Production AI held to the discipline of high-stakes, always-on systems — tested, monitored and documented, so it keeps working in real use.
About Hyrac Tech
Engineered for the field. Built to be trusted.
We help international development organizations put AI to work — engineered for the places they operate in, and built so the people they serve end up safer, not more exposed.
Where we came from
Hyrac Tech started in 2017 with a simple observation: the four billion people without reliable internet weren't waiting on connectivity — they were waiting on technology designed to work offline in the first place. Our first product was a pocket-sized server that ran learning resources and apps with no internet at all. The first one launched in Nakuru, Kenya, and signed up more than thirty students on day one.
Over the next eight years we delivered technology, training and that hardware to organizations running programs across Africa — including Operation Bootstrap Africa, r0g_agency and Migrant Media Network. We learned what breaks in the field, what funders actually pay for, and what an operations lead will stake a whole program on.
By 2026, a lot had changed. Mobile internet had reached most of the places we started in. But every organization we knew was suddenly being asked the same question by its board: “what's our AI strategy?” Most had no idea how to answer. Meanwhile one of us had spent those years running AI and automation at a top US bank — exactly the discipline most AI work in the sector was missing.
So we brought the two together: serious AI engineering, built for real field conditions, for organizations whose work actually matters. Today's AI is young — the whole field is only a few years in. What we bring to it is the rarer part: years of making technology work where it's hardest, and the discipline to build it right.
The team
A small, senior team — built around one intersection.
Between us, we've run AI in one of the most demanding industries there is, and delivered technology on the ground across Africa for most of a decade. That combination — not any single résumé — is what you're bringing in.
Technology delivered across six African countries since 2017. We design for real conditions — unreliable power, weak signal, many languages and devices.
Long-standing work alongside organizations like Operation Bootstrap Africa, r0g_agency and Migrant Media Network — and the trust that comes with it.
The offline-capable server platform we've shipped since the 2017 Nakuru launch — the base for work where the data has to stay put.
How we work
Seven things we hold to. Each one we can actually fail.
None of these is a platitude. Each is something you could catch us breaking — which is the point.
- 01
We treat the data of the people you serve like a bank treats its customers'.
If a security setup wouldn't be good enough for a bank's customer records, it isn't good enough for a refugee, a patient, or a child. No exceptions — not even “it's just a pilot.”
- 02
Field reality beats conference-room elegance.
Every design decision gets checked against real deployment conditions. If it works in a demo but not in Bidi Bidi, it isn't done.
- 03
We don't claim what we can't show.
Every public statement about our work — our record, our results — has a documented source behind it. Aspirations stay internal until they're measured.
- 04
We turn down work that compromises the mission.
Surveillance, partisan influence, decisions made about people with no human in the loop — we decline, whatever it pays.
- 05
If your team can't run it without us, we haven't finished.
Every engagement leaves behind plain documentation your staff can work from. Making you dependent on us is not a business model we're interested in.
- 06
We pay people who could work anywhere.
Mission alignment doesn't replace fair pay. Our team could leave for higher-paying jobs, and chooses to be here.
- 07
This is a real business, serving real programs.
We're not a charity for our clients, and they're not a charity for the people they serve. Pretending otherwise helps no one.
Where we work
Six countries of field delivery. Headquartered in Minneapolis.
This is the record of where we've actually shipped and deployed — not marketing reach.
Minneapolis, USA
HQ · since 2017
Kenya
First launch · Nakuru · 2017
Tanzania
Field delivery
South Sudan
Field delivery
Ghana
Field delivery
Gambia
Field delivery
Cameroon
Field delivery
How we deliver
We build the technology. Local partners make it work on the ground.
Technology parachuted in from outside rarely lasts. So when a platform goes into a country, we build and run it — and deliver it together with a local organization that knows the curriculum, the language, the schools, and the families. The result is local ownership, with technology that keeps improving behind them. You can see the model in SonzaSchool, delivered in Tanzania with Afriqo E-learning Tanzania.
Partners
We've worked with many organizations. A few we can name.
Multi-year program partner across our work in Kenya and Tanzania.
Long-running collaboration on open-knowledge and offline-first program work.
Field-deployment partner for community-media programs.
These are three of many relationships built up since 2017. We name partners only with their permission and honor how each prefers to be mentioned — introductions to past partners are available on request.
If any of this sounds like your work, let's compare notes.
A first conversation with people who've actually done this in the field — not just read about it.