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In Colombia, more than 30% of the population are farmers, corresponding to 15.2 million people, according to first-quarter-2023 data from the National Administrative Department of Statistics (DANE in Spanish). In addition, figures from the Rural Agricultural Planning Unit (UPRA in Spanish) indicate that 48.2% of the rural population are women (5.8 million people); thus, three out of every ten Colombian women are from rural areas.
The DANE recorded that 55.7% were employed in the same period, while the UPRA found that 29.9% of rural women were actively occupied. However, the country’s Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development noted that the unemployment rate was as high as 65.2%.
Despite these statistics, the pandemic produced key lessons, highlighting that rural citizens and agricultural producers are a fundamental part of the economy. While the national Gross Domestic Product (GDP) declined by 7%, the agricultural sector advanced by 2.3%.
Against this backdrop emerged the need to create eki, a learning platform designed to bring technology-based education to rural areas in Latin America. This educational technology (EdTech) provides solutions that develop technical knowledge, AgroTech training, and soft skills for productivity and the internationalization of products. Via WhatsApp, users can access innovative and creative content to strengthen various skills and prevent people from leaving the field.
The eki community aligns with the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Objectives to provide quality education and work for changes toward a sustainable future. Currently, young people migrate to cities in search of employment opportunities; however, eki provides courses, believing in the potential of the new generations and women in rural areas to progress socially and economically.
Through eki, field workers enroll in courses taught by experts in education and the rural sector who have more than 15 years of experience in business consulting training. This solution primarily allows the diagnosis and evaluation of learning needs so that later, through playful activities or gamified knowledge, the participants obtain an education to apply real-life skills and be validated with badges and certifications.
By evaluating WhatsApp as one of the most used means of communication in Latin America, without leaving aside the persistent digital and connectivity gap in the region, the platform manages to deliver educational content from microcapsules to tests that are now being developed to bring high school to older adults, through this same application. Microlearning has been positively perceived in Colombia as highly relevant, so the short lessons are increasingly accepted.
Meta’s application programming interface facilitated the development of a website to manage learning. An LXP platform allows visualization of the course catalog. Dashboards enable users to review the teams’ training progress, appropriation, and performance figures. Trainees can design teaching methods considering suggested routes, courses, podcasts, microcapsules, certified courses, and other interactive resources. Along the way, users earn points and badges for the knowledge they accumulate.
This model’s commitment stems from the concern that young people should remain in the field for future legacy. For this reason, the organization supports them with technology so that new generations can better manage the land. Young people do not see themselves being like their mothers, fathers, or grandparents, who spent all day working in the fields; they are different people in rural areas who require an education adapted to their needs and aspirations.
Eki began working with companies that had part of their teams in the field and didn’t know how to train people in the offices. Now, the training is reaching the intended beneficiaries through alliances such as private companies, cooperatives, rural associations in Colombia, unions, and the public sector. The government now emphasizes consolidating this area and supporting people displaced by violence with tools that provide new and better growth opportunities.
Eki’s services utilize a business-to-business (B2B) model so companies can be directly responsible for transmitting and disseminating information to the right people. Its offerings for intended users strengthen skills through two schools:
Business & Entrepreneurship
- Rural Project Management
- Rural Entrepreneurship
- Agricultural Innovation
- Sustainable Business
- Agricultural Finance
- Marketing and Sales
- Rural Extension
- Export preparation
- Agribusiness for rural women
Soft & Digital Skills
- Rural Leadership
- Emotional Intelligence
- Negotiations in Rural Settings
- Associativity and Cooperativism
- Agrotech Productivity
- Basic Cell Phone Management Tools
- WhatsApp for Business
- Social Media Management for Agriculture
They also have productivity courses aimed at generating other sources of income to move from selling basic goods, or commodities, to value-added products. Thereby, producers understand that they have differentiated products, which they might sell at cost without adequate instruction, but which could be sold on the international market at a more competitive price with correct training. Thus, the quality of life of these manufacturers increases.
Its content also helps users develop soft skills, such as associativity, rural leadership, empowerment, time management, and personal finances. Similarly, they have courses focusing on environmental impact because, nowadays, with sustainable business, it is necessary to understand the importance of the direct relationship between the earth and global warming.
Equity in Education
Andrés Rubiano is the founder and CEO of eki, who, from his own experiences and his teaching profession, understands that education has supported him in serving others, so eki is the opportunity for replication. He also teaches at several universities in Colombia, including the Universidad del Rosario, the Universidad Católica de Santiago de Guayaquil, the Colegio de Estudios Superiores de Administración (CESA), and the Pontificia Universidad Javeriana.
While education and entrepreneurship were always a core part of his parents’ upbringing, this set of experiences served as a base inspiration to envision his idea. After seeing the person who helped with cleaning was listening to the background radio all day during the pandemic, Andrés’ idea consolidated. At this time, digital content became even more popular, and free courses of excellent quality were offered virtually. However, not everyone received these offers. Andrés identified that making these enriching contents available to people, like those who helped him at home, was necessary.
Thus, Radio Education 4.0 was born, a podcast in rural communities where teachers were interviewed to teach through the radio. Through trial and error, the podcast formats were modified to improve people’s ability to listen and pay attention. This was done through Community Radio and schools in two remote areas in Colombia. After that adventure, Andrés decided to prepare himself for an even more significant challenge.
