As a global edtech company, with a strong pan-African footprint, Snapplify has always been an enthusiastic supporter of the digital education revolution. We champion this by supporting 7200+ registered institutions across 30+ countries, over 1 million registered users, and the largest network of teachers in Africa. These educational institutions (from pre-primary, through K-12, and tertiary level) are using Snapplify’s solutions to promote reading, boost literacy and pass rates, facilitate the Flipped Classroom model, and build 21st-century skills.

Towards the end of 2018, Snapplify received the Reimagine Education Overall EdTech Award, as well as the category award for E-Learning. The following year, we were recognised again by Reimagine Education as the overall winner of the Africa Region Gold Award (2020). As a result of these endorsements, and others received since then, Snapplify has been able to connect with an even broader network of high-level stakeholders and explore a multitude of new growth opportunities.

With partnerships spanning edtech providers, educational publishers, telcos, and other global education leaders, Snapplify is now the largest digital educational marketplace in Africa; the largest aggregator of digital content in Africa; has the largest network of independent booksellers in Africa; and supports Africa’s largest community of teachers with the world-class tools and educational content they need to collaborate, innovate, and thrive. In addition, Snapplify’s education technology is used by education businesses and governments throughout the wider education ecosystem to power their edtech products and interventions.

Expanding into new markets

In the current, shifting educational landscape, digital tools have become critically important as more and more institutions and individuals move towards remote and blended learning. What we have seen is that educational institutions in emerging markets are actively searching for high-quality education tools that overcome a variety of barriers specific to their regions, and that offer access to broad, curriculum-appropriate content.

As part of our commitment to tackle issues around access and give schools the opportunity to explore digital learning at no cost, we made our e-learning platform (Snapplify Engage) accessible on a freemium model, designed to lower barriers to entry, equip institutions for digital learning, and grow with them.

The response to the launch of the free platform in late 2018 was overwhelmingly positive, with registrations from institutions across the globe, including Nigeria, Ghana, Egypt, Zimbabwe, Ethiopia, Tanzania, Mauritius and more – an impressive footprint that shows that we are tapping into and meeting the existing needs of the market.

In turn, this broad reach has allowed Snapplify to work with diverse stakeholders in a multitude of new territories. These new local partnerships have helped us better understand commonalities in regional needs and align our work with those needs for our next growth phase.

In 2019, Snapplify secured $2 million expansion capital from Knife Capital and Hlayisani Capital’s Hlayisani Growth Fund. The funding has enabled further growth into new markets.

Driving literacy and learning

Giving students easy access to books – whether textbooks or leisure reading materials – is essential to boost literacy and improve education.

Any institution anywhere in the world can register for Snapplify Engage and get instant access to a free e-library with tens of thousands of free library books. Through Snapplify Engage, schools can purchase additional library ebooks, as well as prescribed textbooks (both digital and hardcopy).

Following requests from schools, who are eager to use digital tools to add efficiencies to ordering processes for hardcopy textbooks, we partnered with print-book providers to make this option available in Engage from 2020. This means that schools still get the time-saving benefits of digital purchasing when they order physical textbooks.

Working with local and international publishers means that our catalogue of over 350 000 titles is diverse, widely applicable for institutions across multiple regions, and constantly growing to meet the curricula requirements (national and international) of new territories.

We have also been particularly committed to increasing access to content in African languages, from children’s books to study guides and more. We recognise the value and benefits of multilingualism and mother-tongue teaching at foundation phase (especially in Africa) as it fosters better understanding of subject matter and improves test outcomes as a result. It also gives learners confidence in their ability to tackle different subject matter when they encounter it in their first language.

In 2020, Snapplify partnered with Scholastic to build reading skills. The integration between Scholastic’s Literacy Pro platform (an innovative classroom management tool to improve independent reading) and Snapplify Engage enables teachers to facilitate reading assessments via Literacy Pro and leverages Snapplify’s catalogue to create personalised and enriching reading experiences for each student.

Building on our mandate to increase access to quality education for all, Snapplify also established the Snapplify Foundation in 2020. The foundation seeks to accelerate social and digital inclusion through increased access to educational tools that can be used in literacy interventions.

In 2021, Snapplify partnered with FNB, South Africa’s leading commercial bank, to make quality education even more accessible by enabling millions of FNB customers to purchase heavily-discounted e-textbooks by leading educational publishers. Individuals can save 40% on e-textbooks from Snapplify, effectively making this the cheapest (and quickest) way to buy textbooks in South Africa.

