How the Edukoya platform is seeking the ‘nirvana of education’
Personalising education to each child is quite a mission but Honey Ogundeyi is trying to get there with her platform. She tells Heather Martin she wants to educate a billion learners around the world
Honey Ogundeyi is the granddaughter of a princess and went to a prestigious government-funded secondary school in Lagos. It was called Queens College. She still remembers where she sat. “I was a fourth-row kid and sat next to the window – I used to just climb in and out because the louvres had fallen off. We were three to a desk and I would fight to be on the edge, not squeezed in the middle.” Fourth-row kids didn’t get much attention in a class of 100. “With the best will in the world, there’s only so many people a teacher can teach at the same time.”
As founder and CEO of mobile-driven education platform Edukoya, it’s hardly surprising that Honey believes “the nirvana of education” is the ability to personalise education for each child. “The scale of my mission is quite audacious,” she says. “I want to educate a billion learners.”
Honey is focused on solutions, whether it’s getting out of the classroom or setting up her own online shopping platform (Fashpa, Nigeria’s answer to Asos) to source the right pair of shoes. The pioneering spirit is baked in. Her first job was in Brussels with McKinsey & Company, which she joined in the expectation they would open an office in Nigeria, but deciding “it wasn’t happening quick enough”, she returned home to join Ericsson instead. She spent the next few years advising telecom clients how to bring the internet to more Nigerians, before being headhunted by the global office in Stockholm. It was another high-flying position but her heart was elsewhere, so she swapped it out to lead a brand management project for the company across Africa instead. “There was always this pull between these great opportunities in Europe, but feeling very strongly that my future was in Nigeria.”
One day she got a call from Google. Did she want to join as industry manager? “I think I was person number six in Google Nigeria.” The role was to figure out if there was a commercial business case for Google in west Africa, or rather, build one. To Honey it seemed perfect. She was helping Nigeria’s first e-commerce companies develop their digital strategy, getting more people online and creating more opportunities. “A lot of us are now building on that foundation.”
It was while fostering these budding entrepreneurs that Honey was “bitten by the bug”. Which is when she set up Fashpa, once again turning her back on the dream job: “If you work in tech in Africa, Google is the be all and end all.” A few years later, as chief marketing officer, she became a founding member of Nigeria’s first mobile-only bank, Kuda. “Everybody told us we were crazy, that no one would ever trust a bank that was just an app. But we could see that traditional banking was broken.” According to Honey, Kuda is now one of the fastest growing fintech companies in Africa.
But Honey was still restless, still searching. She left Kuda to join the UK government’s Global Entrepreneur Programme, going on to lead the UK-Nigeria Tech Hub for the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport. With a degree in Public Policy, Government and Management from the University of Birmingham, she had always been attracted to the public sector. “It gave me a chance to be instrumental on a high level. It took such a long time at Kuda to raise the first round of funding – I wanted to make it easier for the next crop of people.”
Which brings us full circle. “They say the best start-up is the one you’ve been working towards your whole life without knowing it,” Honey says. “Edukoya is not my first start-up, but it’s the one I’m most passionate about. I think I’ll probably spend the rest of my life in pursuit of this mission. Access to education, even for one child, can change the future for the whole family and for generations to come.”
Edukoya was launched in 2021. The free-to-use platform targets secondary school pupils, connecting tutors to learners in real time for problem-solving, homework, revision and exam preparation, allowing access to the best teaching regardless of location. It consists of 15-minute one-to-one micro sessions – “to keep it engaging, practical and affordable” – backed up by a library of digital curriculum material.
“Africa is the world’s most mobile internet market. The cost of smartphones is going down every day – it’s a real opportunity to solve everyday problems.” One of the problems Edukoya sets out to solve is the 86 per cent failure rate in Nigeria’s once-yearly university entrance examination, taken by about 1.9 million students, most of whom spend the following year preparing to take it again. The long-term ambition is to help students at earlier stages and move beyond supplementary education to supporting teachers in schools. “You’ve been let down by the system for a long time and then it culminates in this one entry point, this exam you don’t have enough skills to pass.”
Honey describes her own education as “half and half”. A lot of it took place after school, but the quality was hit-and-miss; for some subjects there was nothing at all. In primary, Honey was among the top three in her year. At the start of secondary, she placed 101 in a cohort of 700. But her ranking dropped with every passing year: “my father could just see me declining”.
Honey’s dad resolved to dispatch his 13-year-old daughter to boarding school in Dublin. She wasn’t involved in the decision. “It wasn’t the kind of consultative parenting I have with my own kids. For a long time, I thought my parents didn’t even like me.” She was only the second Nigerian in the school. It was her first time living away from home, her first winter. But “in subjects where I thought I wasn’t great, I started to perform better”. She also discovered sport and her aptitude for track and field. “Alexandra College was the big step change in my career. After that I got into university and got the job with McKinsey that changed the trajectory of my life. But my father will tell you it was very much a sacrifice to send me there.”
In 2021 Honey raised $3.5m (2.68m) in pre-seed funding from venture capital firm Target Global and other key angels across Nigeria, the UK and Europe. “Education is exciting because you can build a valuable company and also something that has incredible impact. Ultimately, the plan is to deliver value back to my investors and shareholders.” But she doesn’t plan on stopping there. “For me, get this right in Africa, then go and solve this around the world.”
Recently Honey got an email from her former English teacher in Dublin, now principal of Alexandra College. Miss Ennis told Honey she was really proud of her, and Honey told Miss Ennis, “This is the best email I’ve ever gotten.” Miss Ennis said, “Please call me Barbara,” and Honey said, “I can’t, I’m gonna have to call you Miss Ennis.” The college had launched a programme called “Alex Pioneers: Past and Present” celebrating revolutionary alumni, but Honey never posted about it “because it felt like too big of an accolade”. The pamphlet notes that, among other marks of recognition, Honey Ogundeyi had been named on top-10 lists for innovation in Africa by both Forbes and the World Economic Forum.
Honey was inspired by Alexandra College. But even more so by Queen’s College in Lagos. “It’s the experience I had in Nigeria that allows me to understand the market I’m catering to.”
The “koya” in Edukoya means “learn” in Hausa, the dominant language in northern Nigeria, where “the education problem is most acute”. The blend of English and African, Honey says, “describes me very well”.
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