Sabi is an initiative of Education for Equality

Talk to Sabi
Lagos pilot · Q4 2026

The tutor who picks up the phone.

Sabi teaches children to read and count in five-minute phone calls. It works on any handset, needs no internet, and reaches every family.

Talk to SabiOr chat with Sabi
sa·bi
/sah-bee/
Nigerian Pidgin. To know; to understand.
SabiIf a customer gives you ₦500 and groundnuts cost ₦350, how much change?
Chidi150!
  • No smartphone
  • No internet
  • No data
  • No cost

01 — The problem

Children spend years in school and still can't read a sentence.

7 in 10

Nigerian 10-year-olds cannot read a single sentence.

World Bank, 2022

98M

children are out of school in Sub-Saharan Africa.

UNESCO, 2024

16%

of planned learning actually happens in school.

Attendance × lesson completion × teacher presence

See the evidence

02 — The insight

The answer is already in their pocket.

600 million people in Africa have no internet. But almost every family already owns something that can make a call. So we built a tutor for the network that already exists.

70%of Africans have a mobile phone
95%of Lagos households own one
99%2G network coverage

03 — How it works

A child dials a number. Sabi does the rest.

  1. 01

    A child calls the number

    Any phone works, even a $5 feature phone. No app, no data, no account.

  2. 02

    Sabi greets them by name

    New callers introduce themselves once. Returning callers are recognised instantly.

  3. 03

    A lesson begins

    Taught at the child's actual level, using things they know: the market, Naira, everyday Lagos life.

  4. 04

    Five to seven minutes, one idea

    Short, focused calls. Harder when the child is ready, slower when they struggle.

  5. 05

    They call back tomorrow

    Sabi remembers their name, their level and their mistakes, and picks up where they left off.

Inside a lesson
Call 1 · Chidi
00:03SabiHello! My name is Sabi. What is your name?
00:07ChidiChidi.
00:09SabiHi Chidi! Do you ever help your family at the market?
00:14ChidiYes, I sell groundnuts.
00:17SabiAh, you know business! If a customer gives you ₦500, and groundnuts cost ₦350, how much change do you give back?
00:29Chidi150.
00:31SabiYou got it! You already know maths, Chidi — you just don't know you know it. Now let me show you how they write that in school…
Next day · Call 2
00:02SabiWelcome back, Chidi! Yesterday you learned subtraction using market change. You got 4 out of 5 right. Today, let's try adding things together…
An example first and second call, transcribed.

04 — Who it's for

One phone line, three ways in.

For familiesFive minutes a day, on the phone you have.What a call is like, what it costs (nothing), and how Sabi keeps your child safe.For schools & fundersBring Sabi to a whole community.Host a pilot cohort, sponsor children, keep the line open, or evaluate it with us.For developersRent the African voice pipeline.Speech-to-text, tutor LLM and a Nigerian voice in one API. 1,000 minutes free a month.
A smiling girl in a classroom holds a chalk slate above her head

We're not building another app that sits in an app store. We're building something a mother hears about at church, dials after dinner, and hands to her child for five minutes.

Naomi IvieFounder, Education for Equality

05 — Built for the last mile

Designed for the child furthest from a classroom.

Any phone.

Works on a $5 feature phone. No smartphone, no internet, no app download. Just a phone call.

It remembers.

Sabi remembers every child: their name, their level, their mistakes. Each call picks up where the last one ended.

Built to reach everyone.

No subscription, no app, no data plan. A family needs nothing but a phone that can take a call.

For developers & organisations

Build on the voice behind Sabi.

The same African-accent pipeline, rentable per minute: speech-to-text, LLM and a Nigerian voice in one call. From $0.06 a minute, with 1,000 minutes free every month.

See pricing Request access
# One request: audio in, Nigerian voice out
curl https://api.eduforequality.org/v1/voice/process \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer sk_sabi_..." \
  -d '{"audio": "base64_encoded_audio",
       "voice": "bukola",
       "language": "en-NG"}'

06 — Questions

Common questions about Sabi

Something else? Write to info@eduforequality.org

What is Sabi?

Sabi is an AI tutor that a child reaches by calling an ordinary phone number. It teaches foundational reading and maths in short spoken lessons, with no smartphone, no internet, and no data cost to the family. Sabi is an initiative of Education for Equality.

What does the name Sabi mean?

Sabi is pronounced /sah-bee/ and means "to know" in Nigerian Pidgin.

How does Sabi work?

A child dials the number. Sabi greets them by name — new callers introduce themselves once, returning callers are recognised instantly — then teaches one concept in a focused five to seven minute lesson, using scenarios the child knows such as market transactions and Naira. Sabi gets harder when the child is ready and slows down when they struggle, and remembers where they left off for the next call.

Do you need internet or a smartphone to use Sabi?

No. Sabi runs entirely over a voice call, so it works on a five-dollar feature phone with 2G coverage. There is no app to download, no data to buy, and no account to create.

How much does Sabi cost?

Families pay no subscription and need no data plan. Developers and organisations can license the same African-accent voice pipeline from $0.06 per minute, with 1,000 minutes included every month.

Where does Sabi operate?

Sabi is built for Nigeria and the wider African continent. A Lagos pilot is planned for Q4 2026 with 100 to 500 students in high-burden local government areas.

Who built Sabi?

Sabi is an initiative of Education for Equality, the organisation founded by Naomi Ivie. Its work has been recognised by the MIT Sloan Africa Business Challenge, the Wesleyan New Venture Awards and the UNICEF AI Ventures Accelerator.

Go on, give Sabi a call.

Hear what a lesson sounds like, right here in your browser.

Talk to SabiOr chat with Sabi