It is with a heavy heart that we announce the closure of Kibo, and the end of our degree program in computer science.
We built Kibo to provide young Africans access to high-quality and affordable education, so that they can improve their lives, increase their earnings, and contribute to their communities. We sought to build a world-class computer science degree, with global faculty, at an accessible price point. While we made tremendous progress towards our educational mission, we’ve struggled to financially sustain our operations. In the absence of scalable student financing, we can no longer sustain our work and must cease operations.
While we are sad that Kibo is closing, we are proud of what we built together. Since 2021, we’ve accomplished much, including:
- Enrolled 140 students in Nigeria, Ghana, and Kenya in an online, accredited Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science
- Taught 2500+ students in 32 African countries as part of Try Kibo, our free introduction classes in Python, web development, and data science
- Degree students delivered introduction programming classes to 500+ students in 15 secondary schools
- Degree students won numerous awards and opportunities, including Generation Google Scholarship for women in computer science, Fishbowl Challenge for social entrepreneurs, GTxSQUAD hackathon, Google STEP internship, Mercedes-Benz beVisioneers fellowship, and more.
Community was at the heart of everything we built. From the very beginning, we emphasized that learning at Kibo is “online, but not alone.” The experience brought together learners across Africa, and connected them with one another, as well as with faculty and mentors across the globe.
We want to express our profound gratitude to everyone who made Kibo possible – our learners, dedicated staff, volunteers, partners and investors. It has been an honor to build with you. While this chapter is closing, the impact of our work lives on through our alumni who are thriving because of what they have learned and the connections they have made.
Sharing our Resources and our Learnings
One of our core values is #BetterTogether, and we know that it takes collective effort to address systemic challenges. Kibo is part of an ecosystem of like-minded organizations who are committed to helping young Africans thrive. We’re hopeful that peer organizations will continue this work, and that what we learned through our experience can be useful to others.
One of the things we are most proud of is creating a high-quality online learning experience. Too often, learning online is perceived as (and really often is) inferior to in-person experiences. We proved that online learning online could be as good – and often better – than in-person learning. With a diligent and thoughtful focus on learning design, we built and delivered thousands of hours of engaging asynchronous lessons and active live classes. We’re making these available in a github repository with a CCO license, so that other educators can use and improve on them.
Another Kibo core value is to #LearnContinuously. Especially when things don’t go as planned, we embrace deep reflection so that we can improve ourselves, and help others learn from our experience. To that end, during the month of July, we plan to release a short podcast series of deep-dives, learnings, and reflections on our journey – both the successes and the failures. We’ll cover topics from instructional design, to student support model, and student financing. We hope these conversations provide a chance for us to process our experiences, and for others working to improve online learning and education in Africa. We’ll publish these conversations on our blog: Kibo Insider.
If you want to be notified when our open-source curriculum materials and blog learnings are available, let us know.
We are doing all we can to connect our students with resources they need to continue their learning journey. We also have a formidable team of staff and faculty – from student advisors to data engineers – who are looking for their next opportunity. We are actively seeking opportunities that could benefit our staff and students after we close, so please send a note to hello@kibo.school if you want to partner with us.
Closing message
To the thousands of young Africans who learned with Kibo, whether in our degree program, as part of Try Kibo, or in any of our CS programs: please keep learning. Your countries and the world need your skills and perspectives to drive a prosperous future. You can #RisetotheChallenge.
Thank you for being a part of Kibo.
With immense gratitude,
Team Kibo 🏔️