Samson Wambuzi, Yiya Solutions

Samson Wambuzi, Obama Foundation Scholar and co-founder and chief innovations officer of Yiya Solutions, talks passionately about the innovative educational technology Yiya brings to millions of remote learners in Africa and about the potential of his Obama Fellowship experience to develop a robust plan to further expand Yiya’s reach in Africa and beyond.

Episode Transcript

(00:03):
Welcome back to What's at Risk.I'm Mike. Christian Samson Wambouzi is the
co founder, along with Aaron Fitzgerald, and the Chief Innovations Officer, of
YEA Solutions, an organization that usesinventive educational technology to create equitable access to

(00:25):
skills based education across Uganda. Heis a physics teacher with a Bachelor of
Science and Education. Samson grew upin a rural area with limited resources,
and his childhood experiences have shaped Yea'smission. Through the Obama Foundation's scholars Program,
he aims to refine his approach toincrease the accessibility of Yea's experiential curriculum

(00:51):
and develop a strategy for expansion tonew regions. Samson, thanks so much
for being with us today. You'rewelcome and thanks Mike. I'm truly delighted
to be hosted on your podcast.Yeah, it's great to have you and

(01:12):
so our listeners probably don't know thatmuch about Uganda. Maybe maybe you could
just tell us a little bit aboutyour country and what it was like growing
up there for you. Yeah,thanks so much, Thanks so much,
Mike. I like you said,my name is Samson Muozi. I am
the co founder of and Chief InnovationsOfficer of YEA Solutions. For our listeners,

(01:37):
yeah is spelled why I y andin Luganda it means to innovate.
It's a Luganda word that means toinnovate or to solve an old problem in
a new way. And we equipand served youth in last mile populations with
the twenty first central skills that theyneed to to solve problems in the local

(01:59):
comites and have agents over their future. But my passion for education comes comes
from my childhood upbringing and my storygrowing up in the in the village in
Uganda. My you know, afew weeks ago in my class at Columbia,
I told students, my fellow studentsthat my first time for me to

(02:20):
wear shoes was when I was goingto do in secondary school at around thirteen
years old. And everyone looked atme in this belief. They were like
what And of course they're you know, they are right to be shocked,
because it's not you know, it'snot common here in the US, but
in Uganda it's feet common for kidsto walk to school without shoes. So
but she was wondering how she waslike what, happened. You know,

(02:43):
she was wondering what happened between youknow how I ended up in the same
classroom with them here at Columbia,in this beautiful city of New York.
But anyway, here is the backstoryof my life and the story that many
children in Uganda go through. Iwas raised in a village in eastern Uganda
by my grandmother, this old littlewoman who made such a great impact on

(03:08):
my life. She was the solebread winner of the family of six of
us at home, and all theburden of taking us to school or providing
us with all the best necessities wasall on her, and she always had
to make a decision between you know, buying us and our food or taking
us to school. And for mein particular, I never wanted to go

(03:29):
to school because I saw how mygoing to school was such a burden to
her. But she told me that, you know, my son, when
you go to school and complete you'llbe able to change the life of our
family and our community. And forme, that is the message that stuck
with me. That's the message thatyou know, motivates me to do the
work I do. Mike, aswe speak right now, why do I

(03:51):
do they're over like two hundred andtwenty million children who are supposed to be
in school, but I'm not inschool. Half of that is from Africa,
and over seventy percent of children donot enroll in secondary schools and it's
hard breaking. Did you grow upin a village or in an area that
was very remote? I know manyparts of Uganda are mountainous and remote and

(04:13):
there's not great internet connection. Didyou grow up in one of those areas,
Sampson, Yes, sure, Iwas in a very much area.
Just to paint a picture for ourlisteners. In my village, we didn't
have running water, and it isthe case even now in so many villages
we didn't have running water. Weneed to have electrict we're using paraffine wax
candles for lighting at home. Andthe major economic activity was subsistence farming.

