Title of Innovation: Snapplify

Year of implementation: 2012

Website: www.snapplify.com

Implemented by: Snapplify

Country/Countries where the Innovation is being implemented: Kenya, South Africa

Problem being solved

Snapplify is at the forefront of edtech innovations in Africa, and specialises in enabling digital learning for individuals and institutions by establishing a marketplace for digital education content, related educational services, and devices. Snapplify for Education refers to a suite of products for digital reading and e-learning that are transforming classrooms by empowering teachers and students to teach and learn, digitally.

While technology has the potential to transform classrooms around the world, the adoption of digital and blended learning in emerging markets comes with unique challenges. As such, we’ve taken care to ensure that our offering is world-class, but appropriate and relevant for use in classrooms across Africa. Snapplify has worked hard to supply realistic solutions to curb the challenges faced by primary, secondary and tertiary institutions, and built a tried-and-tested sales and rollout model that can be replicated in any region.

As a pan-African edtech company, Snapplify strives for radical inclusion to level the playing field and equip individuals across emerging markets with the world-class tools they need to collaborate, innovate and thrive. Since its establishment in 2012, the company has grown and expanded into new markets in Africa and the United States, with offices across South Africa, as well as in Nairobi, Amsterdam and New Jersey.

Description of innovation

Snapplify for Education’s award-winning platform (Engage) is already a top choice for institutions integrating digital education into their classrooms. From software to support, Snapplify provides institutions with everything they need to create a secure, collaborative e-learning environment for students. Through Snapplify’s award-winning e-learning and digital library solution, the Engage, educators can share teacher-created, multimedia resource materials with students; administrators can manage the access and permissions for multiple student and staff accounts; schools can host their own 24-hour access digital content library (which comes with over 50 000 free resources including study guides, e-textbooks, past exam papers for multiple curricula, children’s books in African languages and more); and students and parents can purchase prescribed e-textbooks. The Snappbox, Snapplify’s hardware distribution solution for ebooks, allows schools with limited or no connectivity to access learning materials, saving data and download time. Snapplify’s diversity of device integration allows schools to use its products on the devices that they already have access to, without having to invest in costly digital infrastructure upgrades. Snapplify’s solutions are industry celebrated and globally recognised for their innovation in technology.

Outcomes and Impact

Thousands of schools and hundreds of thousands of users are already registered to use Snapplify solutions.

To date, Snapplify has built the largest catalogue of local and international e-textbooks in Africa, in partnership with local and international publishers. This means that our catalogue is diverse, widely applicable for schools across multiple regions, and constantly growing.

Over the past few years, we’ve taken great pride in being included among other industry experts in discussions about the future of education in Africa. We frequently engage in insightful conversations with government and other key stakeholders in South Africa, Kenya and further afield, so that we can work together to improve access to digital education. We have met with United Nations policy makers; participated in the Innovating Education in Africa expo twice and been officially recognised by the African Union as one of Africa’s most promising education innovations. In support of national-level goals for the education sector, we are also working on a project that is set to bring technology and e-learning to all public schools in South Africa's Gauteng province. This is the largest national-level intervention in digital education in South Africa at this time.

Snapplify has won multiple global awards for its innovation in technology. The company was a Bett Award (2020) finalist in the Innovator of the Year category, and was named the overall winner of the Africa Region Gold Award at the 2020 Reimagine Education Conference and Awards in London. This follows Snapplify’s success at the 2019 Reimagine Education Conference in San Francisco, where the company won the Overall EdTech Award and a Reimagine Education Award in the E-learning category. At the time, Nunzio Quacquarelli, CEO of QS Quacquarelli Symonds and co-founder of Reimagine Education, noted that Snapplify was selected by the expert panel of international judges for ‘compellingly demonstrating its capacity to scale effectively to hundreds of thousands of users – especially on a continent where infrastructure development is still frequently limited. In addition, its emphasis on improving affordability was commended highly, and we believe that learners in Africa will benefit hugely – and in their millions – from Snapplify’s innovative approach to enhancing e-learning. It is user-friendly, learner-centric, and is doing admirable work to bring more and more schools into the digital age.’

Potential to be scaled and replicated

Free registration & 50 000 free resources to get you started

As part of our commitment to tackle issues around access and give schools the opportunity to explore digital learning at no cost, Snapplify has released a free version of our Engage e-learning platform. Engage combines Snapplify’s collaborative e-learning products into one platform, allowing educators to share teacher-created, multimedia resource materials with students, and giving schools access to their own robust digital content library. Now, using Engage Basic, any institution can register online, for free, and get started immediately with over 50 000 free resources. This directly impacts access to educational materials on the continent and gives more students the opportunity to pursue their personal and professional goals. Plus, digital learning and reading platforms enable educators and students to engage with content, and each other, like never before while simultaneously working on technology soft skills required for tertiary education and the modern workplace.

The response to the launch of the free platform has been overwhelmingly positive, with registrations from institutions across the globe, including Nigeria, Ghana, Egypt, Zimbabwe, Ethiopia, Tanzania, Mauritius and more – an impressive footprint that shows that we are tapping into and meeting the existing needs of the market. In turn, this broad reach will help us better understand commonalities in regional needs, and align our work with those needs for our next growth phase. Educational institutions are engaged and actively searching for high-quality education tools that overcome a variety of barriers specific to emerging market schools, and that offer access to broad, curriculum-appropriate content.

Any school can register for Engage at engage.snapplify.com/get-started