Nova
ROLE
Founding Product Design Lead
TEAM
Lauryn Kinsella
Devin Hayden
Teri Shim
TIMELINE
Oct 2024 - Feb 2025
TOOLS
Figma
OVERVIEW
No-internet schools in South Sudan and Tanzania lack resources for quality education.
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 prevented students from getting into secondary school and pursuing higher education.
APPROACH
Nova: offline learning platform
A device that broadcasts an intranet, giving nearby devices access to an edge computed AI tutor and resources including Khan Academy.
OUTCOMES
Shipped to Tanzania and South Sudan
Collecting quantitative data in South Sudan
100+ learning resources
Open resource offline learning
50+ devices
can connect to Nova at once.
Locally-run AI tutor
Trained on their curriculum remotely update-able
INITIAL FINDINGS
Limited technology + no internet = difficult independent learning.
A "Computer Lab" with No Computers, No Internet
< 10% of students go to college
Understaffed
Unreliable/No Internet
WHAT EDUCATORS SAY
Teachers Need More Resources
Our non-profit partner LetAllGirls talked with an educator in Tanzania to learn about their current setup.
01.
Lack materials for all students.
"With 50 students in a class, it’s hard to satisfy with the material we have."
02.
Difficulty making material for new government curriculum.
"It would be great if we could make new quizzes based on the curriculum."
How do we bring quality, up-to-date resources to students + teachers and encourage curious exploration?
Curriculum-trained AI tutor to enhance student independent learning
Quiz maker for teachers to adopt to new curriculum
Phet simulation labs for "hands-on" activities without equipment costs
Searchable digital library > Hyperlink dumps by other offline providers
Smart companion that understands approved material
ADDRESSING THE GAP
Existing solutions didn't fuel curiosity
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.
ONLINE SOLUTIONS
Assumes access everywhere.
Relied on the fact that students had internet and devices at home, but it's not the case.
Unable to implement offline.
Difficult to economically produce at scale.
OFFLINE SOLUTIONS
Outdated material, crappy navigation.
Existing hardware only supported disorganized hyperlinks to content that wasn't culture-relevant.
EXISTING WORKAROUND
Students are curious to do their own research independently.
Students borrow teachers’ phones just to Google search, despite poor connectivity.
ux under technical pressure
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 and hardware constraints.
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.
Managing ai behavior
Hardware limited LLM context, so we designed backend for better UX
Avoid hitting "new chat" every 5 prompts
less available tokens
The budget and hardware lowered our LLM's available tokens. At first, we expected users to press “new conversation” every 5 prompts…
Forgetfulness
= Frustration
Frustrated User Journey
This performance challenge would cost students to halt exploration or getting help on a project.
With the lead engineer: Could we prevent the LLM from reading conversations from 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
Matching existing habits with similar 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.
All ages 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.