in the country.
“Both Google and Siyavula harness technology to make information and education more accessible. We want to demonstrate how powerful this can be by providing learners with access to this tool during their preparation for exams, ” says Nick Cain, Google.org’s Program Manager for Education.
“Siyavula has launched the #1MillionMaths Challenge to show the reach and scale that technology enables, as well as the incredible impact that practice can have when learning maths,” says Mark Horner, CEO of Siyavula. “We’ve designed our software to adapt to each learner’s level so they practise smarter, not just harder.”
Google and Siyavula hosted a celebratory event in Johannesburg where the Challenge announcement was made. The event was attended by teachers and learners from schools such as Diepsloot Combined School, Nellmapius High School, Modilati High School and Prestige College, as well as Dr Komane Mphahlele, Deputy Director General Curriculum in the Limpopo Dept of Education; Caroline Raphael, chief education specialist in the Gauteng Dept of Education; Maureen Mthimunye, director in the Gauteng Dept of Education; and Mavis Ndinisa, director in the Mpumalanga Dept of Education.
The #1MillionMath Challenge was opened by Dr Mphahlele, who completed the first math question to kick off the Challenge counter.
Grade 12 learners preparing for exams will be able to practice self-marking exam questions for Mathematics Paper 1 and Paper 2. In addition to learning and preparing for exams, learners will receive various prizes and rewards from Siyavula such as data, mobile phones and Google Play vouchers during October.
150 000 learners from low fee public schools who participate in this challenge will be eligible to receive a Google.org-sponsored scholarship that grants them access to Siyavula maths practice for all of 2018.
To join the #1MillionMaths challenge, prepare for exams and stand a chance to receive one of the 150 000 Google-sponsored subscriptions for 2018, learners can visit the Siyavula website at www.siyavula.com, register for a trial account and redeem the following access code: siyavula-one-million-maths. This code will grant them premium access until the 15th of December and allow them to participate in the challenge. Prizes, leaderboards and more information will be announced on the Siyavula Facebook page throughout the month of October. We invite learners to join the Siyavula Facebook page to monitor our progress and stay up to date.
About Siyavula Practice:
Siyavula Practice (www.siyavula.com) offers learners an unlimited number of maths and science exercises at a level that is tailored to their ability and gives immediate, step-by-step explanations for each question answered. The software has been designed so that learners can practise as much as they like until they feel confident that they’ve really understood. Powerful technology adapts each practice session to the needs of the learner by changing the difficulty and sequencing of the questions they see. Siyavula Practice can be used by anyone with a computer, tablet or mobile phone (smart or not) as long as it has an internet connection. It carries an annual subscription fee (R599 per year each for maths and science or R999 per year for both), but Siyavula works with funders to provide disadvantaged students with sponsored access. Partnerships with Vodacom and MTN allow learners to access the Siyavula website without being charged for data.
About Google.org
Google.org, the philanthropic arm of Google, supports nonprofits that innovate to address humanitarian issues. Google.org was created to pursue, experiment with, and build upon ideas to improve the world, and continues to take an iterative approach to philanthropy today. Google.org develops and invests in pursuits that can have measurable impact on local, regional and global issues, and rallies Google’s people in support of these efforts with a singular goal of creating a better world, faster.
In March Google announced that Google.org would make $50 million in grants over two years to nonprofits that are using technology to close global learning gaps. As part of this commitment Siyavula received a $1.5M grant to provide free access to its online learning platform to 150,000 low-income students in South Africa and 150,000 additional low-income students in Nigeria. They will also use Google.org funding to create versions of their highly regarded (and government approved) free digital textbooks aligned to the Nigerian curriculum and a set of topic maps that will be freely available to anyone building ed tech for the Nigerian market.
Kelly Berman
PR/Communications
Tel: +27 76 978 3728
Twitter: @kelly_berman
Instagram: kelly_berman
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