Methodology

Design for the network you don't have.

Most edtech assumes connectivity and degrades badly without it. We invert the assumption: everything works fully offline, and connectivity — when it happens — is a bonus that carries data, never a dependency that gates learning.

Offline-first, not offline-capable

There is no "reduced" offline mode. Lessons, media, assessment, and scoring all run on-device. A classroom that never sees a network still gets the complete product.

Opportunistic sync

When any device touches a network — a teacher's phone in town, a passing sync courier, a monthly satellite window — it exchanges just the deltas. Progress uploads; new packs and updates come down.

Conflict-free records

Learner progress is stored as an append-only, conflict-free log. Two devices that recorded the same learner offline merge cleanly without a server refereeing every write.

Mesh over infrastructure

Devices in a classroom form a local mesh and share packs peer-to-peer, so one synced tablet can seed an entire room without any of them reaching the internet.

Power realism

Displays, sync, and background work are all budgeted against a solar/handcrank power envelope. Nothing assumes a wall socket.

Repairability

Hardware is documented and field-repairable; content formats are open. A deployment must outlive our company, not depend on it.

Deployment pathway

How a deployment is structured

Five phases. None is skipped, including for sites that arrive mid-term in acute need.

Phase I

Connectivity & Needs Assessment

A short survey of the site: power, existing devices, network windows (if any), languages, grade bands, and teacher capacity. It drives everything downstream.

Phase II

Footprint Sizing

A solutions engineer proposes a device count, a sync topology, and the content-pack set for the site's grade spread, with an estimated per-site cost.

Phase III

Provisioning

Hardware is pre-loaded and mesh-paired before it ships. It arrives working; a classroom does not need connectivity to switch it on.

Phase IV

Teacher Onboarding

A half-day, screen-optional session for facilitators, plus the printed teacher companions that ship with every pack.

Phase V — Sync Cadence & Handoff. We agree a realistic sync cadence for the site — weekly courier, monthly satellite window, or purely peer-to-peer — and hand the deployment to local staff with the tooling to add devices and pull updates themselves. A deployment that only works while we are on site has not finished.

Sync internals

What actually crosses the wire

Sync is deliberately small. The less each contact has to move, the more a thirty-second network window is worth.

Payload	Direction	Typical size	Notes
Progress log deltas	device → hub	1–40 KB	Append-only, conflict-free; merges without coordination.
Pack updates	hub → device	0.2–8 MB	Binary-diffed against the installed version; unchanged media is never re-sent.
New packs	hub → device	10–120 MB	Chunked and resumable; a dropped window continues where it left off.
Roster changes	bidirectional	< 20 KB	Enrollments and class assignments, reconciled by the same log mechanism.

The "99.2% eventual sync" figure on our home page is exactly that — eventual. A record created offline is not considered lost until it has failed to sync across three separate network contacts, which in practice almost never happens.