Tespire....The School Administrator Genie

Tespire is an African Ed-Tech company focused on developing digital solutions targeted towards making the lives of educators, school owners and administrators easy.

Tespire, a promising EdTech startup which was birthed in Northern Nigeria, was founded by Abdulkadir Suleiman Lapai, a long-time technology entrepreneur, and Umar Madugu, an experienced cybersecurity expert. Tespire has steadily been growing its presence from its base in Northern Nigeria to the emerging tech ecosystem in Abuja. The startup, which was officially incorporated in 2022, has quickly become a name to watch in Nigeria’s EdTech space.

The idea for Tespire stemmed from a decade-long effort to address the challenges facing schools in Nigeria. Schools, especially those in underserved regions, have been losing a significant portion of their revenue due to inefficient administrative processes, including difficult and time-consuming manual payment collections. 

Tespire has set out to fix this by building infrastructure that empowers school owners with digital tools like tablets and internet access to simplify these processes. By helping schools streamline their revenue collection and administrative tasks, Tespire is also laying the groundwork for harnessing valuable data that will eventually drive personalized learning through Artificial Intelligence (AI).

Tespire has now reached over 7,000 schools, improved learning access and outcomes for more than 40,000 students, and helped generate over $12 million in revenue for partner schools. Their goal is to make it easier for schools to operate efficiently and sustainably as they continue to scale across underserved regions in Africa.

Tespire, propelled by a passion for applying technology to solve real-world problems, partnered with MTN Nigeria and Zinox in 2023, processed $1M through Tespire wallet, marking its presence in Nigeria. 

Shortly after, they secured pre-seed funding in 2024 and launched Tespire Public, a dedicated platform built for local and national education authorities to efficiently manage basic schools across regions. 

Tespire’s vision goes beyond just fixing administrative issues. They are committed to using the power of data to increase access to quality education across Nigeria and other Sub-Saharan African countries, starting with local schools and scaling toward a broader national and international market. With plans to position itself as a key enabler of AI-driven education solutions, Tespire is poised to change how students learn and how schools operate.