One-on One Educational Services Limited – Educating Jamaica’s youth through innovation and creativity

CATEGORY: Education

Never in a million years would Ricardo Allen, founder of One-on-One Educational Services Limited, imagine that when he incorporated his company in 2013, he had created a business that would have endured the test of time during one of the world’s most devastating pandemics.

When COVID-19 first invaded Jamaican soil in March 2020, the education sector, like most others, was severely impacted.

This birthed a greater demand for electronic resources, as schools had been shuttered and had to quickly transition to online modalities.

One-on-One Educational Services Limited stepped up to the plate to play its parts in helping to educate the youth of Jamaica, offering students individualised learning experiences blended with formal learning methodologies through its digital platform.

Students are served through specialised personal tutoring services, e-learning solutions, skills-based and mastery learning frameworks, and mentorship.

For the tremendously positive impact of its learning hub in making education accessible in Jamaica and beyond during a period of alienation from the classroom, One-on-One Educational Services Limited has earned the RJRGLEANER Honour Award for 2021 in the category of Education.

Allen, who was a bundle of blazing enthusiasm for his role in helping to educate the nation’s children, explained how his online business came in handy during a time when the need became greater across the world in trying to find new and creative ways in ensuring that children continued to get an education.

“Educating Jamaicans, for me, goes far beyond the classroom; you want to mould minds so that they can, in return, add value to society,” he said.

A father of two young girls, Allen understood this need very well and would often question how he could create a system from which they could benefit.

“I knew that, if I could solve that problem in a way that is equitable, then I would have solved a problem for 500,000 students and for generations to come,” he said, noting his purpose of being a father who could guide his children on how to be good citizens and impact the world.

He added, “One-on-One is so much more than education. We build learning online and we solve a knowledge gap.”

Allen, who as a youngster was a Programme of Advancement Through Health and Education (PATH) beneficiary, shared how emotional he gets when students express how his efforts impact their lives.

Allen said his company’s disaster management abilities were put to the test and validated when he aided The Bahamas, which suffered $3.4 billion in losses from Hurricane Dorian in 2019 and had displaced thousands of children from the classroom.

So, when the need arose for himself and his team, which had grown from a pre-pandemic strength of seven to 60 individuals during the crisis, Allen was ready to face COVID-19’s impact on education head-on.

The company deployed its platform offline to better serve students in rural areas without Internet connectivity, to prevent learning loss.

In collaboration with governments as well as the finance, education and manufacturing industries within 10 countries across the Caribbean, One-on-One offers innovative elearning solutions across the region and is now operating in the United States.

The company was able to reach 400,000 students at all levels of schooling during the pandemic.

Allen, who was honoured by The RJRGLEANER Honour Awards in 2019, expressed his gratitude for being recognised a second time for his positive impact on education but this time during a trying pandemic era which could not be accomplished without the help of his team.

“When I got the call, I was quite surprised and it felt good knowing that someone, somewhere, saw what we were doing and thought it necessary to recognise that,” he said, noting that it’s much harder to repeat success but, to do it again, gives him the motivation to continue his work.

He stressed, “This is not me; I stand on the shoulders of probably 50 young people who work with passion and believe in helping people.”

Allen urges the education sector to work on developing stronger systems in the future, as this will reduce the impact, on children’s learning, of potential natural disasters or pandemics.

INTERESTING FACTS

• Ricardo Allen once thought the word ‘coincidence’ was ‘cow-incident’ because it was always said with emphasis like two cows crashed into each other.

• He formed a group called ForeverYoung to enter the very first Digicel Rising Stars. He was the rapper and got rejected, big time!

• As a youngster, he used to preach on the bus from Half-Way Tree to Patrick City, on his way to George Headley Primary.

• He can ride a unicycle, balance objects on his nose and balance items like brooms.

• Originally from humble beginnings in Trelawny, Allen began farming and cattle rearing at age six and won a goat as a prize at school. He sold the goat and pumpkins from the farm to help his mother.

OUTSTANDING ACHIEVEMENTS

• Becoming a father and husband and learning to parent his seven-year-old and four-year-old about empowerment and self-love.

• Maintaining a 4.2 GPA while studying at The University of the West Indies, working two jobs, running a company and parenting his three younger siblings.

• The conceptualisation and development of ‘classroom in a box’ that will effectively assist over 250 rural schools and students lacking Internet connectivity to access online resources. Devices will also be placed in prisons to assist incarcerated individuals to get certified.

• One-on-One Educational Services Limited’s partnership with the Ministry of Education in offering 10,000 secondary students free access to online extra classes through the company’s ‘OneX’ personalised learning platform.

• Collaboration with Scotiabank to assist 1,000 PATH students with online extra classes.

BUCKET LIST

• Ricardo Allen wants to one day travel to outer space to see the world ‘from a different perspective’.

• To have a sit down with Barack Obama to discuss his ideas around developing countries.

• Allen wants to create an algorithm that can artificially learn in the same way that humans do and can, in turn, teach the same thing back to humans.

• He wishes to visit the Santiago Bernabéu Stadium in Madrid to witness the El Classico matches.