DNA

ISLAMABAD, JAN 4 – In an effort to promote e-learning and accelerate digitalisation, Telenor Pakistan’s Velocity, brought on board 4 ed-tech startups including, MUSE by Sabaq, Skills First, Edtech Worx and LearnObots, in the fields of STEM and Digital Skills education, and provided them with opportunities to scale and forge strategic partnerships. After the participating startups went through the process of testing out their platforms on Telenor Pakistan’s customers and gaining valuable knowledge from experts, MUSE was selected as the most suitable to take forward, due to its rapid growth in a short time.

Telenor Velocity brings to the table a variety of deep insights into Telenor’s digital ecosystem, building key aspects of the user experience, pricing, and the opportunity to scale ed-tech products by opening various digital assets. The MyTelenor App sees daily active usage from 1.5 million subscribers, and in order to continue surpassing their expectations, Telenor Pakistan only features the best quality content. The app now also features educational content from MUSE, as their product demonstrated the most engagement and has already gained a loyal consumer base across the country.

48% of Telenor Pakistan’s users are from rural areas, and that gives startups an opportunity to access that demographic strategically. Rural areas saw a total of 33% uptake around the country. Similarly, Balochistan region adopted the highest number of digital products, with an adoption rate of 60% higher than Punjab and KP. This acts as encouragement for other startups around the country to serve not just urban areas, but rural ones as well

Edkasa a start up from Lahore that was onboarded by Telenor Velocity is working to ensure the availability of education for Pakistani high school students to prepare them for standardised examinations, for secondary and post-secondary education. Similar to other outstanding tech startups in the country, Edkasa has also successfully raised its first round of investment from home and abroad. This establishes Edkasa as one of the country’s highest valued tech startups, while also offering the skills and expertise of the new investors. This investment is a major milestone for Pakistan’s start-up ecosystem, where Ed-tech is officially gaining traction. The company foresees piloting of its operations in partnership with Telenor Pakistan, in January 2021.

“According to The Pakistan Education Statistics 2016-17 report, Pakistan is home to more than 40 million K-12 students who require access to the latest 21st century educational skills. These skills are essential to counter the challenges they face every day and to embark on a prosperous future career. Close to half of this number is made up of children who remain out of school,” said Khurrum Ashfaque, Chief Operating Officer, Telenor Pakistan. While also talking about the current health situation, he further added, “With the existing challenges in place, the pandemic has further worsened the educational obstacles by limiting access to mainstream education for the other half as well. Thus, making the situation all the more precarious. We will be playing our part in addressing this challenge by leveraging latest connectivity technologies and using our digital expertise to bring education closer to these children and help reduce inequalities.”

All these activities designed to grow startups were further complemented by utilizing Telenor Velocity’s wide presence in the market. SMS campaigns were strategically used to reach close to 3 million customers, enabling the startups to introduce their work to rural and suburban areas. Telenor Pakistan provided insights for the startups to analyse their value proposition by offering firsthand reviews from real customers.

Now, with MUSE on board, the MyTelenor App features an exclusive Kids education section, for the first time ever. With its achievement of the Transformational Business Award 2020, Telenor Velocity will take MUSE forward as a comprehensive learning app for children in primary grades that features an interactive and gamified digital learning experience. MyTelenor App users will be able to avail this option by simply using Telenor Mobile balance.