PopPrint’s till slip format dual-language stories and other fun learning material such as phonics, crosswords and Sudoku puzzles are the low cost solution to alleviate the lack of fun, relevant learning material in schools and in our community.
A product of the UCT Upstarts program, PopPrint is the innovative low cost solution to alleviate the lack of relevant learning material in our community.
We live in a country where one of the largest issues faced by many scholars today is that of the language barrier. In the primary grades of 1-3, scholars who do not speak English as their native tongue find it tough to grasp important concepts as a result of not understanding the English language rather than the actual concept being taught.
Added to this, we find that many children,especially in disadvantaged schools, do not have access to relevant resources to expand their knowledge. Reading isn’t fun when the stories are about American kids who watch baseball games when these kids don’t even know anything about America or Baseball.
PopPrint specializes in till slip format, dual-language stories and other fun learning material such as phonics, crosswords and Sudoku puzzles which aid in the facilitation of language-learning and general mental development.
These slips will be printed by Point Of Sale receipt printers, initially by partnering with industry leading supermarkets, with the end goal of being able to place a modified version of these printers in classrooms for complete ease of access to reading material for children as well as expanding the age group material from grade 1-3 to grade 1 to matric.
In this way we will greatly impact the general issue of a lack of resources that many schools endure. The solution aims not to reinvent the bagel but to add a condiment to make the bagel appealing – we will collaborate with organisations such as book dash to source needed resources and networks and minimize the time required to generate content.
Our aim is to get businesses involved not only in revenue streams such as advertising, but to work with the businesses to build hype around reading. This hype will come in the form of competitions and opportunities for the end-user to make reading fun and widespread.
Invest in us
– 9 Printers (3 in 3 schools)
– Prototyping expenses
– Service and maintenance
– Educational material sourcing
Ideally a greater investment would mean a greater chance of getting more machines out to more schools, helping to solve the issue at hand faster!
The process is simple. You walk into a supermarket and swipe your locality card. This gives you access to our library of stories and other learning material (which is updated frequently via our web database) for you to print. You select your story and out it pops at the bottom of your regular grocery till slip. When you print your 3rd story a question will appear at the bottom of the slip. Pick up your phone, send the correct answer via our hotline and you receive a coupon for your next shop.
This targets a captive audience who can’t necessarily afford to buy books, and introduces them to the concept. Retailers will benefit by having people walking into shops and having people open loyalty point accounts.
Later, we will use a unit, ideally in every classroom but possibly centrally located in schools. This is to extend to local areas such as bus stops and home affairs where queues of people wait, often with kids in tow. Teachers, students and/or relatives will easily choose whatever content they need (be it a short story, mental exercises, practice maths problems, instruction guides on using computers…) via a tablet attached to the printer with accompanying instructions. The content is then printed out at no cost to the user. People with phones could connect to and print from the printer wirelessly, limited only by their imaginations.
The printer itself will be safely kept in a box attached to a wall. We’re going to use a thermal printer (the type used for receipts at stores). No ink is required and the paper – the only part which needs regular resupplying – is extremely affordable and simple to refill. The content will be updated wirelessly and remotely. In short, maintaining a large number of them should only require sending more paper and regularly updating the content from home.
Initially, our income will come commission charged when a story is printed
Later, once our printers are in classrooms, income will come from three additional streams:
First, the printer itself will be sold for a fixed amount – about R3000;
Second, schools will pay/be sponsored a subscription fee to keep getting new material and printing paper – R250;
Finally, advertisers can sponsor stories, have their logo at the bottom of a print, etc. This will vary depending on the content and whether the advertising is personalised to users (based on reading habits, age, language, etc) – 50c to R1 per print.
Many have tried and failed to gamify learning with complicated and expensive strategies, but activities such as reading and puzzles have for a long time proven themselves to be intrinsically enjoyable whilst encouraging development. We aim to make reading and mental exercises something that kids want to do in underdeveloped communities. Having more stories that are relatable to, the reader will be able to imagine themselves in them and want more. Additionally, our solution removes all barriers to entry for kids – no need to get on a bus, find your way inside a bookstore, select a culturally irrelevant book and pay a ridiculous amount.
A young, vibrant group of UCT students with an entrepreneurial passion and a focus on making an impact in South Africa.
Alexander Knemeyer :BSc Engineering (Mechatronics)
Boitumelo Dikoko :BSc Engineering (Mechatronics)
Nicholas Harrison :Business Science, Economics
Mvelo Hlope :Business Science, Finance & Accounting