Shaia

Mentu

Shaia

Shaia is an AI-powered ecosystem for low-tech classrooms that supports teachers across the instruction cycle with a focus on learner variability.

Bogotá

Colombia

Hybrid of for-profit and nonprofit

In Colombia and across Latin America, foundational learning is in crisis. 80% of students are in learning poverty—unable to understand a simple text—one of the steepest declines globally and a reflection of widening educational inequality. A country’s education system is only as strong as its teachers. But teachers in our region face three key challenges. First, they are overwhelmed—overburdened with administrative tasks and limited time for improving instruction. Second, most instructional models are outdated, based on one-size-fits-all approaches that ignore students’ cognitive, socioemotional, and contextual diversity. Third, teacher training programs are often disconnected from classroom practice and fail to translate into meaningful instructional change. More effective models like coaching exist, but they remain too costly to scale. We know what works: supporting teachers with practical, classroom-embedded tools that help them respond to the diversity of their students and grow professionally. The challenge is making that support accessible and scalable. That’s what we’re building with Shaia: an AI-powered assistant designed to support teachers in real time, grounded in pedagogy and local context. We believe this model can transform teacher support at scale—and our goal is to reach 1 million teachers and 30 million students by 2030.

Shaia is an AI-enabled ecosystem that empowers teachers to improve their classroom practice by making great teaching easier. In contrast to point solutions that offer fragmented support, Shaia supports teachers across the full instructional cycle: before, during, and after class. Before class, Shaia can generate innovative and high-quality lesson plans, activities, and resources, aligned to the curriculum and tailored to their students' diverse needs—in just minutes. During class, they can record their sessions and capture valuable data on what happens in the classroom After class, based on the recording, Shaia provides personalized feedback with practical recommendations for the next lesson. Teachers can also have coaching sessions to promote reflection and growth. At the core of Shaia is learner variability. In partnership with Digital Promise, we have trained our AI models and created specific tools to help teachers understand their students diverse needs and create research-backed experiences that address learner’s cognitive, socioemotional, and cultural variability. We have also partnered with other leading institutions, both global and local, to train our models and create evidence-based tools to support teachers.

Shaia supports Latin American school teachers—especially those in under-resourced systems—who face immense pressure to meet the needs of diverse learners with limited time, tools, and support. Teachers deeply want to offer personalized learning, but it’s unrealistic to design separate paths for every student—especially in overcrowded classrooms with scarce resources. That’s why the Learner Variability approach, developed by Digital Promise, is so powerful. Instead of asking teachers to individualize for each student, it equips them to plan for the whole group while considering the full range of learning differences—academic, cognitive, social-emotional, and contextual—present in their classrooms. This mindset shift empowers teachers to design more inclusive and flexible lessons that meet learners where they are. Shaia helps bring this approach to life in daily practice. In a 2024 pilot in rural northern Peru, 95% of teachers used Shaia weekly, and 80% reduced their planning time from 60 to 20 minutes per class—saving an estimated 3 to 5 hours per week. More importantly, teachers reported adopting research-based strategies, restoring creativity, and reconnecting with a renewed sense of purpose. This is just the beginning—we expect Shaia to transform not only teachers’ lives, but also students’ learning outcomes, engagement, and overall development.