Today, ten years ago, Funzi was founded. That is a milestone that makes you want to pause and reflect on what you have become, achieved - have you had an impact?
Funzi was founded to give everyone with a mobile device access to the skills they need to build their dreams. We intend to transform the learning industry the way Rovio, Supercell, and Spotify have changed their industries.
During this decade, we have reached more than ten million learners and executed a multitude of projects globally. It was difficult to choose three highlights from Funzi’s history, but here we go:
Refugees & Funzi
The 2015 crisis in the Middle East resulted in a large refugee crisis. Funzi was the first company to use design thinking in developing digital services for these refugees. The services were a huge success and received multiple awards, including Nordic Startup Awards and the Facebook Global Digital Challenge. An achievement that we are particularly proud of is the entrepreneurship training in Iraq: it reached more than 1.1 million users and 27,000 became active learners.
Mobile learning for consumers
Funzi partnered with Facebook back in 2015. During this partnership we collaborated on technology development, community solutions, and development of services to support Facebook’s own business. One outcome of the partnership were Funzi’s deals with Mobile Network Operators. The first pilots and launches in Asia were full of promise - but then something that no one could predict happened: the 2020 Covid-19 pandemic. Covid dramatically changed the behavior of users, and the success we built for never happened.
Bridging the Fourth Industrial Revolution skills gap
During the pandemic we understood our unique position in assisting the global workforce to learn the skills relevant for the future of work. Our solution, Funzi YES, is designed to give graduating students access to future-relevant skills. It has a scientifically validated impact, users love it, and teachers and educational institutions welcome the easy integration. The market we started in is South Africa, and we are expanding into other countries.
Today, Funzi looks at the future with confidence: the need for mobile-first, pedagogically solid learning services is poised to grow in the future. In the uncertainties of our world, trust and truth are key components of success, and that is what Funzi provides: access to the skills you need to build your dreams, on your mobile.
Lastly, the most important part, the thanks: we thank all past and present Funzi members, our investors and funders, our partners, and even those who turned down their chance to work with us. To our users, we say: you are the reason why we do this; it is you who are the reason for everything we do at Funzi; thank you for being there.
Funzi has proven to be a great system to engage a large number of learners fast and cost-efficiently, please get in touch with us if you are considering starting such a project.
Great to see so many of our friends on this list. Congrats to you all, and to us! 🎉😁 Have a great time at #XcitED and #Slush