There's a common assumption in technology: the internet is always there. Build for the cloud. Sync in real time. Stream everything.
That assumption fails 40% of schools in Tanzania before they even open the app.
We didn't choose offline-first because it's a trend or a technical preference. We chose it because the alternative is exclusion. If the student in Arusha whose school has one shared computer and no internet can't use it, it's not ready.
What offline-first actually means
It means the server lives inside the school. Every lesson, every assessment, every piece of progress data exists locally. The system doesn't ask for permission from the internet to function.
When connectivity shows up — and it does, sometimes — it syncs. Quietly. In the background. But it never depends on that moment arriving.
The constraint shaped the design
No large asset downloads. No streaming video that buffers forever. No cloud-first architecture that collapses without a signal.
Instead: lightweight content that fits on modest hardware. A sync protocol that handles intermittent connectivity gracefully. An experience that feels complete whether the school is in Dar es Salaam or a village three hours from the nearest cell tower.
The cheapest phone in the room runs it. That's not a limitation we accepted. That's the design brief we started with.
This isn't about technology
It's about who gets to learn. Every product that requires constant connectivity draws a line between students who happen to live near infrastructure and students who don't. We refuse to draw that line.
Offline-first isn't a feature. It's a position on who matters.