9th Anniversary

Learning Equality is celebrating its 9th anniversary!

Maybe "age is just a number," but looking at what we've accomplished with our work present in over 215 countries and territories, available in 31 languages and counting, and benefitting over 6 million learners globally, we understand that each of those 9 years were essential to get us here.

Join us as we take a trip down memory lane, from our humble beginnings to getting started on the next 9…

Photo: FunSEPA

Photo: FunSEPA

Photo: Elimu

2013

2014

2015

2016

2017

And so it all (officially) begins!

Wildfire adoption of KA Lite benefits learners and educators across 132 countries and territories.

Stories of learners, families, and educators using KA Lite start to pour in from all corners of the globe, and Learning Equality hones in on building community. We start another partnership, this time with Aflatoun, incorporating their financial literacy materials into KA Lite.

At this stage, it's pretty clear the need for additional materials, beyond Khan Academy's. We partner with UNICEF Innovation and UNICEF Uganda to start building Kolibri, the successor to KA Lite that would provide easy access to a range of learning materials, distributed through kiosks in learning centers in Kampala.

After 2 years of active development informed by feedback from pilot programs in India, Mexico, and Uganda supported by Google.org, Learning Equality launches the Kolibri Learning Platform and EdTech Toolkit.

Learning Equality is incorporated as a non-profit, building on early adoption of our first-generation learning platform, KA Lite.

We experiment with adding novel content sources into KA Lite, and partner with War Child Holland on a project that saw a rebranded prototype Android App deployed to bring additional sets of training materials – that replaced Khan Academy videos and exercises – to teachers in South Sudan.

To support the organization and importing of content, we also create a separate, online platform, Kolibri Studio, that allows users to remix, organize, and upload their own materials and align them to local curricula.

Our bird is officially flying into the world!

Photo: CARE Peru

Photo: Lewa Wildlife Conservency

Photo: I-Saksham

Photo: Adobe Stock

2018

2019

2020

2021

2022

Learning Equality launches the Kolibri Hardware Grants Program, through which organizations around the globe received funds with support from Google.org, to buy hardware and integrate edtech into their programming by way of Kolibri for 2 years, helping us understand gaps and inform Kolibri's development roadmap.

After a year collaborating with the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) and Vodafone Foundation with support from Google.org and focusing on how to support learning in STEM, life skills and literacy for secondary level learners through edtech in refugee and host community learning environments, Learning Equality co-organizes a design sprint and a hackathon with goal of creating tools to automate the process of curriculum alignment.

In an unprecedented year of uncertainty and isolation, we witnessed the resilience of educators across the globe, who went above and beyond to continue to support their learners. In solidarity, we worked on new models of using Kolibri during the school closures, exploring a combination of offline/online use; expanding Kolibri's portability with the private release of an Android App; enabling broad access through zero-rated models and free Internet bundles for offline servers moved online; and leveraging low-cost computing devices for broader distribution.

Still grappling with the effects of a prolonged pandemic on learners and educators globally, we continued to focus our efforts on supporting continuity of learning and mitigation of learning losses.

From building teacher practice, improving content discoverability and curriculum alignment, to enhancing Kolibri to better address rapidly changing needs, here are some of the highlights of our year.

The Take-Home release of Kolibri is launched, enabling seamless continuation of learning between the home and other learning environments, without the Internet. Boasting a groundbreaking syncing mechanism that allows for user data gathered while learners are at home, working without connectivity, to be automatically synced up to the offline school server when they return to school. It also has a revamped learner user interface to support selfdirected learning, as well as increased metadata to facilitate discoverability of content.

Here's to the journey ahead!

This year, we'll also have the opportunity to pilot Kolibri in project-based, playful learning environments catered to young learners; distribute Kolibri through satellite hotspots, making relevant learning materials available to local communities; release the Kolibri Android App to support quality, offline learning anytime, anywhere, and much more.

We thank you for your support over the years and hope you'll stick around as we continue our journey to making quality education more equitable, inclusive, and accessible to all.