From a Downtown Tutor's Dream to Africa's Teaching Revolution: Instaskul's Journey

Picture this: Kenya's downtown colleges, 2009. Facebook was taking over. Feature phones were giving way to touchscreens. And I, a tutor working seven days a week, watched as my profession remained stuck in the past.

While lawyers opened consultancies and doctors built private practices, we tutors had no path forward. No time for side projects. No professional mobility. Just seven-day workweeks teaching British curricula we hadn't designed.

But something was brewing beneath the surface.

In a staff meeting that year, I made a request that would change my life - even though nobody acknowledged it at the time.

"Can we set up an online learning department?"

Silence.

The thing is, I didn't even know how to code. I had no programming background, no budget, no team. Just a growing frustration with the status quo and a vague vision of something better.

When the meeting ended with my request unacknowledged, I shrunk back into routine. Rent was due. Bills needed paying. The idea retreated into my subconscious.

But ideas like this don't die - they wait.

2010: Lost my downtown job. Started graduate school. Got my first personal computer.

2011: Joined a career consulting firm with a former colleague.

2013: After speaking at a seminar in Kampala, I stayed. Opened a small computer services shop. Connected with a local university.

2015-2018: Taught at campuses in Kampala and Juba. The computer shop closed, but the teaching continued.

Through it all, that 2009 idea kept whispering: There has to be a better way.

When COVID-19 hit in 2020, I found myself back at my computer with time to think.

I Googled "digital teaching opportunities East Africa."

The results? Nothing.

Not a single platform built for African teachers, by African teachers.

That's when it clicked: If we're going to wait for someone else to build it, we'll be waiting forever.

In 2021, I started drafting a learning management system.

In 2022, I built a low-code prototype and shared it with people.

Their response? Crickets.

It was so primitive and unstable that nobody who saw it acknowledged it. Sound familiar? Just like that 2009 staff meeting.

But this time, I didn't shrink back.

In 2023, I learned to code. Python. Java. Whatever it took.

I built the first real draft of what would become Instaskul. Through 2024, I iterated, debugged, refined. By December 2024, it was 80% complete.

Here's something I never saw coming: AI would revolutionize how I built Instaskul.

In early 2025, VS Code's inline suggestions started getting eerily accurate. It felt like finally having the team member I'd been searching for.

By mid-2025, AI-assisted debugging became my norm. The product we have today - sleek, powerful, functional - would have been impossible to achieve within the same timeframe without AI.

But here's the key: AI didn't build Instaskul. I did.

AI became a tool. The vision, the persistence, the 17 years of lived experience as an African educator - that's what built Instaskul.

If you're reading this as an educator, you know the struggle:

• Limited career mobility

• Undervaluation of teaching

• No platform to build your own courses and earn on your terms

If you're a student, you've experienced:

• Curricula that don't reflect African contexts

• Limited access to quality education

• High costs for foreign platforms

Instaskul exists to change this.

Instaskul isn't just software. It's a movement to:

1. Elevate teaching to profession-level status in Africa

2. Give educators ownership of their content and earnings

3. Make quality education accessible across East Africa and beyond

4. Build African solutions for African challenges