The Beni American University seem to be at the forefront of disrupting the education sector in Nigeria – or at least that is its plan and no doubt the Founder, Gossy Ukanokwe is working hard to make that happen, having recently gotten validated by his nomination for The Future Awards 2013.
However, to accomplish the goal of having an hybrid educational setup, funds become a big part of the project. That has seen the startup head for one of the biggest crowd-funding platforms, Indiegogo to with hope of raising $18,000 to be used to handle some logistics and consulting fees whilst we we building, what the Founder describes as an ‘awesome campus’. The blueprints below may just confirm that description.
Just in case you don’t know what Beni American University is all about, here are some words from Gossy:
“It has been an inspiring journey so far for us. In the past one year we have reached so many students through our Entrepreneurship and Innovation courses helping a few towards the path of creating their businesses and supporting them subsequently.
We have pivoted from an Online-only university to a Hybrid university and now we are taking the big step towards creating a full physical campus as an On-Campus university. We have encountered so many challenges that has led us to learn more about our industry, our unique market and how best to navigate reach more students in developing countries.
However, the cost of the overheads become a burden often times. We need to figure out ways to offset some these costs so that we can conclude the development plans and construction of our campus in time for the next academic year. We hope that we can get your donations and this will contribute towards the funds we need to cover basic operational expenses, outreach, outsourcing and consulting”.
In detail, funds will be used for outreach programs to recruit more students for our Entrepreneurship and Innovation Online Classes; scholarship programs for students in under-served communities; research initiatives on the use of Feature Phones and SMS to implement Mobile Learning frameworks; development consulting on Technical and Policy Requirements as so many documents need to be prepared by different experts, designers and architects, and some have kicked off; and finally funding pre-development work on the university development site and interviews by the Ministry of Education.
With less than two weeks to go, here’s a chance to donate to that education project that has already proven to change lives and just wants to do more on a bigger scale. Get involved here.
