How Berulo Foundation is Ending Rwanda’s Dropout Crisis

The school dropout crisis has long been the silent inhibitor of human capital development across the continent, with traditional oversight often reacting only after a child has left the system. The Berulo Foundation, a Kigali-based technology firm, has rewritten this narrative.

By treating student retention as a data-driven service rather than a manual administrative task, the company has built a vertically integrated ecosystem that makes education not just a mandate, but a secure, trackable, and supported journey for millions of learners.

A Mission Rooted in Personal Resilience

Founded on August 4, 2017, the Berulo Foundation is anchored in the resilience of its founder, Cyusa Ian Berulo. Born in 1992 and orphaned at birth, Cyusa survived as a manual laborer before returning to the classroom via the 12-Year Basic Education program; eventually earning a Master's degree.

This journey fuels the foundation’s mission of "Genuine Empathy": a tech-driven commitment to eliminate school delinquency and poverty.

This mission has since scaled into a national blueprint. By deploying the Berulo App to thousands students across multiple schools in the Southern Province, the company has transformed social protection into a digital reality. Backed by the Mastercard Foundation, the Rwanda ICT Chamber, and the PSF, the foundation merges public leadership with private-sector innovation to ensure no child is left behind.

Smart Accountability-as-a-Service

The foundation’s impact is driven by a proprietary technological stack that functions more like a social safety net than a traditional database.

• AI-Driven Biometrics: The platform utilizes advanced facial recognition to monitor the daily attendance of students, teachers, and headteachers. By automating the "roll call," the system eliminates "ghost attendance" and ensures that the 32,000 teachers currently on the platform are physically present to deliver quality education.
• Murengere Atararenga (Early Warning System): Behind the interface is a sophisticated predictive AI platform. The system monitors attendance patterns and immediately triggers alerts to "Berulo Care Teams" and local authorities when a student is at risk of dropping out, enabling intervention in real-time.
• Berulo UP Financial Integration: To address the economic drivers of dropouts, the app manages a vertically integrated welfare system. It tracks health insurance (Mutuelle de Santé) payments and school feeding contributions, while managing productive assets like livestock (rabbits and small ruminants) for school communities. This ensures that students have the financial stability to stay in class and even build personal savings.

The New Standard for Impact Tech

The Berulo Foundation represents the new standard for "Impact Tech" in Africa. By merging advanced facial recognition with the personal resilience and vision of its founder, the company has provided a scalable blueprint for using technology as a social safety net. Berulo and his team are proving that the best way to predict the future of a child is to build a system that refuses to let them disappear.