NOVA
ROLE
Founding Product Design Lead
TEAM
Lauryn Kinsella
Devin Hayden
Teri Shim
TIMELINE
Oct 2025 - Feb 2025
TOOLS
Figma, Illustrator, Lottie
OVERVIEW
No-internet schools in South Sudan and Tanzania lack the resources for quality education.
In talks with a handful of underfunded schools in South Sudan and Tanzania, educators complained about unreliable internet, insufficient materials, and difficulty keeping up with changing curriculums. These problems had prevented students from getting into secondary school and pursuing higher education.
APPROACH
NOVA: offline learning platform
A device that broadcasts an intranet (think WIFI), giving nearby devices access to an edge computed AI tutor and learning resources including Khan Academy and Ted Talks.
OUTCOMES
Shipped to Tanzania and South Sudan
Collecting quantitative data in South Sudan
100+ learning resources
Open resource offline learning
50+ devices
First locally-run AI tutor
Trained on their curriculum remotely update-able
This case study focuses on design for students and teachers with low digital literacy while under high hardware constraints.
INITIAL FINDINGS
Limited technology + no internet made independent learning difficult.
Phones are not allowed in school. Computer labs are there, but there is no internet and no computers, so it just sat there and stopped me.
-a high school senior in South Sudan interested in computer programming
< 10% of students can go to college
The exam-based structure is cut-throat.
Not enough teachers
Teachers are often underqualified. Schools understaffed.
Using outdated material
The government keeps changing curriculums, and teachers have a hard time keeping up.
No Starlink adoption
Schools are underfunded, they’re in a civil war.
WHAT EDUCATORS SAY
Teachers aren’t provided the tools needed to account for each student and adapt to new government-given curriculums.
Our non-profit partner LetAllGirls talked with an educator in Tanzania to learn about their current setup.
TANZANIA + SOUTH SUDAN
It would be great if we could make new quizzes based on the curriculum.
3+ of the schools were understaffed and had to create new material manually with outdated tools.
TANZANIA
With 50 students in a class, it’s hard to satisfy with the material we have.
Not enough material to go around, limited devices, low to no internet access.
SOUTH SUDAN
We’ve want lab equipment for students to do hands-on, but we can’t afford that.
Without lab equipment, they can’t do the groupwork described in the new curriculum.
How do we bring quality, up-to-date resources to students + teachers and encourage curious exploration?
Curriculum-trained AI tutor
The tutor was to be dynamic with not only the curriculum but to each student’s education level.
Curriculum-based Quizzes
Help teachers focus on students rather than on constantly reviewing large syllabus updates.
Phet Simulation Lab
Schools often couldn't afford lab equipment, but teachers wanted to promote group work and hands-on activities.
Searchable Digital Library
As opposed to the piles of hyperlinks provided by the RACHEL (only other offline database), our library had to be easy to navigate.
Smart Companion
Ask about what’s on screen. No hopping tabs.
ADDRESSING THE GAP
Existing solutions were either expensive, high maintenance, or outdated.
Students hardly benefitted from existing offline databases due resources being dated and difficult to navigate.
Evaluating existing solutions
(NOVA concept 3D render). Easily update-able, low maintenance, and explorative at a cultural level.
Students borrow teachers’ phones just to Google search.
EXISTING WORKAROUND
Teachers don’t know everything, and students are curious to do their own research. Existing offline databases provide no search function, only a list of links.
Key Insight: students need a way to search resources and ask questions freely.
Analyzing online/offline competitors
ONLINE SOLUTIONS
Good luck without connectivity.
Relied on the fact that students had internet at home, which was not the case.
OFFLINE SOLUTIONS
Outdated resources, crappy navigation.
Existing hardware couldn't support more than some disorganized hyperlinks. The content wasn't culture-relevant, so knowledge wasn't 100% applicable to their syllabi.
ux under technical pressure
Honing in on student-teacher benefits while navigating high technical constraints posed by edge computing.
(extremely low-cost, custom-built offline computer).
Ideal Platform vs. Necessary Features
Designers went crazy on whiteboards then discussed with engineers to narrow the scope.
Found core features to focus on according to user needs.
Less computing power for affordability = a sharp focus on providing value.
We had to minimize the amount of “beautification” that would cost development time. Our small engineering team was stacked with AI training.
A GPU and motherboard in a precarious pose.
Matching the current structure, not disrupting or reinventing.
Teachers were busy updating their material according to new syllabi, so we focused on integration with any teaching style and assignment.
Matching problem to approach
We matched each major problem with an approach
Managing ai behavior
The LLM’s context window was limited due to hardware.
AI tutor would take a long time on output
less available tokens
The budget and hardware lowered our LLM's available tokens. At first, we expected users to press “new conversation” every X prompts.
Users would be frustrated at its forgetful nature.
Frustrated User Journey
This performance challenge would cost students to halt exploration or getting help on a project. With no room for a full onboarding or an account setup system, each student wouldn’t know the exact function of a simple “new conversation” button.
I sat down with the lead engineer: Could we prevent the LLM from reading everything top-to-bottom to improve latency?
Success User Journey
A dumb relevance-checking AI
We were able to implement an AI relevance-checking system. Funnily, we had a surplus of storage, so we added an additional "dumb" AI to check and return Y/N, using less computing power and speeding up response generation.
applying Cultural Context
We learned their existing habits surrounding digital products and applied the same design patterns.
I knew that given 1) their overall lower digital literacy and 2) their very different culture, we’d have to be intentional with each design decision. After interviewing teachers and students, we learned that they were familiar with WhatsApp.
We mimicked WhatsApp’s iconography to improve usability and lean on existing intuition.
result
Shipped to Tanzania and South Sudan
Shipped to 2 schools and 1 library for high school students! Unfortunately had to pass off all software to partner without collecting longitudinal data.
Reflection
What I learned
Ask the dumbest questions
Because everyone ends up assuming limitations into existence, hindering creative thinking.
Think with the tech, not around it.
Learning from engineers gives opportunity to design outside of the “technical box”, making limitations less rigid than imagined.
Make, take, and present notes.
Documenting knowledge on all fronts such as LLM performance and stakeholder goals is key to team alignment and integrated design thinking at every step.
Looking Forward
Offline OS
With more funds it could allow learners and teachers to access Adobe Creative Suite, coding platforms, and more.
Personalization
Make student/teacher accounts so the AI tutor and teachers can understand student progress.
Edge-Computed AI
Without the technical constraints, AI that is computed in-house might be the next level of personalization and private security.
from a college dorm to africa
Aaron has horrible astigmatism, so here is a portfolio in light mode.