Country: Dominican R.
Organization: Educar
2) Sector of activity: Education
Community Interaction
3) Description of your products or services: Educar.org is a network of virtual communities, educational portals and cultural content that connects 100,000 teachers, students and people in Latin America every day. On-line, they work together to develop content, activities and solutions to the needs of their local communities and human development issues in the developing world. Although developed from a small Caribbean island, the results are visible all across Latin America with teachers rushing to set up virtual learning environments using open source applications, while educators and students from different countries submit local content to be posted on-line and thousands more browse through the massive amount of material and educational activities that is now accessible to them in their native language.
It includes open collaborative spaces such as forums, blogs, open encyclopedias and a free and open virtual campus and local virtual communities for every country in South America, Central America and the Caribbean.
4) Description of the operational model: The content generated as a collaboration initiative from teachers, students and local people everywhere is organized in different sections, such as: Learning Activities (http://www.educar.org/comun/actividadeseducativas/), Lesson Plans(http://www.educar.org/lecciones/), the Origin of Things (http://www.educar.org/inventos/), Indigenous Language Dictionaries (http://www.educar.org/Diccionarios/), Maps (http://www.educar.org/comun/mapas/), etc.
The Literature Section has been so active and has grown so much that, although they are part and managed by Educar.org, they are now presented on there own space at http://www.BibliotecasVirtuales.com and http://www.BibliotecasDigitales.com, an extensive digital library of public domain contemporary and classic texts and an intense community that publishes dozens of texts every day.
The local content from every country has also grown so much that every country in South America now has its own space as well as Mexico, Central America, the Caribbean, Cuba and the Dominican Republic, each with their own very active virtual community and with common spaces where all communities interact: CiudadesVirtuales.com, AmericadelSur.com, Centroamericana.com, RedCaribe.com, RedArgentina.com, RedBoliviana.com, RedChilena.com, RedColombiana.com, RedCubana.com, RedDominicana.com, RedeBrasileira.com, RedEcuatoriana.com, RedMexicana.com, RedParaguaya.com, RedPeruana.com, RedUruguaya.com, RedVenezolana.net
5) Description of the financial model: IT Strategy Consulting services, Advertisement, Educational Services, On-line Training and Web Services generate the revenue that have made the project sustainable for 9 years now.
Client fees represent this approximate percentage of operational budget: 50%
6) Key operational partnership: Have collaborated with International Organization and with Education, Science and Technology Ministries, as well as private corporations and educational institutions over the year on a case by case approach.
7) Current outreach:
We are at the Scaling Up stage. The initiative was started on May 1996 and has been growing since.
How many clients have benefited from your product/service in total? Over the last year? 36 million people. Over 100,000 educators, students and people visit our virtual communities and engage on our discussions on Human Development, Governance, Education and Community Action. Over 4500 participate in our free virtual campus.
What percentage of your clients is below the poverty line ($2 per day)? 50% Our target market is Latin America, with a significant chunk
of it being educators and students living with low income.
But we keep no track of their economic situation.
What is the order of magnitude of the potential demand for your products or services? Which
other low-income groups, countries or regions could benefit from it? Try to quantify (number
of clients, market size in currency):
300 million. We are planning to expand and enhance our content and spaces to grow tenfold within the next 48 months and reach a larger audience in Latin America, Hispanics in the USA and start targetting disadvantaged communities that speak English (mainly USA, Caribbean and other parts of the world). Also our IT strategies for development and education methodologies are currently being translated to English so they can be available and used by stakeholders and social entrepreneurs around the world.
8) Scale-up strategy:
How many low-income individuals do you plan to benefit in three years from now? How are you planning to scale up or replicate your solution? What are the major constraints to scale up?
300 million. We are planning to expand and enhance our content and spaces to grow tenfold within the next 48 months and reach a larger audience in Latin America, Hispanics in the USA and start targetting disadvantaged communities that speak English (mainly USA, Caribbean and other parts of the world). Also our IT strategies for development and education methodologies are currently being translated to English so they can be available and used by stakeholders and social entrepreneurs around the world.
Which specific areas - and why - in your field would benefit most from investment by corporations, foundations, and other investors:
Education, IT for Human Development Strategy Development and Implementation with measurable results and significant impact in the immediate environment where they are deployed.
9) The organization: How does the initiative fit with your overall organization's strategic goals and priorities? How did the initiative start?
Educar.org started as a collaboration project between an Argentinian rural teacher and a Caribbean ICT consultant who decided to fight the lack of quality content, methodologies and spaces for the collaborative construction of knowledge and skills in the education sector and the lack of interactive spaces for community empowerment in Latin America.
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10) On the mosaic diagram, which of these factors is the primary focus of your work?
- Factor: Poor understanding of the human and social capitals of low income communities
- Principle: Leverage the power of communities as both consumers and producers
Contact Information:
Name: Carlos Miranda Levy - founder
Organization: Educar
Mailing address: Ave. Pedro Henriquez Urena 113, Santo Domingo
Country: Dominican R.
Email: carlos@educar.org
Tel: (650)3243570
Fax: (650)7244076
Website: http://www.educar.org
Organization's legal status: Volunteer Organization
Number of Employees: 6
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