We've been asked to post the contents of the business plan on the thread for easier access; so here we go
§1 Executive SummaryMzansi Renaissance undertakes to bridge the widening technological chasm forestalling the youth of rural Africa from participating in the world of tomorrow.
We achieve our mission by implementing an innovative, triple pronged strategy that is centred on student education and empowerment.
We first endeavour to demolish the language barrier impeding the disadvantaged learner from learning mathematics and science in their mother tongue. At present, the large pockets within African pedagogical climate limit the medium of instruction unfairly to English despite there being a measurable lack of proficiency for disadvantaged learners in this language.
Next, we aspire to equip these students with mobile learning devices. That is, we introduce crucial technology to the locales that need it the most. Our revenue mechanism further allows us to distribute said devices without imposing the production costs upon the end student user.
And finally, we unify our endeavour through a unique hybrid cryptocurrency implementation wherein only students in possession of our devices will mine blocks. This is intended to enforce the onus upon the students to keep the device secure and operational lest they forfeit the financial rewards therefrom
We are, consequently, to conduct a presale ICO in order to source funding for the implementation of our strategy. Our presale target is 26 500 Ether; of which 25% will be channelled towards our developmental goals and the balance secured in a multi-signature escrow account.
Our short term aspirations begin with piloting our mission in the disadvantaged communities of South Africa. Following the stability of our deployment, we will expand into areas of Africa where there are students facing the same challenges.
By collaborating with more entities in the African cryptoshpere we ultimately envision a society freed from the fetters of fiat currency.
§2 Company Profile “Knowledge is Power”.
And indeed, the pursuit of knowledge is empowering. We claim that this proverb is underappreciated, particularly so by the more fortunate who’d possess either attribute in some measure. But it is with the underprivileged youth of Africa, who lack access to qualitative education, that the truth of this age old saying finds poignant root.
Perennially ranked among the worst in the world, the African education system, while capable of nurturing a fraction of her youth towards a globally recognised level of professionalism, falls abysmally short for the sweeping majority of the continent’s vulnerable youth owing to the incumbent and archaic methods of instruction.
Mzansi Renaissance was therefore founded with the mission to remedy this miserable reality of perpetual economic deprivation faced by the majority of Africa’s adolescent population. We are so named because we herald a renaissance from “mzansi” – a colloquial term for “South Africa” in the isiXhosa language.
Our immediate objectives are threefold:
I. Render mathematics and science study material in the students’ mother tongues.
II. Equip each African student from a disadvantaged background with a Mobile Learning Device (MLD)
III. Establish a student maintained cryptocurrency economy
The independently formed company, Ekasi-Bucks, is our strategic partner and kindred social empowerment enterprise. Their mission is to manifest a cryptocurrency economy within Africa’s informal sector and thus link the self-employed trader with the ever growing global cryptoshpere.
Our partnership unifies a common long-term goal; by bringing together traders and young consumers upon the same digital platform we would ultimately establish a continent wide cashless society.
We would, therefore, exploit a unique and hybrid cryptocurrency ecosystem in order to spearhead holistic and enduring social impact.
§3 Business ModelWe intend to make use of the emergent network of students interconnected via our devices in order to generate a regular revenue stream.
This proposition follows from our identification of the adolescent African student demographic as a gestating market that straddles the precipice between dormancy and active economic participation.
We would therefore sell advertising space upon the MLDs. Brands may purchase exclusive and unavoidable exposure upon the devices in order to win the loyalty and secure the future consumption of this market
Revenue is thus generated through our intermediation of a hitherto non-existent technological link connecting the economic potential vested in adolescent students to the wider global economy.
The value in our initiative is to be cultivated through the execution of a three layered strategy:
The primary, innermost agenda addresses the long standing language barrier burdening the greater student population of Africa.
The second layer addresses the issue of equipping the financially constrained learners of Africa with educational technology.
