Light of Hope

Light of Hope
Company type	Educational Project (Provides and promotes e-education)
Founded	2013; 12 years ago
Founder	Waliullah Bhuiyan
Headquarters	Dhaka, Bangladesh
Area served	Bangladesh
Website	lightofhopebd.org

Light of Hope (LoH) is a project that aims to provide e-learning facilities to rural schools in Bangladesh. LoH provides laptops, projectors, audio-visual e-learning materials, and solar energy systems to schools in remote areas, where there is inadequate infrastructure and limited or no electricity. LoH also provides books and education materials to students in those remote areas.^[1]

The founders of LoH are BRAC manager Waliullah Bhuiyan and AIUB assistant professors Nasimul Islam Maruf and Asaduzzaman Shoeb. LoH has almost 100 active workers, and has other sub-projects. In 2014, LoH opened its first solar-powered school in Bangladesh.^[2]

History

Inspiration

Back in 2009, Waliullah Bhuiyan was working on a BRAC project in the small village of Patuakhali. Bhuiyan spoke with a group of women about how they make money for living. As there was no electricity in the area, some people from the local market developed ways to harness solar energy for electricity. The village's residents began going to the local market to pay to charge their cell phones. Electricity providers also profited. Some of the women decided to use the idea to earn money. Ambiya Khatun was the pioneer of this idea and applied it. She convinced her husband, who was a rickshaw puller, to start this business by buying a solar-energy system on monthly installments. The business was successful, which encouraged other people got involved, and the area was gradually developed. Bhuiyan was inspired by this improvement.

Waliullah made the plan of this project and shared it with his friends, Nasimul Islam Maruf, Nazmul Arefin and Asaduzzaman Shoeb. They designed the project, but they did not have enough money to start the project nor any sponsors.

2013 Dell Education Challenge

Dell issued its second Dell Education Challenge in 2013.^[3] The competition mainly focused on social entrepreneurship. It sought to inspire innovative ideas around the world to help solve issues in education, including those identified in a Dell-commissioned poll about new education models. The poll showed that respondents viewed a personalized approach to learning to be effective. More than 400 projects were submitted in the competition, and the winning teams could bring their ideas to fruition.

Wali, Maruf, and Shoeb shared their plan with their friends and family. As all four are engineers, they started thinking about how they can use the idea practically. In 2013, they were studying in different countries. They discussed joining the competition in a Skype meeting, and later submitted their project. Their idea got third place, and they were invited to Texas. Waliullah went to Texas for the final competition. They won third place and received $2500 dollars. After online crowdfunding, they gathered $4500. With a total sum of $7000, they started their pilot project in two schools in Chittagong and Kishoregonj.

Starting the Organization

Waliullah came back from Germany after completing his Masters Degree on Renewable Energy Management. He joined in BRAC again for few months. On October 2014, he left BRAC to start a not-for-profit organization called Light of Hope. In 2015, Nazmul Arefin and Maruf completed their higher studies and came back to Bangladesh. Three other friends - Romel, Zillul Karim Sunny and Mukool Alam joined Light of Hope. They started with a single-room office at Mohakhali DOHS.

Emerged as Private Limited Company

Although the founders wanted the organization to run as a not-profit model, they soon realized that running a non-profit organization is not a sustainable model. You have to constantly ask people for money to run your operation. It was in 2017, when Waliullah Bhuiyan read an Article that would change the way Light of Hope would operate in the future. Published by World Bank, the article said, 70% of all the children in the primary level in the world will end up in a job that doesn't exist today. The educational institutions are not preparing these children with the right skills. And this is going to be the biggest threat to humankind. Within few months, Light of Hope founders decided to change their mission and focus on developing future skills for children. And for that, they registered Light of Hope as a private limited company. From 2017, the company started to launch a series of new initiatives and brands under its portfolio - Goofi, Kids Time, Teachers Time are the most prominent of them.

Poura – The Reader

LoH launched a project called "Poura – The Reader" for collecting books.^[4] The project aimed to help poor children who cannot afford books. The project's team members collected books in different ways, such as collecting book donations (mainly primary-level storybooks) from different schools and universities. They also reached out to people and social organizations, such as Room to Read, for donations. LoH ran its first campaign on AIUB and collected almost 200 books in one day. Due to the campaign's success, LoH wanted to spread the campaign across Bangladesh. They launched a Facebook event for collecting books and sent representatives to different universities to collect books. Organizations including BRAC, Room to Read, and Save the Children donated books. rokomari.com donated 200 books. LoH launched a three-year project aiming to create libraries in 500 schools across the country.^{[clarification needed]}

References

^ Islam, D. M. Ohidul (11 July 2014). "Light of Hope, Increasing Ingenuity in eEducation". Daily Observer.
^ "MSc SELECT student's project "Light of Hope" opens first solar powered school in Bangladesh". InnoEnergy (Press release). Retrieved 2017-10-13.
^ "Dell Education Challenge to Support and Fund Innovative Learning Approaches". Dell (Press release). Archived from the original on 10 October 2013.
^ "Poura – The Reader". INDIEGOGO.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)