Professor Wilfred Fritz and Solomon Smit intend their start-up to improve education opportunities for those without internet access. The two founders from South Africa presented their innovative eLearning platform at a .

Digital learning – even without internet access

The digital divide in South Africa is still wide even now: almost one fifth of the population has no internet access at all and another significant section only via mobile networks. The result is that pupils in remote rural regions have to cope without many modern teaching methods and materials. ‘Access to digital learning should not depend on a fibre optic cable or the booked data volume’, believes Professor Wilfred Fritz, an expert in renewable energies who conducted research at the University of Stuttgart as a fellow of the for three years. He and his former student at Cape Peninsula University of Technology (CPUT) in Cape Town, electrical engineer Solomon Smit, have jointly developed a solution that enables ubiquitous learning: the eLearning platform ALPHA TOWER. A portable micro-server can simultaneously provide a wide range of digital content for up to 70 learners. ‘Our mission is to install such a micro-server in every school that doesn’t have access to a reliable internet connection.’

‘I know how it feels to be cut off from technologies’

Solomon Smit grew up in the countryside and had to walk ten kilometres to attend school. ‘Nobody in my neighbourhood had ever heard of the internet’, he recalls: ‘So I know how it feels to be cut off from technologies.’ Smit came up with the idea for this innovative learning platform during the coronavirus pandemic: ‘Back then, it was only those children who had internet access who could continue with their lessons. The others fell behind.’ From 2023 onwards, Smit and Fritz started tinkering with ALPHA TOWER in their free time before taking the plunge to found the company. Now they already have six employees. Platform users connect to a local Wi-Fi hotspot via their smartphone, or laptop. In their digital classrooms they can among other things access e-books, learning videos, podcasts or simulations that are tailored to their individual curriculum. They can also upload presentations and e-portfolios, solve digital assignments and complete tests for which they receive immediate feedback from the system. The two founders have also launched ALPHA CLOUD, an enhancement to the platform that assists education providers with data management. They are currently working on the development of an offline AI tutor that can be trained on a specific curriculum to answer questions from learners.

Tailoring solutions to problems faced by customers

Fritz and Smit relied almost exclusively on their own savings when building up the company. Applying for public subsidies would have required a lot of time and effort, says Fritz: ‘We preferred to focus on winning numerous customers and conducting pilot projects, because feedback from actual users is invaluable. This approach really helped us in further developing our business model.’ He would also advise other entrepreneurs to launch the first version of their product on the market as quickly as possible and then develop it further in consultation with customers.

‘Pitches and competitions are useful in establishing networks’

The initial phase was seen to be difficult, among other things due to their limited funds and some bureaucratic hurdles. The founders realised their greatest success to date in December 2024: they concluded a two-year contract with the Southern Africa Emergency Services Institute (SAESI), the national accreditation authority for the training of firefighters. They had previously completed two pilot projects at a SAESI training centre where the participants received training in hazardous substances and fire-fighting theory. ‘They achieved a success rate of one hundred per cent in the exams’, says Fritz. The two awards which both entrepreneurs received at the international start-up competition ‘OxFounders’ in November 2024 represent another major success. ‘Pitches and competitions are useful in becoming known and establishing networks’, says Fritz.

Medium-term objective: eLearning for the African continent

ALPHA TOWER was certainly developed for deployment in schools, but so far has only been used in adult education. ‘It’s the very schools that could benefit most from the platform that have neither money nor sponsors’, says Smit. This is set to change, since the company is now on course for growth: the founders want to raise large amounts of capital, hire more employees and engage in professional marketing. ‘Our current objective is to equip a hundred under-served South African schools’, says Smit. In the medium term, eLearning with ALPHA TOWER could become a model for the entire African continent.