thinkAble was a startup I co-founded to address the problem of uneven education across Africa. Our initial goal was to build a learning management system (LMS) tailored for schools, designed to simplify lesson delivery, track student progress, and provide administrators with insights into performance. The aim was to give schools a modern, unified platform without the steep costs of foreign solutions. However, as we began engaging with schools, we quickly learned that many either preferred white-labelled systems they could brand themselves or relied on self-built solutions that better fit their own workflows. This highlighted how varied the needs of African schools really are, and that one-size-fits-all platforms often struggle in such a context.

Rather than stop there, we pivoted into a new idea called Project Educate. The concept was to tackle rural inequality by supplying ultra-low-cost, self-built tablets for students, supported by localised offline-first infrastructure. The tablets connected via Bluetooth to small, low-maintenance data centres installed directly in schools, allowing access to digital learning without relying on patchy rural internet. I was able to visit several rural schools and speak directly with teachers, and those conversations were eye-opening: the real barrier was not simply access to technology, but a broader lack of funding and resources. Without solving that underlying problem, introducing new tech would likely burden them rather than help. As a student working on this alongside my own studies, it became clear that we couldn’t move forward at scale. Though thinkAble and Project Educate were ultimately put on hold, the experience gave me a deeper understanding of the systemic challenges in education and the need to align technology with the actual realities on the ground.