Zimbabwean Startup Leaph Reinvents Ed-Tech Through Data Science and Machine Learning

Edtech or eductional technology is promising to change the mostly static way of learning by leveraging software-led technological processes to enhance educational outcomes for young learners all the way up to tenured professionals undertaking reskilling courses. Leaph was launched in February 2018 by Zimbabwean software engineer Nick Nyaumwe who used his seven year experience in Full Stack Web Development in the Python Flask Framework to single-handedly build the software architecture behind Leaph. The ed-tech platform utilizes data science and machine learning to optimize an institution's insights for their student through a digital academic management system. Tools used include data analysis and data visualization to provide in-depth performance and academic forecasting for the student.

Let's hear more from Leaph's founder Nick Nyaumwe:

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What was the idea behind Leaph?

I wanted to create a system that would provide performance optimization tools for teachers and figured the best way to deliver such tools would be through an Academic Management System. The core idea behind Leaph is to help teachers better understand their students. Specially in understanding their students strengths and weaknesses in each individual subject so they have a better understanding of how to improve their students performance.

Why was the Leaph project implemented?

It dawned on me a few years ago that the systems that are currently being used by schools word-wide are pretty outdated and don’t offer any value for the consumer outside of shaving off a few minutes off of monotonous managerial tasks inherit in managing a school. I implemented this project because I believe strongly in the power that education has to evolve an entire civilization and so I want to make the learning experience the best it can be for students. Beyond that, there had been a growing demand for Big Data in Education in a lot of schools in first world countries but there had been no solid implementation of it yet and I found this to be the best way to implement it.

What does Leaph do?

We essentially provide educational institutions with data analytics that help them to optimize/improve their students academic performance and development.

What challenges have been encountered in building this startup? As with the birth of new technologies, adaption is always an issue in the early years. It is difficult to get across the value of the system to a generation of people that might be a little bit conservative in nature, though it’s not really that big a challenge. The biggest hurdle I’d say we have faced so far is finding technical talent in Zimbabwe. Leaph was built on the flask framework and there just aren’t that many developers that specialize in that framework. So the development took about one and half years as I had to write the system myself.

Any future plans for the growth of Leaph? We want to ultimately evolve our system to a learning tool that it used universally by students all over the world.

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Nick Nyaumwe (Credit : https://leaph.co )

Visit Leaph at https://leaph.co