News

Rt Hon Dominic Raab MP visits sQuid head office in Thames Ditton

19 October 2020

As constituency MP for Esher and Walton, Dominic Raab visited sQuid, a technology company that is revolutionising education halfway round the world.

sQuid – the British company based in Thames Ditton that created smartcard and digital wallet technologies used in school payment systems across the United Kingdom, and provides safe cashless payments on buses for those without bankcards – showed off to Mr Raab its projects in Kenya, Somalia and now Nigeria, which include pioneering education technology programmes and large scale cashless payment distributions, which help marginalised communities improve children’s education and family livelihoods.

Adam Smith, sQuid CEO, explained:

“sQuid’s projects are perfect examples of British cutting-edge technology solving very complex problems worldwide. We’re very excited that Mr Raab has shown such interest in our company, and encouraged us to continue flying the flag. Our new project working with Nigerian schools will help build a better future for thousands of children in over 100 communities, using digital tools and on-the-ground support to encourage greater engagement in education in often very difficult situations.”

sQuid has recently signed a contract with the Nigerian Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC) to assist some of the northern states, focusing on improving attendance of children at school, driving up teaching standards and improving children’s learning. sQuid’s approach takes in the whole community and, in due course, aims to offer microfinance to help improve livelihoods.

sQuid’s award-winning iMlango project in Kenya has already boosted the education of 285,000 pupils and the training of nearly 5,000 teachers with its online tools, and encouraged sustainable growth in the communities by making microfinance available for parents – improving family incomes which in turn enables their children to attend school regularly.

Adam added: "We are leading a new approach in tackling issues which have long been the sole preserve of well-meaning but ultimately low impact humanitarian agencies who don’t have a digital delivery capability. We bring proven technologies and practical experience to really help drive long-term, scalable and economically viable improvements in education and payments management. We are now really excited by the opportunity to work with our colleagues in Nigeria."

ENDS