Scaling equitable access to AI education on AWS with Otermans Institute

OI was founded on the principle that education should be accessible to everyone, regardless of location or income level. Founded by Dr. Pauldy Otermans, a neuroscientist and expert in learning science, along with AI architect Dev Aditya, the institute takes an educator-first approach that prioritizes how people learn. “We knew that content alone cannot solve problems,” says Dev Aditya, cofounder and CEO of OI. “The teacher is very important, which raises the question, ‘How do you scale that?’”

During the COVID-19 pandemic, OI, which focuses on soft skills and professional-development training, including AI skills development, reached more than 35,000 learners across nine countries. However, scaling its teacher-led model wasn’t possible. OI conceptualized an AI teacher, launching and implementing it in January 2021 at Barzani Charity Foundation United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees camp in the Kurdistan region of Iraq. However, scaling this AI teacher cost-effectively proved challenging, as fully cloud-hosted AI models required constant connectivity and high inference costs. These barriers excluded learners in low-resource regions and marginalized remote communities, including areas in sub-Saharan Africa, Asia, and the Middle East. OI needed a scalable, secure, and affordable solution that could operate even when internet access was unreliable or too costly.

OI began working alongside AWS EdStart, a now-concluded program that helped promising EdTech startups build teaching and learning solutions on AWS. AWS delivers an extensive AI specialist network, thousands of certified practitioners, research scientists, and solutions architects, backed by nearly 2 decades of cloud leadership. With this initial support, later transitioning into support from the AWS Education Equity Initiative, OI continued finessing its product and AI algorithms on AWS and eventually developed an offline-first AI education solution.

The solution uses edge computing to run AI capabilities locally on devices rather than relying on constant cloud connectivity, making it possible for learners to access instruction and progress through lessons even when internet access is unavailable. This offline functionality addresses one of the most critical barriers to AI education for underserved learners in low-resource regions.

OI’s solution benefitted from Amazon Bedrock, a service for building generative AI applications and agents, and uses AWS cloud infrastructure to support secure and scalable development. “All our features like CI/CD pipelines, code pipelines, container orchestration—it’s all on AWS,” says Dev Aditya. “The AWS environment provides a lot of integrated security, which helps us keep our focus on our core business.” AWS provided credits through multiple programs, including the AWS Education Equity Initiative, a global $100 million commitment by Amazon which supports organizations that are expanding access to education for underserved learners globally.

At the core of the solution—called OIAI—is an AI-powered personal tutor that delivers nine core AI literacy lessons aligned with the UNESCO AI Competency Framework. Designed using principles of learning science and the psychology of learning, OIAI adapts to each learner’s pace and style. This approach offers individualized support, something that’s typically unavailable in traditional online learning environments. For learners in underserved African communities, this model helps replicate the presence of a teacher even where there’s a shortage of qualified instructors.

By combining cloud-based infrastructure with edge connectivity and offline AI, OI has created a sustainable, cost-effective model to help reach underserved populations worldwide.

After launching its offline-capable solution, OI grew from 25,000 to more than 155,000 learners within weeks. It has reached more than 240,000 individuals across Africa and beyond in less than a year, including over 2,000 learners in arid and semi-arid regions bordering the horn of Africa. OI then followed this by partnering with the UK Digital Access Programme team of the UK Foreign Commonwealth Development Office (FCDO) and several other partners to provide basic and foundational digital literacy training using the national Information and Communication Technology (ICT) authority curricula of the Kenyan government across 11 counties in Kenya. As the next step, OI aims to upskill 20 million learners across Africa by 2027, beginning with an initial cohort of 2 million learners in Kenya and East Africa that includes Somali communities in the region and other highly underserved populations.

The solution has shown strong engagement, with 7 percent of learners completing more than 10 hours of coursework within 2 days, highlighting the enthusiasm for the program. By delivering certified learning at negligible cost, OI has demonstrated how organizations can deliver transformative education cost effectively at scale.

Working with nongovernmental organizations, charities, and other entities, OI will continue to expand access to AI education for underserved communities, including initiatives in Kenya, Burundi, Sierra Leone, and São Tomé and Príncipe. Looking ahead, the organization plans to expand its reach through additional global initiatives, including programs for underserved learners in the United States and the United Kingdom. It hopes to reach 1 billion users by 2032 and will be upskilling 1 million new learners alongside the FCDO and the ICT authority under the Government of Kenya in the coming year.

“The vision is that it’s their personal teacher in their pocket for life, because lifelong learning is so important,” says Dev Aditya. “Jobs will keep changing, and everyone needs to keep upskilling, reskilling, or thinking about life and exploring. With support from AWS, we provide a way to make that happen.”