Ask HN: Providing cheaper EdTech tools for rural zones

We don't aim to replace the standard ''book' support, our goal is to provide the inaccessible tools and based on child curiosity we open new opportunities to learning subject such as astronomy, music... I'm a computer engineer who born in a such region, and i only touched the keyboard at the university. We are talking about places where the school is the first and the only source of learning and the TV is the only source of entertainment. No public libraries, no clubs, no house cultures .... Our education system is designed to provide a standard vision for all kids in the country regardless their interests, cultures, communities background. They are designed based on 'old' vision for the industrial jobs needs, and as these jobs still decreasing, the unemployment rate in Tunisia is about 20% for graduated people (this rate does'nt include the dropouts). So, we all know sure that something wrong with current system, but this is not our first goal. Our main goal is simple, provide fun learning tools for kids (virtual telescope, piano, guitar ...)

I would encourage you to forget about hardware and concentrate on the software and applications.

Based on my experiences (I work for an ISP but we have a "sister" company that's an MSP that provides IT services to, among others, several K-12 schools in such rural areas), most of these schools either 1) already have available hardware (iPads, Chromebooks) due to existing 1:1 programs or 2) have decided to not (yet) pursue that (usually because of financial reasons).

In the former case, they already have hardware and don't want to buy even more. In the latter, they simply don't have the money for it (it'll be an even harder sell if it's not "general purpose" and can only be used with your stuff). Even if you manage to get it under $50 per student, that's still a lot of money that they could likely spend elsewhere.

Develop your applications and concentrate on targeting the most popular platforms (iOS and Android) and forget about trying to sell them hardware they can't (easily) reuse. Definitely forget about cellular connectivity and stick to Wi-Fi instead.

Hi DoreenMichele, Thank you !! And I greet you for your self learning.

Yes you are right, we are based in Tunisia. Really, we don't have a critical issues to access electricity compared to other african countries.

With 50$ (120 Dt) in average, you can buy smartphone and tablets, most are chineese brands either with their names or under white labeled 'Tunisian' brands, and some known brands (huwaiey, sumsing, ZTE) that provide some low-cost of their products dedicated to developing countries.

We first thought about tablets because it's provide large screen and they gave us the possibilities to develop the system. The smartphone is a great choice also but we need to adapt our apps in a responsive way so can be rendered in multiple screen sizes.

Thank you ronsor ! We really need a web browser, enough memory and kind of 'performant' CPU / GPU to run html and js applications. So, a customized os like chrome os will be suitable if we choose to build our custom solution.

You should reach out to the folks at learningequality.org. They focus on totally offline use cases but have a huge global partnership network and could definitely give you hardware advice.