Facebook Connects Learners, Educators In Nigeria With ‘Sabee’ App

Facebook Office In Lagos, Nigeria has introduced an educational-focused mobile app called ‘Sabee, to connect learners and educators in online communities to make educational opportunities more accessible.

‘Sabee,’ which means ‘to know’ in Nigerian Pidgin was the first product to emerge from the first Facebook office on the Africa continent staffed with a team of engineers to serve the continent.

The new app was published to Google Play by “NPE Team,” the internal R&D group at Facebook, which has typically focused on new social experiences in areas like dating, audio, music, video, messaging and more.

‘Sabee’ App is tied to Facebook’s larger strategy of focusing more on serving the African continent, starting with Nigeria. This is a strategic move informed by data that indicates a larger majority of the world’s population will be in urban centers by 2030, and much of that will be on the African continent and throughout the Middle East. By 2100, Africa’s population is expected to have tripled, with Nigeria becoming the second-most populated country in the world, behind China.

Image Credits: Facebook NPE Team

Facebook Product Lead, Emeka Okafor said, “There are 50 million learners, but only 2 million educators in Nigeria,”

“With this small, early test, we’re hoping to understand how we can help educators build communities that make education available to everyone. We look forward to learning with our early testers, and deciding what to do from there.”

Image Credits: Facebook NPE Team

NPE Team’s effort in the region is to explore how to better serve groups who are often left behind by technology. On this front, Sabee is working to create an experience that works with low connectivity, like 2G.

Allnews gathered that at present, Facebook under the NDA agreement can only offer the app which is present in early alpha testing to lesser than 100 testers. It’s not available for anyone else beyond that group at present, but the company hopes to scale Sabee to the next stage before the end of the year.

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There is no way to sign up for a Sabee waitlist, and the app is no longer public on Google Play. It was available so briefly that it was never ranked on any charts, app store intelligence firm Sensor Tower confirmed to Techcrunch.