Where we started
Nothing here is broken because anyone is careless.
It's broken because the tools never arrived. Schools across the continent run on extraordinary discipline and almost no infrastructure. This is what that costs.
The paper
Enrolment forms in one ledger. Fees in another. A cupboard that everyone hopes never floods.
The silence
A parent finds out their child missed a week of school when the term report arrives, six weeks late.
The register
Twenty minutes of every lesson spent calling names, then an evening spent adding them up by hand.
The arithmetic
Term-end reconciliation becomes a three-day negotiation between a receipt book and a bank statement.
The weight
A head teacher who trained to lead a school instead spends most of the week being its filing system.
How we got here
A short history of a long problem.
The idea
[ What prompted Isikole: the moment or observation that started it. ]
Research
[ Which schools were spoken to, what was learned about how they actually work. ]
First prototype
[ What the earliest version did, and what it got wrong. ]
First school onboarded
[ The first school to trust Isikole with real student data, and how it went. ]
Learning in production
[ How the product changed once real schools depended on it every day. ]
One platform, 22+ modules
Students, staff, attendance, finance, inventory, and parent communication run in a single system, used by schools across Uganda, with QR-based attendance and SchoolPay payments built in.
Offline, and in more languages
Isikole runs online today. Next comes offline capability (recording attendance and payments straight through a network outage), alongside a parent mobile app and the interface in local languages.
Our mission
Give every African school software as good as the work its teachers already do.
Not a cut-down version. Not a pilot. The real thing, built for how schools here actually operate, priced so they can actually afford it.
Where this goes
A morning that looks completely ordinary.
A teacher in Gulu takes attendance in under a minute and starts the lesson on time.
A bursar in Mbarara closes the term's books before lunch, because the numbers were never out of date.
A parent in Kampala opens their phone on the bus and sees that their daughter arrived at school, that this term's fees are settled, and that there's a meeting on Thursday.
None of them think about the software once. That's the goal.
What we hold to
Six things we don't compromise on.
Simplicity
If a bursar needs training to record a payment, we designed it wrong. The best feature is the one nobody has to ask about.
Innovation
QR attendance and mobile-money collection weren't on any roadmap we inherited. We built them because schools here needed them.
Trust
We hold student records. That's not a database, it's a responsibility: encrypted, backed up, and access-controlled by default.
Human-centered design
Every screen gets tested against a real school day: interrupted, noisy, and short on time. That's the only benchmark that counts.
African excellence
Built here, for here, by people from here. Not localised after the fact, but designed from the first line for how these schools run.
Continuous learning
Schools tell us what's wrong and we change it. The product today is mostly other people's good ideas, implemented carefully.
Where we are
Small numbers we're proud of.
Schools onboarded
Students managed
Modules shipped
System uptime
The team
A small team, close to the problem.
Four people who grew up in these schools, building the thing we wished they'd had.
Gikwiyakare Rodney
Co-Founder
Bridget Akankunda
Product Designer
Passionate about EdTech? We'd love to hear from you.
How it's built
Boring technology, chosen carefully.
Schools don't care what we run on, they care that it's up on results day. Every choice here optimises for that.
Interface
What teachers, parents, and admins touch
Application
Business logic and APIs
Data
Where school records live
Platform
Hosting and integrations
Security & trust
We hold children's records. We treat that seriously.
Every school that signs up is trusting us with information about real families. These are the commitments that come with it.
Encryption
Records are encrypted in transit and at rest. Nothing sensitive travels or sits in plain text.
Automated backups
Your school's data is backed up automatically, every day, without anyone remembering to do it.
Role-based access
A teacher sees their classes. A bursar sees finance. Nobody sees more than their role requires.
Cloud reliability
Hosted on Azure, so uptime doesn't depend on a server in the back office surviving a power cut.
Audit logs
Movements and changes are recorded and exportable, for end-of-term audits and for accountability.
Privacy
Student data belongs to the school. We hold it to run the service, not to trade it.
What's next
The roadmap, in the open.
What we're building next, and why. Schools shape this list more than we do.
Everything below is planned work: not yet available, and without fixed dates.
AI Assistant
PlannedAsk questions of your school's data in plain language, and get help drafting the routine paperwork.
Predictive Analytics
PlannedSurface the students drifting toward dropout or falling behind on fees, early enough to intervene.
Parent Mobile App
PlannedA dedicated app so parents get attendance, grades, and fee updates without needing a browser.
Digital Library
PlannedShared teaching materials and past papers, organised by class and subject.
Offline Mode
PlannedTake attendance and record payments with no connection, then sync when the network returns.
Marketplace
PlannedIntegrations and add-ons from other builders, so schools aren't limited to what we ship.
Multi-language Support
PlannedThe full interface in local languages, not just English.