The outermost layer establishes a unifying and financially stimulating digital currency ecosystem atop a network of student operated MLD.
We will now describe each of the three aspects introduced above in more detail.
§3.1 Mother Tongue ResourcesWhen Mzansi Renaissance was founded, it had as its prime directive the mission to render Mathematics and Science study material into the home languages of the typical target students.
We were motivated to undertake this translation project in order to remedy the dismal pedagogical climate afflicting the learners of Eastern Cape, South Africa; the province that we, the founders of Mzansi Renaissance, call home.
Present policy in the South African education system prescribes bilingualism, that is English and the mother tongue of the student, as medium of instruction up until the fourth grade of school.
The intended yet sorely underachieved objective is the instillation of English language proficiency by the completion of this schooling level. And hereafter, the medium of instruction as found in the available schooling resources is unkindly limited to English (or Afrikaans) for the remainder of the students’ schooling career.
We remark that having to process Mathematical and Scientific concepts in a secondary language, wherein there is correspondingly only secondary proficiency, only amplifies the difficulty of learning as the greater part of mental exertion becomes invested upon the translation of the literature instead.
Whereas the academic community endorses mother tongue tuition, a lack of scientific register in the indigenous languages has, to date, arrested their effort in making schooling resources accessible in students’ mother tongues.
It is despite this academic nay-saying that we produced the first isiXhosa Mathematics textbook covering the grade 10, 11 and 12 topics. We achieved this by employing code-switching in the writing where the equivalent scientific register did not exist.
We will make this pioneering learning resource freely available in digital format upon the MLDs we intend to equip the student demographic. A discussion of this aspect follows in 3.2.
From our efforts we foresee the stimulation of policy change in line with the South African constitutional mandate, affording every student to learn and be tested in the language of their choice.
We have shown that the universal languages of Mathematics and Science can be made available in the mother tongues of the disadvantaged youth; and we expect to expand our efforts across Africa as a whole where such resources are sorely needed.
§3.2 Mobile Learning DevicesWithout access to modern technology, the neglected African youth stand the risk of becoming redundant in an increasingly digital world. Indeed, the lack of access that our target demographic has with respect to technology deprives them from participating and benefitting from the “Fourth Industrial Revolution”.
We were thus inspired to conceive a low cost, modular and 3G-enabled mobile learning device upon which our mother tongue study guides and the plethora of third-party e-learning resources could be made accessible.
Our decision to design a completely new device, as opposed to making use of existing tablet or mobile computing equipment, is based on a number of factors pertinent to the target student population.
Modularity of the MLD facilitates two important functions. As we intend to make each component of the MLD locally and cheaply available to student users, we induce an environment where a student might easily procure and replace a failed module and thus ensure the longevity of the MLD. Modularity would also serve to entice students to experiment with the hardware and so augment Science, Technology Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) education.
Theft of devices has been a breaking point for several ventures before our own. Given that the conventional design of mobile technology leaves it exposed to being stolen, we had to consider an innovative design approach. Our solution is to fashion a school bag with the hardware components stitched into the fabric with careful consideration given to heat dissipation.
The larger surface area of the bag allows us to install upon its front face a sizeable solar panel such that the burden of keeping the MLD powered is mitigated. Furthermore, it allows us to furnish the device with a higher capacity battery. We posit that theft of the MLDs thus becomes harder as the students are obliged to carry the MLDs as backpacks while they would travel.
The backpack MLD will be replete with display screen, keyboard, touchpad, sim-card module and, atypically, a low power draw Application Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC) such that the device passively mines our cryptocurrency. Given the financial reward for keeping the device operational, this reinforces the onus upon the students to keep their MLD secure and well maintained.
The typical student from this demographic cannot afford an $80 device. To circumvent this we establish an advertising platform across the network of MLDs where brands may purchase exposure. This steady revenue stream is geared to recoup the acquisition costs of the devices; we would thus equip each student in dire need of technology without having them foot the bill. Elaborated further in 3.4.
