PARI 2023: who is Mazoughou Goépogui, winner of the innovation prize with his Magoé Education?

The top of the first edition of the innovators prize of the National Research and Innovation Week (SENARI) was officially given this Friday, July 14 at the By Issa marquee.

Organized by the Ministry of Higher Education, Scientific Research and Innovation,“Magoé Education”, an application which helps students and learners to better revise their lessons in a detailed and simple way, caught the attention of the jury members. Meet the man who designed it.

Big smile from Mazoughou Goépogui, 40 years old, when the president of the jury members said her name, accompanied by rounds of applause from the audience. With a confident step, the General Director of Magoé Technologie quickly climbed the steps of the podium, his fist raised. Dressed in an artisanally dyed Africolor shirt with long sleeves rolled up a little, the young innovator with a dark complexion and beautiful teeth manages to win the day and savors the victory in the face of whistles for his cause.

Taste for computing

Born in 1983 in Macenta – 726 km from the capital; south – west – in the highlands of Guinea, where he spent his school and secondary education; admitted to the baccalaureate, Mazoughou is oriented to the Faculty of Sciences; at the Physics department of the Gamal Abdel Nasser University of Conakry; he studied solid body physics, where he finished in 2007. But thanks to the internet, he became passionate about computing.

The teacher-researcher began designing this useful application for the education system since 2015 and until 2018, it was in the experimental phase,“In fact, we implemented this application which is very useful for our education system. It is the best application in terms of using digital study systems, from kindergarten to university; through CFPs, training centers, and Technical Schools; our application is really adapted to the problems related to teaching in Guinea», he said.

Online review app

Magoé Education is also an exclusively online revision application which allows students wherever they are, even without a connection, to be able to revise at their own pace. So the telephone becomes a real educational tool. The other aspect, the same application allows school managers to make school management easier for them. Everything related to the management of a school is integrated, from schooling to pedagogy, including finance, personnel and infrastructure. “You just have to go into Play store; type Magoé Education and install it. Automatically, you will see all the features, all the classes, all the courses from Kindergarten to Terminale. There are over 4,000 courses available; 3,000 interactive exercises. The system directly asks the child questions, he answers; the system makes the correction while showing the correct answer and then it saves the answers. And afterwards, the parent will be able to consult to see if their child has revised, the revised chapter, the questions that were asked, the answers that were given, the level of the child compared to the level of children from other schools., explained the young innovator.

For the moment, his company Magoé Technologie has a single prototype which is improved each time according to needs, of course there are several versions at different levels.“If a school is a partner with us, instead of giving it Magoé Education, we actually give it an application that renames the name and logo of the school. So that's why you will find more than 100 applications in the Play store named Magoé, but all of this converges towards the same objective. Lessons are payable at 9,000 GNF per month per subject for students. As for schools, they pay a subscription based on the number of students, the services requested and the size of the school. We charge the subscription starting with 3,000,000 GNF”, confided the General Director.

The young innovator dreams of being a world leader in academic support and educational offerings. Magoé Education is already deployed in several cities in Guinea and next year, the deployment will follow in the sub-region and also throughout Africa.“In addition to the educational aspect, there are a lot of tools that we are developing. We again made a pointer for the presence check. There are quite a few tools that are still being added to the project to really have a super complete product that no one will be able to escape., underlined the teacher-researcher.

Crowned by the AU in 2022

Married and father of five children, the General Director of Magoé Technologie is accustomed to the prize list, in 2022, his company was crowned third best innovator in all of Africa by the African Union in Tunis,“It’s really a feeling of satisfaction because when you do work that is recognized nationally and internationally, you can only be satisfied with that”, he rejoiced. The young innovator leaves with the annual prize (50,000,000 GNF, a computer and mobility for France) from the National Research and Innovation Week; in line of sight to think about how to do better and how to win again.

Amadou Dari DIALLO