Our
Solution
Get to Know Us
Twenty years ago, I had an idea that wasn't even technologically possible. In 2024, the National Science Foundation (NSF) awarded us an SBIR grant to develop it. While traveling across the southern African continent, I noticed a pervasive use of cellphones. People were using them for all sorts of things — business, banking, connecting with family around the globe — everything, except school. I thought, why not put a complete school (K-12) on a cellphone and pass it out to children who have no access to any schooling, at all (200 million of them), and to those who despite being enrolled (600 million more) don't have basic literacy and numeracy skills. It took the technology more than 20 years to catch up to my idea.
- Sharon Sochil Washington, PhD
Founder + Cultural Anthropologist
About MASi.
Consider this: 200+ million students lack access to any form of schooling, at all—with an additional 84 million projected by 2030. Another 600 million students, despite being enrolled, struggle with basic literacy and numeracy skills (UN SDG 4). Biggest factors contributing to these numbers are: cost and linguistically relevant education.
Now imagine this: A high-quality, individualized school that dynamically connects to the national curriculum standards of wherever a student logs on, to ensure seamless, context-aware learning for each student for just about $100 per year. Our goal is to put a “local” K-12 school in the hands of every child, in every language, everywhere.
OUR MISSION
Value Proposition
MASi will revolutionize education delivery by significantly reducing costs, addressing a pressing issue highlighted by the United Nations (UN). Currently, educating a child in targeted areas can costs up to 47% of a nation’s GDP (Cost of Achieving SDG Goals). In contrast, MASi would be a fraction of that cost—essentially the cost of a smartphone, mobile broadband access, and a MASi school license — which will not be charged to the student user, but to Ministries of Education. Not only does this innovation lower costs, but it would also exponentially improve education quality. Benefits include access to a high-quality comprehensive school in local languages, with tailored lessons, and flexible learning via a mobile platform, with digital human teachers—one human teacher becomes like ten, and where none are available MASi steps into the gap. We aim to significantly reduce the highest cost elements of a quality education—high-quality teachers, physical infrastructure to house a schooling experience, and the need for sophisticated technology infrastructure. Additionally, MASi would support education continuity for children in forced migrant situations, by allowing them to continue schooling in their home nation’s education system until they settle. The UN underscores the urgency of improving education quality, especially post-COVID-19, highlighting the need for collaboration among various traditional infrastructure developments—a complex task that has proven unlikely. MASi was conceived to solve that problem.
Intellectual Merit
Contribution 1: At the heart of MASi is the innovative use of advanced machine learning to tackle one of the biggest barriers in global education: the lack of language translation technologies for low-resourced languages. Our NSF Phase I project aimed to fundamentally redefine language modeling by developing a new approach to working with low-resourced languages—those with insufficient digitized text, limited grammatical research, and, in many cases, no comprehensive dictionaries. We succeeded. Success in this area represents a breakthrough in AI's comprehension of human language in its diverse manifestations, and its ability to understand and translate underrepresented languages, which unlocks education for millions who currently have no access to content in their first language.​
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Contribution 2: While language translation and education technology are typically separate fields, MASi recognizes that they are deeply intertwined when it comes to expanding education access. MASi brings these fields together by developing a platform—a global comprehensive K-12 school—that employs advanced language generation in an educational content delivery system. As a result, MASi breaks down linguistic barriers to education, especially where local language instruction is severely limited, if not completely absent; and enables high-quality learning experiences across diverse communities.
Commercial Impact
MASi also addresses the financial challenge faced by education providers, governments, and NGOs in delivering affordable, high-quality education across diverse linguistic and cultural contexts.
By translating national and state curriculum standards into personalized lessons in local languages, MASi offers:
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A scalable and cost-effective solution for improving educational access
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A pathway to significantly improved learning outcomes, even in marginalized communities
MASi's primary users are the 200 million children and youth worldwide with no access to formal schooling. For the additional 600 million students enrolled but lack a high-quality teacher, MASi will act as a powerful teaching multiplier—transforming one teacher into many. With MASi, a single teacher can reach and educate hundreds of students, bridging the gap in quality education at scale.
MASI’s technology enables global education solutions that are scalable, inclusive, and built for real-world challenges of diverse communities.