Built for the learner who was left behind
I arrived in the United States at twenty-four years old, on a college scholarship. A lot had to be figured out fast — and most of it, nobody taught me formally. I built Nebai Academy for the person who knows that feeling.
Most digital and cybersecurity education assumes you already speak the language. I don't make that assumption. Whether you're opening your first laptop or trying to understand why your accounts keep getting compromised, I meet you where you actually are — not where a course outline says you should be
Founder’s Story - Gabe Radi
I came to the United States in 1988, twenty-four years old, on a college scholarship. I didn't know how long I'd stay. I didn't know what I was building toward. I just knew I was here, and that there was work to do.
For a long time, that work looked like teaching — in classrooms, in communities, in the quiet one-on-one conversations that don't make it into any resume but tend to matter the most.
Then 2020 arrived, and everything moved indoors.
I came to the United States in 1988, twenty-four years old, on a college scholarship. I didn't know how long I'd stay. I didn't know what I was building toward. I just knew I was here, and that there was work to do. For a long time, that work looked like teaching — in classrooms, in communities, in the quiet one-on-one conversations that don't make it into any resume but tend to matter the most..
Then 2020 arrived, and everything moved indoors.
A family in Atlanta reached out to me. Their son Beniam was seven years old, in second grade, and struggling. His father had passed away when Beniam was four, and his mother Helen was raising him on her own. She needed someone who could show up for her son — consistently, carefully, in a way that understood where they came from.
We started meeting over Zoom, three days a week. Just me and a seven-year-old on a screen, reading together.
Word spread the way it spreads in diaspora communities — through trust, through someone telling someone else, through a shared need that nobody had quite put into words yet. Soon there were eight second-graders. Then five days a week. Then the mothers started joining for their own sessions — English, cultural navigation, the kind of practical knowledge that textbooks don't cover but life requires.
That group is still together. Beniam is in seventh grade now, top of his class. Helen is remarried with a new baby daughter, and Beniam has a new baby sister he loves dearly. All eight of those original students are thriving — scattered across the United States and Canada — and most Fridays, they still meet.
Nebai Academy grew out of that Friday group. Not from a business plan. From a Zoom call with a seven-year-old who needed someone at the other end of the screen.
Nebai Academy grew out of that Friday group. Not from a business plan. From a Zoom call with a seven-year-old who needed someone at the other end of the screen.
I built this platform because online learning too often drops people into a digital ghost town — courses everywhere, community nowhere. My job is to be the human librarian: present, reachable, able to find what you need sometimes before you know how to ask for it.
There's always someone at the front desk here. That someone is me — not a bot, not an automated reply, not a system. Me. Gabe. You can email me, call me, or find me in our Discord most days of the week.
The Human Librarian
Gabe Radi arrived in the United States when he was twenty-four years old, on a college scholarship. He knows what it feels like to need answers and not yet know the right words to ask for them.
There's a kind of librarian who points to a shelf and walks away. Gabe is the other kind — the one who pulls up a chair, listens first, and finds what you need sometimes before you've figured out how to name it. No judgment. No rushing you along.
At launch, that person is Gabe. And every instructor who joins Nebai Academy will be held to the same standard: knowledgeable, yes — but also warm, present, and genuinely available. Not a face on a pre-recorded screen. A person who shows up.
Because the whole point is that there's always someone at the front desk.
Core Values
Human first—There is always someone at the front desk. Every course, every lesson, every question you bring to Nebai has a human being behind it. We built this platform because online learning kept removing the person — and we refused to let that happen here.
Learning is personal—your culture, your language, your story they are not obstacles to navigate around. They are the foundation we build on. Whether you're preparing for the GED, upskilling for a career shift, or just curious about the world, you belong here exactly as you are.
Your community travels with you—We don't ask you to leave your people at the door to join a global conversation. You'll find your home crew first — a channel in your language, a room where your background is familiar — and from there, when you're ready, the wider world opens up. Connection should never come at the cost of belonging.
AI works for you—We use technology to extend what's human, not to replace it. Artificial intelligence is a tool in our hands — one we'll teach you to understand, question, and use wisely. The mentor is still here. The relationship is still real. The machine just helps us do more of what matters.
Our Vision
For the next few years, Nebai Academy is building something specific: a learning home for diaspora communities and curious minds who have been left behind by platforms that were never really built for them. That means GED prep that speaks your language — sometimes literally. It means college readiness courses for students in grades 7 through 12 whose parents are navigating an unfamiliar system right alongside them. It means live mentoring sessions where a real person shows up, listens, and adjusts. Every course here was built with someone in mind — not a demographic, not a user profile, but a person who deserves to feel that.
The longer vision is bigger, and we mean it. Nebai Academy intends to prove that human connection is not a luxury feature that gets cut when a platform scales — it is the architecture. We are building digital doorways into every step of the learning journey, so that a student in Asmara, Philadelphia, or anywhere in between never has to learn in a room that feels empty. Echo chambers shrink when people find their cultural home first and then step naturally into a wider world. That is not an accident of design. That is the design. If we can build this from a laptop, the rest of the industry has no excuse.
Come help us prove it.