Special delivery: Text messages bring courses to disconnected students
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Stacy Teicher Khadaroo Staff writer
Someday, after Yemen emerges from the conflicts that have gripped it for much of his life, Mohammed Al-Adlani wants to rise to the top of the Yemeni government.
In the meantime, the young man who left the capital city of Sanaa last year to attend the American University of Beirut is part of a modest project aiming to inspire and educate his Yemeni peers, to prepare them to shape a new way forward for their country.
He鈥檚 helping two American college students with an idea sparked by Mr. Al-Adlani鈥檚 observation that students in Yemen have limited access to school and the internet, but not to cellphones: Why not use texting to deliver a basic course on entrepreneurship?
Why We Wrote This
When young people interact with technology, the outcome isn't always distraction. In this case, a new way of closing the gap on access to education 鈥� in places like besieged Yemen 鈥� grew out of insights garnered from constant use of a common communication tool.
It鈥檚 an experiment, but the motivation has been long in the making for these innovators: to narrow gaps that can put young people onto radically different trajectories.
鈥淢ost students don鈥檛 have access to conversations with innovators, leaders, and entrepreneurs that they look up to, so there鈥檚 this huge social-capital gap,鈥� says Michael Ioffe, a first-year student at Babson College in Wellesley, Mass., and co-founder of ,聽the company developing the text message courses. 鈥淓ntrepreneurial thinking 鈥� enables students to solve problems in new and unique ways. That applies not just to business, but also our personal life and our community life.鈥�
By the end of May, the first four-week SMS text course is expected to be available free to students in Yemen, translated into Arabic. On May 15, English versions will start up for $12 in the United States, India, China, Nigeria, Canada, the United Arab Emirates, and Britain.聽
It isn鈥檛 Mr. Ioffe鈥檚 first mission-minded startup. In high school, he hungered to learn from local business leaders聽about their career paths. So he 鈥渃old e-mailed鈥� 100 of them聽in his hometown of Portland, Ore. Most rejected his invites to chat over coffee, but one聽agreed to a meeting if the teenager would bring a group of friends.
The experience inspired him to start聽, a nonprofit that helps hundreds of student-led chapters in 43 countries sponsor live events where young people can talk with entrepreneurs and leaders in various professions.
Cellphones as a lifeline
Amid a drawn-out war and humanitarian crisis, the seven TILE events that Al-Adlani assisted with in Sanaa offered slivers of hope. Some of the speakers had risen out of poverty, and the conversations 鈥渉elped a lot of high school students to have a general idea of their future,鈥� the possibilities 鈥� [and the] challenges. The events empowered them and inspired them,鈥� he says during a Skype interview from Beirut.
Now, he says, 鈥渢he situation there is very bad. Most of the teachers cannot get their salaries because of the war.鈥澛�
More than 1,000 schools in Yemen have been destroyed or are housing displaced people, reports the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). The agency and its partners are distributing a condensed curriculum on paper that about 15,000 high school students can do at home to prepare for 9th- and 12th-grade exit exams.
Cellphones are a lifeline, Al-Adlani says, and should enable students to access the new text-message course from home.聽
鈥淚t would be wonderful [to help] young people to know how to manage an accounting book鈥� or other business basics, says an official with USAID in a phone interview. But it鈥檚 also important to bear in mind their need for resilience in a stressful environment. 鈥淭hey need hope quite desperately and support quite desperately, and to some degree, we don鈥檛 want to raise those [hopes] when we aren鈥檛 sure what the context will allow them,鈥� says the official, who preferred not to be named due to safety reasons.聽
Mindful of such concerns, Al-Adlani, Ioffe, and other course developers adapted the Yemen course to focus on using entrepreneurship more for community improvement than for creating businesses.
Help for those who are stratified, too
War is an extreme example, but it鈥檚 not the only door that can seem to聽close off opportunity.聽Sometimes it鈥檚 a simple matter of who鈥檚 in the network of a teenager鈥檚 family and friends.
In high school in Portland, students were 鈥渃learly stratified,鈥� says Riley Wilson, Ioffe鈥檚 longtime friend and co-founder of Arist. (He has also been involved with TILE, the nonprofit, which is supporting the free course in Yemen.)
鈥淲e realized there鈥檚 nothing inherently different between us or any other person, it鈥檚 just 鈥� advantages we鈥檝e accrued,鈥� Mr. Wilson says, like learning through their middle-class families how to pick courses and use counseling resources to be competitive on college applications.
Their idea of boiling an educational course down to text messages did raise questions.
鈥淢y first impression was some skepticism,鈥� says Fritz Fleischmann, one of Ioffe鈥檚 advisers at Babson. But because the content is introductory and includes 鈥渁 kind of consciousness raising about entrepreneurship and self-realization, the short format may actually work quite well,鈥� he says.
A two-week pilot in the US showed the text-message format may help young people pivot 鈥� even if just briefly 鈥� toward a more edifying use of their mobile phones.
鈥淲e want 鈥榞ood鈥� technology 鈥� technology that doesn鈥檛 force you to stay up all night, as people my age do with Youtube and Facebook,鈥� Wilson says. The text messages will, however, link to optional longer readings and exercises.
In a survey, 81 percent of the 100 pilot participants said they would take a text message course again.
Just getting started
Whether or not the idea takes off as they hope, Ioffe, Wilson, and Al-Adlani appear to be just getting started.
Wilson, a first-year student at UCLA, is studying philosophy.鈥淚 want to be able to claim that I鈥檓 doing good for fellow men and women everywhere, and without really studying what good is in a systematic manner, I don鈥檛 really think I can make that claim for myself,鈥� he says.
Al-Adlani has one brother studying in the US, while his parents and his six other siblings are struggling to hold their lives together in Sanaa, much of which is now crumbling. He is helping get the text-message course to people there, and plans to major in public administration. 鈥淚 want to hold a high position 鈥� and try to help the underprivileged people in my country,鈥� he says.
And Ioffe, the son of immigrants, already has a reputation as a mover and shaker at Babson, a campus teeming with entrepreneurs. 鈥淗e saw a need 鈥� and he did something about it. That鈥檚 just the way he is. These needs are not theoretical to him,鈥� says Professor Fleischmann.
Some would call Ioffe鈥檚 idealism unrealistic, but Fleischmann doesn鈥檛.聽鈥淗e has a vision of young people around the world taking charge of their lives, in often unfavorable circumstances," he says, 鈥渁nd that is a worthy goal.鈥�
