When Nigerian university students turn to artificial intelligence (AI) tools to aid their studies, the experience often deviates from how they are actually taught and assessed.
Generic AI platforms can generate fluent answers, but they rarely reflect the local curriculum, course structure or exam format. For many higher education students, this mismatch has created a quiet pedagogical risk: technology that appears helpful but provides shallow learning.
But Opeyemi Muyiwa-Dada and Angel Umeh decided to do something about it. She created Florence AI, a student-built education technology startup that aims to bridge the learning gap by building curriculum-aware artificial intelligence designed specifically for Nigerian universities.
Rather than positioning AI as a replacement for learning, Florence is structured around how students are taught in practice. Its system has been trained to recognize university syllabi, course outlines and exam patterns, allowing students to practice relevant questions, work through structured explanations and revise material in a way that reflects classroom expectations.
“The emphasis is not on speed or shortcuts, but on understanding and exam-relevant understanding,” Muyiwa-Dada said in an interview.
The idea emerged from a familiar problem on Nigerian campuses: large class sizes, limited lecturer access and minimal individual academic support. While AI tools have become more common among students, most are designed for global use, without sensitivity to local academic standards. Florence's approach believes that relevance matters more than comprehensiveness.
By incorporating curriculum context into its models, the startup is betting that students value academic accuracy more than generic answers. Its tools are designed to support structured revision, clarify difficult concepts step by step, and reinforce responsible academic use, especially in environments where universities are still grappling with how to integrate AI into teaching and assessment.
He added, “Florence's growth strategy reflects that institutional uncertainty. Rather than bypassing universities, the company is positioning itself as an infrastructure partner, focused on academic governance, data security, and alignment with research-driven deployments.”
This approach is in contrast to many consumer-facing edtech tools that grow rapidly without institutional buy-in.
That institutional focus shaped Florence's recent pilot partnership with the University of Lagos.
The company conducted a commissioned survey to understand student demand, learning behavior and expectations around curriculum-aligned AI support.
The pilot generated strong engagement and helped validate the startup's central assumption: students prefer structured, curriculum-aware academic support rather than generic AI output.
For Muyiwa-Dada, who serves as Florence's chief executive officer, credibility within the university system is central to the company's long-term ambitions.
While his role focuses on strategy, institutional partnerships, and ensuring the platform aligns with academic standards rather than undermining them, Angel Umeh, who also serves as Chief Technology Officer, leads product development and engineering with a focus on reliability and responsible deployment in university environments.
Together, the founders are carefully building the AI startup, knowing that education technology operates within sensitive institutional and regulatory boundaries.
Their emphasis on curriculum awareness rather than creative innovation leads startups to success and growth. If successful, the startup could help shape how AI fits into Nigeria's classrooms, not as a shortcut, but as a structured academic support tool grounded in the local curriculum.
