About ATLAS
Built in Tanzania, for the schools that teach its children.
ATLAS runs a private school from one place: fees, attendance, marks and report cards, payroll, and the messages that reach parents. This page is about the people behind it and where it is going.
How it started
Eighteen months in schools before a line of code.
ATLAS was founded by Africanus Panga. Before building anything, he spent a year and a half in the offices of private schools, watching how fees were recorded, how report cards were put together, and what a head teacher could and could not answer when the board asked.
The answer was the same everywhere. The school already kept the information, in exercise books, spreadsheets and teachers' mark books, but none of it could be added together. ATLAS was built over the following nine months to fix exactly that, and the first four schools signed without a sales team.
What we believe
Four rules the product
is built on.
These are written into how ATLAS is engineered, not just how it is described. Each one is something a school can check for itself.
One record, not five systems
A payment, a balance and a term's collection figure should be the same fact seen from three angles. When fees, marks and attendance live in one place, the numbers stop disagreeing.
Money must be auditable
Financial records cannot be edited, only reversed, and every report reconciles to the ledger. A board should be able to trust the figure without phoning the bursar.
AI that cannot invent a number
The assistant reads only what your role allows, takes money figures from the reports rather than doing its own arithmetic, and can only propose changes for a person to confirm.
Parents should hear early
A parent who learns about an absence the same day can act on it. One who learns at the end of term cannot. The basic phone counts, so SMS is part of the product.
Where we are today
Built, and in schools.
Four regions rather than one city, on purpose: a system that works in Karatu and in Zanzibar works for the schools in between.
4
Schools signed, in Karatu, Dar es Salaam, Arusha and Zanzibar
25
Modules, from fees and payroll to the clinic and the library
3
Ways in: the web, an Android app and an iPhone app
Where we are going
From running the school
to helping it teach.
The record that knows every fee and every mark can do more than keep the office in order. These are in development and are not part of the product or the price today.
In development
Planning help for teachers
Schemes of work, lesson plans, question papers and marking guides drafted against the national syllabus for the teacher's own class. The teacher edits and approves every one.
In development
A weekly note for parents
Attendance, new marks and fees due every Friday, by app or SMS, with one practical thing to work on at home.
In development
Learning for students
Holiday revision papers and mock national exams, marked instantly, and a tutor that starts from the topics a student actually found hard in class.
In development
Beyond Tanzania
Kenya and Uganda next. The syllabus, exam formats, tax bands and grading scales are settings, so a new country is new content rather than a new system.
Talk to us.
Schools: a demo takes about 30 minutes, with your own numbers.
Partners and investors: write to the founder directly.