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# Bringing digital education to refugee and host communities in remote regions of Africa

How do you build a fault-tolerant, multilingual educational platform for remote refugee camps without reliable internet? Discover the offline-first architecture powered by Elixir, Phoenix LiveView, and CSS logical properties.

- **Speakers:** Phil Helliwell
- **Event:** World Congress 2023
- **Published:** August 11, 2023
- **Duration:** 26:49
- **URL:** https://www.wearedevelopers.com/videos/644-bringing-digital-education-to-refugee-and-host-communities-in-remote-regions-of-africa

## Summary

The Vodafone Foundation and UNHCR’s Instant Network Schools (INS) program aims to bridge the educational gap for displaced populations residing in remote, physically demanding regions of Africa. Recognizing that average refugee camp stays span over two decades, the initiative delivers a holistic, community-tailored technological solution bundling solar power, ruggedized hardware, and localized curriculums to combat systemic under-resourcing. Because these remote environments rely on weather-dependent satellite (VSAT) or limited edge 3G connections, the engineering team adopts a strict offline-first architecture. Utilizing intelligent hardware upgrades like Intel NUCs allows local servers to independently host comprehensive educational resources, application logic, and offline platforms like Kolibri without external dependency. Delivering localized web experiences across left-to-right (Swahili) and right-to-left (Arabic) languages heavily utilizes modern browser rendering. Development leans on native CSS Grid behavior, Flexbox, and CSS logical properties—like border-block-start—so user interfaces naturally adapt to directional shifts without complex manual layout overrides. Managing this widespread, highly disconnected array of remote school servers further demands highly resilient backend tooling. A bespoke management application enables program administrators to deploy local Ansible runbooks seamlessly, built with Elixir and Phoenix LiveView. By operating on the Erlang VM, originally designed for fault-tolerant telecom routing, Elixir’s inherent concurrency and dedicated supervision trees guarantee that isolated network execution failures do not cascade. This ruggedized, offline-capable technical infrastructure ultimately empowers consistent academic continuity, measurably boosting exam performance and digital literacy for hundreds of thousands of displaced students.

**Keywords:** digital refugee education, offline-first architecture, ruggedized hardware deployments, remote VSAT connectivity, CSS logical properties, RTL language styling, elixir backend development, phoenix liveview implementation, erlang VM concurrency, remote server management, fault-tolerant supervision trees, ansible playbook automation, kolibri offline distribution, low-bandwidth edge networking, digital inclusion initiatives

## Chapters

1. **Overcoming educational gaps for displaced populations** (01:22) — How a lack of continuous resources hinders long-term education in refugee camps.
1. **Core components of instant network schools** (04:23) — Providing holistic digital education through connected hardware, solar infrastructure, and local curriculum.
1. **Hardware evolution and offline-first network infrastructure** (09:38) — Adapting physical kits and local servers to handle harsh environments and unreliable internet connections.
1. **Managing digital classroom content with local portals** (12:48) — Equipping teachers and students with local offline learning resources and digital literacy training.
1. **Adapting user interfaces for right-to-left languages** (14:36) — Utilizing CSS layouts and logical properties to automatically flip interface elements for Arabic readers.
1. **Managing remote devices with Elixir and Ansible** (17:48) — Building an administrative panel to orchestrate reliable and fault-tolerant background updates across remote schools.
1. **Measuring impact and opening developer volunteering opportunities** (20:14) — How the learning initiative improves academic outcomes and where software engineers can contribute their skills.
1. **Deployment regions and offline digital schooling resources** (22:37) — Clarifying geographic support regions and the differences between offline portals and traditional online courses.

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