Therefore, he enrolled in the Master’s Degree Program in Educational Entrepreneurship (MTO in Spanish) at Tecnológico de Monterrey, where he materialized his idea. This master’s degree is the first graduate program in Latin America to focus on developing entrepreneurship in the educational field. In this program, students can create an entrepreneurial project with the support of mentors and connections to various international, business, governmental, and civil society sectors. Its academic training invites students to look at today’s educational challenges and propose solutions that improve real-life scenarios.
“I believe that those who want to obtain the master’s degree must arrive with a fragment of an idea and be clear that this is a master’s degree for an enterprise. The deliverable to be developed is a project that identifies a problem and produces a solution proposal, prototype, business model, and operations plan. It is a good way to make a dream that you have in your head tangible, accompanied by a team, advisors, and mentors,” said Andrés Rubiano.
The master’s program, which he is still studying today, has provided him with various tools to strengthen and outline his proposal. However, he also needed to scale the project. So, once connected within the Tec de Monterrey ecosystem, he entered the IFE Explora incubation program, where he generated his prototype. IFE Explora is the first EdTech incubator in Latin America that supports and guides individuals and teams who are passionate about transforming the education sector through innovative solutions using exponential technology with high potential to reinvent how education and learning occur. This year, the call to enter the program will be open from April 1 to May 6 for the next generation. Participants can learn more at the official webpage.
From this call, 30 innovators or selected teams train through courses and workshops with experts. The program is designed to generate an EdTech startup, from identifying a market problem to developing a prototype. In the second stage, ten of the thirty are assigned a mentor to optimize their project.
During this process, Andrés focused on establishing a platform designed to address the pain he observed during his first experiences in rurality, being that his grandparents lived in the country. Several problems need to be addressed, but he noticed that young women in Boyacá in the municipality of Socotá, especially, had minimal opportunities. Some aspired to have a partner to get ahead, while others were widows of men who worked in the mines, which had a high accident rate in the region.
So, without shying away from doing something relevant and valuable and considering that most of the products of the field come from the land, he built a prototype. He appreciated that the population he wanted to serve required sources of income, and they were migrating to large cities for opportunities. For this reason, eki seeks to make people fall in love with the countryside, which, if well managed, provides resources and a future. Food and food security are persistent, impactful issues; using technology can help find different solutions. Thus, Agrotech represents innovative methods in agriculture that increase productivity and product quality.
The story of eki comes from the equity required in education. Its purpose is to balance the opportunities many enjoy, and others cannot access by redistributing them and generating new opportunities adapted explicitly for their beneficiaries. The ultimate goal is to bring quality education to the disadvantaged areas.
With a minimum viable product assured, last year, eki launched from a stand at one of the most important agricultural exhibitions in the country, Expo Agro Futuro, thanks to the Bogotá Chamber of Commerce. Additionally, it entered an acceleration program with TechnoServe, which has seven startups in Colombia, Mexico, and Chile.
Subsequently, Andres’ journey through the entrepreneurship ecosystem of Tec de Monterrey led eki to be a finalist for the TecPrize 2023. To explain, TecPrize is an open innovation initiative to design and launch challenges that allow education entrepreneurs to use Collective Intelligence to propose high-impact solutions to latent educational problems.
The 2023 call considered it essential to invest in people’s capacities and anticipate their present and future needs, so it focused on solving the challenge: How can adults acquire skills and create their personal and professional development plans to access better opportunities and actively participate in transforming their communities?
From 130 applicants in 17 countries, eki was selected as one of the ten finalist initiatives.
In his journey through the TecPrize process, Andrés recognized important moments. First, he met a group of daring entrepreneurial enthusiasts who also sought to make a difference, which boosted morale. He also stressed the value of Tec de Monterrey’s openness, support, and community members. In addition, he pointed out that interest in eki was derived from the connections it forged with the accompaniment of the university.
“With this, I finally found my ikigai after many years of exploring. I enjoy teaching; I’ve been doing it for 15 years. Yet I found the same passion consolidated in entrepreneurship in education,” he mentioned.
Andrés clarifies that none of eki’s progress would have been achieved without collaboration. It has a crucial social role. Through numerous contacts, his work team has trained and contributed to the prosperity of more people in rural areas. They have a win-win philosophy, but most of all, eki focuses on the end user. Andrés emphasizes that his support networks have been substantial in achieving progress along the path, including his wife, family, Ana María, and Claudia, who have always supported him.
“Entrepreneurship in education is a long game, an infinite game that I hope will transcend once we are no longer here. But I think we have to see how to eliminate those indicators that if we are not generating resources, we’re doing badly. It’s part of the journey, but it’s essential to have people who don’t let us lose heart and believe in us,” he said.
Currently, eki continues to work for a more educated field, adjusting to the needs of the different actors in the rural sector and ensuring the quality, accessibility, and relevance of its contents. Similarly, its commitment continues to grow with a vision for 2028 that includes the livestock sector, tourism, merchants in rural areas, and transport, among others.
Eki hopes to continue multiplying its alliances and remains in search of agro-input suppliers, AgroTech startups, and rural development projects that work with the private sector, governments, and international cooperation. To join as an ally, click on this link. For more information, contact Andrés Rubiano directly at andres@eki.com.co
Contribute to strengthening skills for rurality!
Translation by Daniel Wetta
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This article from Observatory of the Institute for the Future of Education may be shared under the terms of the license CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 
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