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Tembo Education Advances to Hult Prize Finals!

A $1 million grant is on the line for Tembo Education, a group of five UT students and one USF
student, who head to New York City on Sept. 26, as one of the six remaining teams competing
for the Hult Prize. Up to this point, theyve edged out groups from Ivy League universities
Stanford, Yale, Cornell and Harvard, among others, to secure their spot in the Global Final. !

The Hult Prize, founded by social venture executive Ahmad Ashkar, is a yearly competition in
which student-run social entrepreneurship companies propose solutions to the most pressing
humanitarian issues facing the world. This years challenge, issued by former President Bill
Clinton, is to solve the lack of quality early childhood education in the urban slum, according to
the Hult Prize website.!

Answering President Clintons call, Tembo Education (previously known as Athollo) crafted a
plan to educate impoverished youth in Sub-Saharan African countries by delivering information
to them via mobile phones. This strategy is predicated by the fact that over 80 percent of
individuals in urban slum communities in Sub-Saharan Africa have access to a mobile phone,
according to senior finance major Ulixes Hawili, director of economic development for Tembo.!

Why make Sub-Saharan Africa the target focus? Because 50 percent of children there dont
have access to education. Within the region, Tembo currently has partnerships in place with
Nigeria, Ghana, Liberia, Uganda and Kenya. !

The solution became clear to us when we started looking between the lines, at the dots we
could potentially connect. We thought: What if we could provide them something they dont
havea quality early childhood educationthrough something they do have, the mobile phone.
Sub-Saharan Africa is the fastest growing smartphone market in the world, Hawili said.!

Tembos plan of attack is three-fold: first, an evidence-based curriculum of activities,

developed in conjunction with Home Instruction for Parents of Preschool Youngsters (HIPPY),
will be distributed via mobile phones to home educators (employees of Tembo). The home
educators will teach parents the activities and role playing methods, who will then teach their
children.!

The core of the process is truly parental involvement in the childs education from the ages of
zero to six, Hawili said. The parent is the childs first and most important teacher. !

To ensure that the cell phone component of the plan is reliable, Tembo has forged a partnership
with a fast-growing provider called GloboCom, who will pay a percentage of royalties to Tembo
for every customer that chooses them as their primary provider. In turn, GloboCom will receive a
more captive audience, because unlike in the United States, where phone companies like
Verizon and AT&T bind customers into lengthy contracts, the leniency of African
telecommunications companies makes it harder to hold on to customers. !

In order to bring this dream to fruition, theyll need one more victory in what has been a
rewarding, but lengthy, journey. Applications for the contest began in October of last year, and in
early January Tembo was announced as one of the regional finalists, affording them the chance
to travel to San Francisco to compete against other teams based in North America. In San
Francisco, they secured the lone spot for the United States in the Global Final.!

The key to winning is showing that you have the passion to turn the business idea into a reality.
We feel confident because we not only have the passion but have been in the slums making a
substantial amount of progress living in the heart of poverty for over two and a half months,
said Phil Michaels, chief visionary officer of Tembo.!

The Global Finals will take place at the Clinton Global Initiative in downtown Manhattan, and
feature entrepreneurial and political heavyweights like Muhammad Yunus, Julia Gillard, Charles
Kane and President Clinton himself. Teams will compete in one final pitch to the council, which
will then decide who gets the grant from President Clinton. The event will be live-streamed
around the world, allowing the African communities the chance to potentially watch Tembo make
history. !

While the Global Final is the last step in the Hult Prize journey, it is only the first step for Tembo
Education. Whether they win or not, the team plans to continue with their mission of
supplemental education in Sub-Saharan Africa. !

Regardless of what happens in the competition, Tembo will continue operating, said Michaels.
We are already collecting revenue, have already been provided with two verbal agreements for
an investment, have been accepted into the IBM Smartcamp at the Barclays Accelerator in
NYC, and we have also applied to other competitions, such as the Forbes HeroX $1M
competition. !

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Hawili echoed Michaels sentiments. !
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Were still competing in multiple other competitions, we also have investors waiting on the line,
and operations are continuing in Nigeria. Were not just going to pack up and leave, said
Hawili. There are people out there who depend on us. This is real. This is something we cant
just let go of if we dont win. !