Making an impact during the COVID-19 crisis

In response to school closures as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, Snapplify collaborated with publishers in 2020 to launch Snapplify Free Access – widely regarded as the single largest education intervention carried out in response to COVID-19 in Africa. The structure of the Free Access offering, and its execution, is testament to Snapplify’s standing in the industry as well as our strong partnerships with leading educational publishers.

Providing parents, students and teachers with no-cost access to a broad selection of curriculum-aligned resources ensured continued access to education during a time of global crisis and exemplified the crucial role technology has to play in continuing to increase access to quality education globally.

During the course of the Free Access programme, we delivered half a million free e-textbooks worth millions of US dollars to parents, learners and teachers, addressing a critical need for educational resources.

For many students and teachers, this was their first ever encounter with digital content, and the overwhelmingly positive response has been an encouraging indicator of the future of digital tools in remote and blended classrooms – when these are well-executed and designed to address specific challenges that schools and educators face.

Further to this, Snapplify also gave all institutions free access to Engage Enterprise (our highest platform tier) for 2020. This provided all schools with access to top-tier added benefits of the platform, including advanced administration tools and integrations, and user data analytics.

Empowering educators

In early 2020, we expanded our offering to include teacher support tools when we acquired Teacha! – a teacher resource marketplace and educator media hub. The acquisition further diversified Snapplify’s fast-growing educational portfolio and highlighted our already-established position as a serious contender in the global e-learning market. We are now the home of the largest community of teachers in Africa, working to empower, inspire, and uplift teachers through professional community platforms, a resource marketplace, and careers portal.

Not only can educators share teacher-created, multimedia resources with students via Snapplify Engage, but they can also buy and sell their resources in our ‘by teachers, for teachers’ Teacha! resource marketplace. In addition, teachers using Engage can enjoy our Teacha! Benefits programme, which makes review copies of key textbooks and teacher guides (by leading academic publishers) available to them for free for a period.

We’ve also equipped Snapplify Engage educators with analytics and student activity metrics (to spot gaps and inform teaching strategies); as well as integrated, science-backed literacy intervention tools and reading skill development programs to grow reading communities at their schools.

To support career growth, educators can find new positions via our careers portal for teachers and build professional skills with accredited professional development courses delivered by industry experts.

Building an interconnected education ecosystem

We’ve worked hard to ensure that our tools support seamless user experiences and stronger collaboration. Snapplify’s robust authentication technology integrates with leading existing Single Sign On partners (including Google, Microsoft, and Apple ID) and Directory integration partners (Google Active Directory and Microsoft Active Directory), making onboarding easy. Single Sign On enables users to use a single account to access tools and services, instantly unlocking e-learning opportunities for students and educators.

For deeply digitally integrated institutions, we offer a frictionless learning experience. Deep-linking and sharing makes it possible to narrow the gap between the accessibility of digital content and a school’s LMS and other tools. Institutions can share from Snapplify Engage to anywhere, including Google Classroom, Microsoft Teams, an LMS like Moodle, Blackboard, WhatsApp groups, Facebook, email, and more.

Working with businesses and governments to champion access to education support

As a socially minded company, Snapplify has always been committed to supporting others and creating sustainable change, globally, through collaboration and innovation. In 2020, we launched Snapplify Cloud Services, making our award-winning technology available to other businesses in the wider education ecosystem. These are reliable and practical tools that they can use immediately, without having to develop their own infrastructure, and we’re particularly proud to be helping to grow the education industry through these partnerships.

We also know that secure user and identity management is crucial to successful rollouts of large-scale e-learning projects, which is why we’ve made our authentication technology free for governments.

Supporting remote and blended classrooms

At a time when many schools are shifting to remote and blended learning, our ability to offer them first-rate digital education tools and top-quality content has been a source of pride and inspiration for our team. Making it easier for individuals and institutions to access what they need to thrive is what drives our commitment to improve, innovate and collaborate.

Low-data solutions, tools that allow for offline access, and the option for users to share devices, if necessary, are important for the sustainability of digital learning across Africa. This has been a core focus in the development of all our technology, for which we have won several awards, and in which we continue to strive for excellence.

About the Author

Wesley Lynch is CEO at Snapplify.