(04:39):
And actually even in now in manyvillages, so many kids and don't go
to school. Besides their parents beingwho are not having enough money to go
to school to take their children toschool, they also need those children to
help them on their farms, youknow, for subsistence farming, and then
for girls. One thing that's alsocommon in the villagers for girls, they
face such a lot of hurdles.They do all they don't work at home

(05:02):
when whether well, the boys areare playing. And in most parts of
Africa, in Sub Saharan sub SaharanAfrica, thirty percent of girls are married
off before the age of eighteen.They are married off for their parents to
get some form of diwayt which isit's a way of sort of you know,
getting out of poverty or like gettingsome form of income because when they

(05:24):
give out with their daughters, thenyou know, their husbands give them,
you know, some money. AndI also read that only twenty nine percent
of girls enroll in high school.And this is in Africa, but I'm
sure it's close to the same inUganda. And they are often discouraged from
pursuing math and sciences and the stemeducation that you now focus on. Is
that true, that's true, absolutely, according to you, According to you

(05:47):
and women, they say that thereare sixteen million girls in Sub Saharan Africa.
That is almost culose to the populationof New York. That like sixteen
million girls in sa Jahan half Africa. That you will never step foot in
a classroom and that's really hard tobreak in that's that's for me, that
that speaks to the need to haveone either a school in every village or

(06:10):
you know, you know, youknow and and and see us approaches and
innovations that target girls and or havean ant alternative educational model that kids can
have expand larning beyond traditional classrooms,so girls can have access to education from
the convert their home. Inspired beforewe get into the details of the year,
which I find very fascinating, usinglaw tech to overcome barriers, distance

(06:35):
barriers, particularly in young people.And you're going to being able to go
to school. But what inspired youand Aaron Fitzgerald to start? Yea,
when did you actually started? Howdid you come to the idea of doing
it? So I think two thingshappened. Number One, Erin and I
were in a village in northern Ugandaone time and interviewing out of school dren

(07:00):
and asking them why they wropped outof school, and one of them,
one of the girls we met,she's called Patricia, she told us that
the reason we found her, youknow, in her village. She told
us that one they didn't have enoughmoney to you know, to detect to
be in school, but also intheir school that one of the one of
the science teachers used to warn themnot to repeat science experiments at home.

(07:24):
And she told us that if Icannot repeat it at home, then why
am I studying it? And outof frustration, she dropped out of school.
And for us, so we reflectedon we looked at that story,
and it meant a lot in termsof like the expectations that even young people
have from from education. You know, they want to learn things that can

(07:45):
help them address the problem the problemsthey're experiencing. Now, if someone is
you know, if they don't haveelectricity at home, they want to learn
how they can overcome that, youknow, if they don't, if they
have if they're not they're not eatingwell at home, they want to learn
how education can help them, youknow, improve their nutrition at home.

(08:05):
And so that that that that girl'sstory, you know, uh start with
us for quite some time. Andthen and and also I want to point
out that it is really hard tobreaking the way formal education was designed.
It was designed to benefit people whocomplete you know, if you if you

(08:26):
don't complete school and get a degree, however many years you spent in the
school, you'll be as good assomeone who need to go to school or
maybe or you'll know how to treatand write, but you'll be as good
as you can't get a job inmany parts of the world, and for
me, I feel that's really hardto breaking. Education should be empower children
for the video world at each pointin their life. That's sort of one
of the stories. That's part ofthe idea that Okay, you know what

(08:48):
I think we need to, youknow, start an energy. Maybe a
good time to tell us about thevery creative use of radio and texting and
the way that you read these whatyou call last what was often called last
mile villages, and that just meansvery remote, just beyond beyond a mile,
beyond the end of the road,right and so very difficult to get

(09:11):
to, and especially in parts ofAfrica, and particularly in remote Uganda because
it is so remote, mountainous withoutWi Fi connections in general. So tell
us how you know that, howyou deliver these lessons to the young people
around the country. Thank you somuch. Yes, yes, for sure,

(09:33):
like the sort of landscape in Uganda, we have just under the percent
of people have smart devices and internetis mostly common in urban places. Between
twenty sixteen, Yeah, we startedyear in twenty sixteen, so between but
between twenty sixteen and twenty twenty,beginning of twenty twenty, before the pandemic,
our program was primarily in person.We used to go to schools in

(09:56):
villages to teach our content with thegoal of making learning more practical and relevard
to student's life, so students cansee the value of science and math in
helping them sort of real wild problems. Then the pandemic happened in twenty twenty
and in Uganda, schools were closedfor a whole two years, and that

(10:18):
meant twt of million kids were stuckat home. They didn't have any way
to study. So for us,we stopped teaching in international schools and designed
a virtual classroom to provide access toeducation when who are stuck, especially our
children who in our program. Bythen we had four hundred students who in
our program in villages get access toeducation. We use these tools the technologies

