African “YouTube” to be officially launched in January 2018

Johannesburg, South Africa 25/12/2017

Everyone knows something that the next person doesn’t thus it is important that everyone shares their experiences with the world. Spurred by a deep yearning for freedom of expression and for the African story to be told from the African perspective, Edzai Zvobwo, founder of NdiribhoTV set out to create a video hosting and distribution platform primarily geared for Africans to share their knowledge with world and stand a better chance at optimally monetizing their video assets

Coming from Zimbabwe, a country that has seen its ruling elites trample upon basic liberties like freedom of speech and association, Edzai sought to correct the wrongs that have been committed by politicians in the country and the continent of Africa as a whole by facilitating p2p knowledge transfer through video. The name NdiribhoTV came out of need to proclaim that even as the people’s rights have been denied, people are still fine and live another day to fight for justice and development of the continent. “Ndiribho” is a Shona statement that translates to “I am fine”.

Video reference: https://ndiribho.tv/video/ashish-thakkar-africa-s-youngest-billionaire-sabc5a3e75dc0929b

NdiribhoTV currently has offices in Johannesburg and will be opening up feeder offices across Sub-Saharan Africa during the course of 2018. The feeder offices will serve as client liaison centers for content developers. NdiribhoTV will strive to sign up all the influencers in the video content development space as anchor creators whilst also harnessing the power of the ordinary African citizen. As long as an African has a device with a camera then they are welcome onto the NdiribhoTV platform.

The platform is a user generated vehicle that connects video content creators and consumers by providing an easy to use live streaming and video on demand platform.

NdiribhoTV lets anyone with a channel broadcast live videos and upload videos straight from their camera device. This allows African people to share or watch in real-time when news is breaking, visiting a new place, or meeting people and sharing interests – all in real-time.

NdiribhoTV seeks to add value to Africans and differentiate itself from YouTube by:

• Focusing on African continent.
• Monetizing live video streams using a pay-per-view model which enables content creators to earn a living.
• Monetizing video on demand content on behalf of content creators through channel-centric micro-subscriptions.
• Integrating with ERP and CRM systems such that it is easier for corporate clients to integrate video into their workflow.

NdiribhoTV is currently in talks with several established platforms like Kwese play to help distribute content across the continent. 31 January 2018 is the date that NdiribhoTV will officially launch. “Once we solve the speed and latency issues with a reputable CDN and finalised our algorithms for our reccommender systems then it is a done deal”, said Edzai Zvobwo.

Currently there is a beta version on https://ndiribho.tv which you can test out and give feedback.

on edzaiz@ndiribho.tv

 

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Google Helpouts to shut down: Are live video tutorials viable?

16-02-2015 | Johannesburg | MGLI

By Edzai Conilias Zvobwo

GOOGLE has announced that it will be shutting down Helpouts on the 20^th of April 2015. Helpouts is a Google service that connects users with experts on topics (health, home improvement, beauty, academic, etc.)  which went live in 2013. The service allows users to get real-time video advice and solutions from experts who actually know the subject content for free or at a fee. Real-time video streaming provides a tutoring solution that is personalised and is closest to physical human contact. In the announcement, Google stated that the Helpouts community had not grown at the pace they had expected.

With the Gauteng MEC for Education, Panyaza Lesufi pushing for paperless classrooms it is important to reflect on the risks and challenges faced by Helpouts to understand the online learning space so as to mitigate them optimally for the South African context. History has witnessed big corporations and start-ups like Skype and Tutorspree shut down live tutoring services as a result of low viability. In the cases of Helpouts, Tutorspree and Skype it was never a shortage of money but the low appetite for the service that has led to shut downs.

The general sentiment amongst South Africans is that data costs are too high and they need a “real person” to teach, making these the major drivers for lack of interest in live video tutoring and streaming in general. It is necessary and sufficient that government and other educational technology service providers diligently measure the return on investment of the different technologies being deployed into schools. Critical questions ought to be addressed on the optimal usage of these technologies and infrastructure. Are the technology solutions a correct fit for the intended beneficiaries? How does the economic status of learners affect their usage of these technologies? Are teachers and learners fully utilising them? Is the curriculum being aligned with the technological improvements? Is there sufficient support to significantly perpetuate this technological revolution beyond the classroom?

According to Educational psychologist Benjamin Bloom, “The average student who has been tutored one-to-one performed significantly better than students taught solely by conventional classroom methods. Tutoring is an important part of education, particularly for students who don’t learn well in large classrooms or lecture environments”. MathsGenius Leadership Institute (MGLI) strongly advocates for Individual Social Responsibility (ISR) as a major component of the education solution, whereby every resident of South Africa reinvests their knowledge into the educational system through tutoring or otherwise and real-time video tutoring has always been a promising channel to achieve this. Now with major corporations showing that is not as viable a business then it is paramount that South African start-ups and government find ways to enhance knowledge sharing in a way that is attractive to the public and is economically viable for sustainability. Worksheet-based learning management systems are the next best solutions to providing seamless online tutoring at a low cost across technology platforms.

The technology space is an ever rapidly evolving ecosystem with constantly shifting challenges. It is highly beneficial for policy makers and entrepreneurs to take this into consideration as replacement costs have to be factored in the initial costing of technology solutions. What is useful and popular today might be out-dated in a year’s time thus it is vital that technological evolution considerations be fully embedded in the deployment plans. Millennials are fast changing human beings who will not hesitate to ditch out-dated and irrelevant technologies.

Educational technology solutions ought to be attractive to the users, cost-effective whilst flexible to keep up with the evolving ecosystem to remain relevant.