Ustad is a free learning app for students whose classrooms have been closed to them, starting with girls in Afghanistan, who are barred from secondary school.
Since 2021, girls in Afghanistan have been barred from school after the sixth grade. Ustad keeps their education going on a phone or a computer. It follows the official Ministry of Education textbooks page by page, starting with Mathematics for grades 10 to 12 and Physics for grades 10 and 11, with more subjects being prepared. Study notes are prepared with AI from the textbooks and checked automatically; review by Afghan teachers is ongoing. In Dari and English, with Pashto coming soon.
Ustad is also the name of the teacher inside the app. It explains any lesson in simple words, by chat or by voice, and every answer shows the textbook pages it comes from. When a lesson doesn't cover a question, it says so instead of guessing. Practice feels like a game show: four big answers and an "Afarin!" when you get it right, never a red screen or a countdown.
Behind a private door, Ustad teaches rights and the history of Afghan women, and lets learners write an anonymous letter to the world if they choose. Once installed, the app never connects to the internet. There is no account, no name and no tracking, and whole grades can pass from phone to phone or by memory card, so learning can spread even where the internet is cut.
Ustad was designed and built in two days at AI Hack for Freedom III in Washington, DC, on 24 and 25 September 2026. The hackathon was organised by AI Freedom Lab, the Human Rights Foundation, NED and the University of Maryland School of Public Policy.
Free to use in coverage of Ustad. Please don't crop the logo or change its colours.