(10:41):
that most you Gandans have access to, radios and bask future phones and basic
keypad phones because most of your Guardanshave those two technologies. But this is
what we saw. Within one month, we had over ten thousand students sign
up for the program, and whichis not surprising anyway, because most kids

(11:01):
in last mile communities did have anywhereto study, anywhere to get education.
But what surprised us was that bythe end of the first year, by
the end of twenty twenty, whenwe ask students our users whether or not
they were in school before the pandemic, almost half of them, four to
seventy percent of them told us thatthey were out of school even before the

(11:22):
pandemic. That's when we said,you know what, even when things sort
of go back to normal, wewill continue with our classroom to expand access
beyond traditional classroom classrooms and the worldit works we provide. We provide young
people with an experience of a liveonline class you know, remotely without the

(11:43):
need of smart devices or internet internetaccess. Our teachers, we train our
teachers in our Steam content who goon the radio every day from Mandy Saturday
for thirty minutes every day. Wekeep it in short because the attention spanned
of you know, children, especiallyif the lesson is room out, isn't
that you know long. So withour teachers teacher for thirty minutes every day

(12:03):
from Monday Saturday, and while studentsare listening to the teacher. This is
the most interesting part. While studentsare listening to our lesson on the radio,
they can interact with the teacher inidio time. So for example,
if the teacher asks, hey,students, I would like you now to
define for me solar radiation because weare going to use this knowledge in creating

(12:26):
our technology of solar food dryers.You can call me now or go in
the app and answer this question.So students go in our offline in the
Years Offline Learning app and when theydive our code that that question hops up
that THEA is asking on the radioand they when they answer it, the
teacher understood. You can see theresponses on that because the dash would open

(12:48):
on her laptop. She can seethe responses coming from students like they come
in hand withs and she samples outa few we've seen your response. Keep
innovating, so that way students knowthat, oh, the teita is a
way that we are listening and theycan get feedback in your time. This
model is really we've seen. Thismodel is innovative because number one, students

(13:11):
only need radios and keep bad phonesto you know, to participate. These
tools are already there. They're alreadyyou know, in our communities, eighty
seven percent of we can have radiosand seventy four percent of them have keep
platphones and they know how to usethem. This technology, our app uses
a technology called USSD. USSD technologyhas been used for the last couple of

(13:35):
decabs in Africa to expand access tofinancial services and medical services. And with
purpose to that technology that most peopleare using to increase access to education.
Number two, why your science isreally creative is that we can see how
students are engaging with our platform.We can see, you know, the
numbers on our dashboard in your time. It's interesting that ours, our lesson

(13:58):
is run for thirty minutes, buta lesson of that stands when we have
over eight hundred students, you know, respond interacting with the teacher. And
the other one is the fact thatstudents can receive feedback in idio time as
they are listening to our listons onthe radio. Yeah, and I think
that's at the heart of the innovationthat you and Aaron developed is that you

(14:18):
didn't you didn't try and start fromscratch and create some novel type of technology.
You just used what was already available. Radio radio has been around for
one hundred years, and uh,and did it in a more innovative way,
hence the name. Yeah, andI think that's that's terrific and it
works, it actually works. Howmany How many students have you reached since

(14:41):
the beginning of ye just approximately?So we have over thirty four thousand,
thirty four thousand students that have completedour courses, thirty four thousand court completions.
These are students that have taken ourcourses are completed. We have more
than double that number that that thatthat have participated or tried to register for
our program but denied them for ourbangetary constraints or because maybe they just stopped

(15:07):
on the way. But that fourpercent thirt forout that children have completed our
courses and out fifty two percent ofthose as guals. And we're excited about
that because one of the challenges wefaced in the beginning was having more goals
in the program. We have abig focus on increasing the representation of gals
in STEM fields. We really workedso hard and we have initiatives that we

(15:31):
use to ensure that, you know, parents allow their goals to participate in
the air science and you know,have access to the stem medication that we
teach right and what's but on theradio, over two million, you know,
according to our according to the datafrom our radio stations, from our
partner radio stations, over two millionpeople listen to our lessons. Our team

(15:52):
has met when they our team hasmade people you know, in the communities,
when they're going to do interviews forthat we use in our listeners they
have There is a time when ourteam was going to call these interviews and
they made the interviewing Gevrad with afarmer in a village not that you got,
and when they interviewed him, hewas like, oh you peopart from
me. Heah, I'm also yourstudent. I listened to all your lessons