§3.3 The iMali CryptocurrencyWe recognize that the network of students connected by our devices has the potential to serve as a mining pool for hybrid Proof-of-Work/Proof-of-Stake cryptocurrency implementation. The technical aspects of the proposed implementation are discussed in the
whitepaper.
The name of the coin – iMali – is derived from the isiXhosa word for “money”.
In brief, we assign the role of mining in this hybrid cryptocurrency scheme to the disadvantaged student demographic alone whereas all non-students may purchase and benefit from holding a stake of the circulated coins.
The scheme enjoys heightened security against a “51% attack”. Further, the closed mining pool design ensures that the mining power remains decentralized and uniformly distributed among the miners.
Correspondingly, this opportunity for regular financial reward from mining will encourage the student to keep the mobile learning device secure and fully operational.
This further serves to educate the student demographic on this borderless and transparent digital monetary exchange. Consequently, our enterprise would “bootstrap” them with the resources necessary to engage in this rapidly accelerating digital era.
§3.4 Revenue GenerationOne of the revenue avenues open to us is a function of our role as the exclusive intermediary between the gestating student market and the wider established economy.
We would offer brands the opportunity to purchase exposure on our platform of interconnected MLDs in order that they might secure the loyalty and future consumption of this precocious market.
This daily revenue stream is forecast to recoup the production costs of the MLDs in less than one year. After which point, the revenue stream would accumulate and be put towards expanding the reach of Mzansi Renaissance across the African continent.
§4 RoadmapWe would conduct a presale ICO in which we intend to offer 13.25% of the one hundred million total coin volume. The ICO itself will tentatively be held in the third quarter of 2018 with 40% of the coin distribution further made available.
The 25% funds raised from this presale will be channelled towards our three developmental goals.
First, we intend to commission authors and academics proficient in each of the home languages with the translation of mathematics and science material adhering to the precedent set by the isiXhosa textbooks that we have already developed.
As the initiative is launched from South Africa, we would begin with rendering the study resources in the Nguni and Sotho-Tswana family of languages. Pilot studies will also be conducted in South Africa in order to gauge and calibrate the mother tongue content to suit the target demographics needs.
The second agenda is the prototyping of the mobile learning device. We intend to open a competition for the design of the MLD featuring specifications that the device would require in order to endure the rural African setting.
Roll out of the devices will demand much logistical and organisational effort; to which end we would collaborate with the South African Department of Basic Education and make use of their school supply network. The ambition is to have the devices rolled out by the start of the 2019 academic year. Experience gained from the South African deployment will expedite our expansion into the continent.
And finally, the manifestation of the 2-Hop blockchain based iMali ecosystem. An ICO announcement will follow the completion of this development.
The remaining 75% of the funds raised from the presale will be held in a multi-signature escrow account.
Our long term vision, following the 2018 ICO, is catalysed by our partnership with Ekasi-Bucks; a kindred cryptocurrency based social enterprise that would implement blockchain technology in Africa’s informal vendor sphere.
Together we are geared to manifest a continent wide cashless society.
§5 PRE ICO DetailsPlease see original post§6 ManagementMzansi Renaissance is led by three principle team members.
Manunath Gopalan studied Actuarial Science and Computer Science. He has invested several years towards development of the Xhosa Mathematics textbook and is driven by his vision for a South African renaissance.
Mkhululi Makaya has pursued and earned his master’s degree in Law. Intimately familiar with the shortcomings and consequent casualties of the prevailing education system, his mission is to manifest the fourth industrial revolution so that it may benefit the people of Eastern Cape in a practical and tangible manner.
Lucky Kgwadi is founder and CEO of Ekasi-Bucks, a blockchain based consultancy firm. His objective is to manifest blockchain technology in Africa’s informal trading sector. His tenure proves crucial in navigating the cryptoshpere.
