(Image credit: jobs-to-be-done.com)
My participation in the Innovate for Africa Fellowship has been an amazing start to my 2021! I have learnt and grown so much in the last few days and there is much excitement in my heart about what lies head!
It is a program that equips aspiring entrepreneurs in Africa with the skills, knowledge and network for impactful innovation, and I am more than thrilled be in the current cohort!
One of the practical aspect of this training is the hackathon in which teams are tasked with creating solutions to identified problems. It is my aim in this post to share insights and lessons I have gained from the Primary Market Research phase of my team’s hackathon run! I do hope you would find them helpful and relevant to your creative endeavours!
OVERVIEW OF PROJECT
My team is working on a problem defined by this statement:
"Many children in Nigeria are missing out on quality education due to reasons such as poverty and wrong parent/guardian orientation - how might we enable kids that are not receiving basic education in Nigeria right now to access it?"
Right there is our cue, and in a search for answers, we interviewed five persons representative of our target audience: 2 teenagers currently out of school, a researcher on our subject of interest, a teacher who had firsthand experience of the problem, and a parent.
THE FINDINGS
At the start of the project, we had suspected poverty and wrong orientation of parents/guardians concerning education as causes of the problem, as captured in our problem statement. It is noteworthy that our data confirmed the validity of these factors! Directly and by inference, 100% of respondents agree that poverty/economic hardship is a significant cause, while about 60% agree that the orientation of affected parents/guardians is another valid factor.
Other causes discovered include:
Cultural perception that downplays the importance for western education in parts of Northern Nigeria
Negative parental and behavioural models in slums and other target communities
The disinterest of some of the affected children in formal education
The nonchalance shown towards the situation by some teachers in the communities in which this problem thrives.
THE EYE-OPENERS
Some of our findings were eye-openers for my team and prompted us to begin to reimagine the problem! These include:
Sexual abuse of the girl-child in slums and similar environments and child marriage, which often occurs in Northern Nigeria, are critical causal factors of many Nigerian girls being out of school. Hence, a one-size-fits-all approach will not work for boys and girls alike. The girl-child needs an especial intervention for her right to basic education to be retained.
Basic education is compulsory, by law, in the North. However, widely, compliance has not been ensured by state authorities.
The desire for economic emancipation is a key factor that makes many parents put their kids out on the streets to hawk rather than in class to learn. This is also the reason for some of the kids, particularly, those in their teens, to pursue apprenticeships and petty trading instead of schooling. These activities offer them immediate gains for vital needs such as feeding, and are considered better investments than being in a school. Essentially, the streets pay them more than the schools would.
NEXT STEPS
We will continue to synthesise our data and perhaps interview more persons find more insights that will help us build a solution that will be both relevant and impactful to our target audience.
MY TAKEAWAYS
Among other lessons, my experience at this research phase has taught me never to assume that my idea is the perfect solution until I have found and listened to those who live with the problem that I am trying to solve.
Problem-solving depends on a lot much more than I know. It is not about my output. Rather, it is about the outcomes that my users experience through the solution which I am privileged to design.
And, ultimately, for my innovation to be indeed impactful, I must keep listening, collaborating, steer clear of bias, and persevere until the best solution possible is delivered to my end users.
Thank you for your time and attention!