(16:15):
on the radio. You should giveme a certificate. So we have so
many people that listen to our lessons. We don't even count them as part
of our impact because they don't.They didn't just end up. So the
thirty four thousands I'm talking about arethose students who redustered within our app and
that we know that engaged you withour content. Yeah, that's tremendous.
And what percentage of your all thestudents. Well, let's just say,

(16:37):
what percentage of the five hundred thousandthat are actually engaged and getting and working
towards certificates are girls? Over halfof our of our students are gulls,
Like over half of them are gults. Yeah, that's spectacular in an area
where typically probably less than twenty percentwould would go to a school and actually
work towards a certificate without out yourprogram and the use of the technology that

(17:02):
you have. Congratulations on. Thatwill take a quick break from our interview
with Samson to explore the impact onstudents of EA's Engineering Design Process. EA's
eight step Engineering Design process is atool to nurture students creativity and to leverage
the resilience that youth in Ro Yugandahave already demonstrated and extended into learning environments.

(17:30):
Each EE STEM course takes students througha process to build a technology in
their home that solves an everyday problem. Through this practical application, EA instills
Personal Initiative Foster's interest in STEM educationand teaches students that the same eight step
process can be applied to any problem, equipping them with a practical and adaptable

(17:56):
problem solving tool. EO students havemade technologies such as bicycle powered phone chargers,
hand sanitizers, solar food dryers,and homemade solar panels, all using
locally available materials. We're now backto our discussion with Samson Wamboozi. I'm

(18:19):
going to change the topic here alittle bit because of this amazing work that
you've been doing. You were lastyear, in twenty twenty three named as
one of the Obama Scholars by theObama Foundation, which is a very very
prestigious thing, and there's only thirtyI believe in the world every year that

(18:41):
are named, and those are emergingleaders from around the world who participate in
this program. And you're at ColumbiaUniversity here in New York, and you're
there for an entire year, Ibelieve, for this program and it's very
very intensive training. How has thatexperience been for you, Sampson, I
have had a wonderful experience, andI feel so fortunate to have had the

(19:04):
chance to be an Obama Scholar.And honestly, frankly, if what I
am experiencing in New York as anObama Scholar is a dream, I don't
want to wake up because as achild, first of all as a child
in our village in eastern Uganda.Growing up, the New York used to
be my dream destination. And nowI feel so lucky that I got a

(19:26):
chance to experience life in New Yorkfor nine months, like I feel incredibly
unfortunate. Obama Scholars, so therewe are started. But like the Global
Program, hast Scholars, the GlobalProgram, the Global Obama Scholars Program at
Columbia University at twelve so we constituteconstitute through scholars, each from a different

(19:47):
country. And in my in thecurrent court, we are two from Africa,
myself myself from Uganda, and twofrom and one from Nigeria. We
audit classes at least four classes ofour choice at Columbia University. That and
that gives us a chance to enhanceour skills and the impact we are making
in our in our organizations. Youknow, the experience has been amazing and

(20:08):
also we have great exposure to thebest educational resources, a change of where
equiped libraries, laboratories, maker spacesand many real worder full facilities. In
my first month year hour, Ispent time in the in the African Studies
collection at the library, digging uplike credible data sources that are related to

(20:30):
the educational crisis that we are addressingin Africa, and I use that data
to create systems thinking map that Iam happy to share with my team later
this year when I'm back in Uganda. Last year, I read a book
called Atomic Habits, and the writerin that book says that one of the
most effective ways to to build betterhabits is to join the community where your

(20:53):
desired behavior is their normal behavior.And the fellows in my COVID have the
skills and the habits that I neededand the habits that I needed to become
a better person. And I'm confidentthat now when I return to Uganda,
I'm going to you know, myteam, our team will see at approprad
division of me. And if youasked me what my best experiences are,

(21:17):
like what I what I have seenas my top two benefits from this program.
Number one is the executive coaching.All over my scholars get executive coaching
to improve their leadership approach. AndI'm glad I got a chance to have
an executive coach. And then theother one is the networking. I have
met people that I never knew Iwould meet in my entire lifetime. I
used to be a villager, butnow my network is full of remarkable people.

