expertise — ict4d

More than technology.

Technology for development is only one-third technology. The rest is people and context: teachers and pupils, culture and trust, power cuts and budgets. Tools that ignore that reality end up in a cupboard — we have seen the cupboard.

So we practice ICT4D the human-centered way: design thinking from the first field visit, prototypes in real classrooms, iteration with the people who will own the result. Culture is not an obstacle to route around — it is design material.

AboveBeyond carries nine years of continued ICT expertise in Sub-Saharan Africa: sixteen field visits since 2017 — thirteen to The Gambia and three to Uganda — building with nonprofit Afrodidact and twice teaching for Enabel, the Belgian development agency.

Shane reviewing paperwork with local partners during a field visit in The Gambia
the flagship

KUBO.

KUBO is the open IT suite for schools where budgets are tight, power is unreliable and the internet barely reaches. Three parts, each useful on its own and strongest together: a lab of low-power workstations, an offline server carrying a library of learning content, and the platform that runs the whole school — grades, term reports, timetables, attendance. All open source, installed with the school’s own team and supported for years, not dropped off.

Shane started KUBO in 2017 with a single lab in The Gambia. Grown within nonprofit Afrodidact and a growing volunteer team, it now runs in five pilot schools across two countries and reaches 2,500 children every week. Nine years on, the first lab is still running — and KUBO is opening to schools worldwide.

A KUBO lab full of students, each at a workstation running Scratch
a KUBO lab in daily use — Scratch on every screen
Shane and a colleague working together on laptops in The Gambia
working shoulder to shoulder with the team in The Gambia

since 2017  ·  5 pilot schools, 2 countries  ·  150+ workstations, growing  ·  2,500 kids a week  ·  kubo.global →

from the field

Nine years and sixteen field visits distill into four lessons:

Slide from Shane's conference talk: always assume that you know nothing
from Shane’s talk at Educaid’s international conference on inclusive quality education

  • Assume you know nothing

    Every visit reveals dynamics invisible from afar. Humility is the first design tool.

  • Simple, but not simpler

    Robust beats clever — but simple must still solve the real problem, not a convenient version of it.

  • Celebrate every win

    In hard conditions progress comes in small steps. Morale is infrastructure too.

  • Make yourself redundant

    Local ownership is the goal: build capacity, hand over, step back.