(21:42):
When we met President Obama last yearas Obama Scholars, he knew by
them. When he entered the meetingroom, he said, and he saw
me, he was like, Iknow you your assumption from Uganda, And
honestly I froze for a second.I was like, oh my god,
I can't I can't believe this.And it's been incredible. I've also met

(22:02):
like very maybe unly popular, butreally influentially does that and some of you
know, some of them are nowmy friends. So I'm really lucky to
have you know, have been anObama Scola. Yeah, well that that's
an amazing experience. And you andyou're not you're not lucky because you have
accomplished so much and they don't pickvery many people to do it. You
should be honored and uh for havingbecome one. But it's a tremendous experience

(22:26):
and it'll just supercharge what you're doingin the other parts of your life as
you continue to try and make theworld a better place through education. It's
it's terrific, Samson. So whenyou go back, you'll go back to
Uganda and you'll get back into Yeahand and continuing to build that and having
the influence that YEAH does you know, not only in Uganda, but in

(22:48):
other parts of Africa too and maybeeven around the world. What do you
think will be the main thing thatyou'll bring back from this experience? Two
things. One, I have gotwhat it takes right now. I have
got what it takes to build apartnership that we've always that we want to
build the partnership that we want thatare quit to our sustainability. And one

(23:11):
of the most important partnerships we wantis partner with the government. Right now
we are we are having air Scienceteaching STEM education to equip young people in
under South young people with practical skillsto you know, solve problems in the
local communities and have the agency overtheir future. So teaching STEM and while
we do that, we are scalingthe nationally. Other region is in the

(23:33):
country in Uganda. And also thisyear we are translating our content to remove
the language barrier so that children whoare not proficient in English are able to
land the practical skills we teach.Now the next layer to that is in
the next two to five years wewant to expand our platform. We have
learned that the students in our programdo not only need STEM education to thrive,

(23:57):
they also need to run about sexualproductive health. Maybe that is what
will help them to stop getting pregnantwhen they're still young. They need to
learn about entrepreneurship, They need toplan about human rights so they can maybe
demand the government to government to buildfor them schools in every village. So
we are going to expand our platform, and expanded platform of our expanded platform

(24:18):
is going to be called air Learning, So that's the big thing that we
are also working on. However,the big goal is to create a nationwide
virtual school, virtual classroom called airschool that would be an alternative educational model
for kids who don't have the physicalschool go too, can't afford to be
in school, and that will offerstudents. We want to partner with the
government and be able to offer studentssome microcredentials similar to ged IS as it

(24:45):
is here in the United States.So I feel like I want I want
to work on that. I havegot what it takes. I have got
the you know, you know,the skills I have, the I have
I have learned you know, thestrategy. I need we need to you
know, to use to but tohave a partnership, a good partnership with
the government that is critical for usto achieve our vision. Yeah, that's

(25:07):
terrific. And do you envision beingable to collaborate and reach out to the
UH, to your partners, yourfellow the other fellows in the program UH
and have a longer term relationship withthem out into the future. Do you
see that? I think that isprobably one of the visions of the Obama
Foundation is to have these fellowships andscholarships and then have you all you know

(25:30):
that are out there trying to dogood in the world and create change.
Have you all collaborated various times?Do you see that as a possibility?
Yeah? Like these OPENMA scholars areremarkable. They are doing incredible work in
the in the areas where you knowwhere they come from and thereh and and
for some of them up to ourour work sort of aligned or like sort

(25:53):
of compliments each other. Like youknow, there is a scholar from Vietnam
working on gender jenda bastic violins.There is a squaler from this squaller from
UH Nigeria working on climate change.So the areas sort of they compliment each
other. And in Uganda we areaddressing education, so we've and we've seen
area as well. We can wecan collaborate with each other. The unspoken

(26:17):
goal of the Obama Foundation Squalars programis for us to have long lasting friendships
with each other and collaborations with eachother, even after after this fellowship.
Yeah, well that's a great goal. Samson, thank you so much for
being with us. I really appreciate, really enjoy the conversation. It was
terrific. You're very welcome. Mike. Well, that's all for this week.

(26:44):
I'm Mike Christian inviting you to joinus again next week on What's at
Risk. Also check out our podcastat Wbsnewsradio dot iHeart dot com What's on
your Mind? Send us your thoughts, comment and questions to What's at Risk
at gmail dot com. That's oneword, What's at Risk at gmail dot

(27:07):
com. Thank you, A bigthank you to our producer, Ken Carberry
of Chart Productions.