Africans for Africa: Empowering Local Innovators Using Hands-on Kits

Iwnetim Abate and Loza Tadesse of SCIFRO Inc with Manu Prakash of Stanford University both in the U.S. will develop an education platform to inspire and equip African college students to solve local health problems through science using simple, inexpensive tools such as paper-based centrifuges and chemistry kits. Less than 8% of sub-Saharan Africans get to attend tertiary education, and there are limited options for pursuing a career in science. This means that even with the recent rise in inexpensive scientific equipment, many local problems of Africans remain unsolved. They will develop easy-to-follow pedagogy and teaching kits and use them to conduct a pilot study by holding a month-long summer workshop for 100 Ethiopian college students in Addis Ababa. The workshop will demystify the scientific process and motivate the students to begin tackling local projects, which will be monitored online. They will also invite 20 college instructors to participate and provide them with kits to distribute to their local schools and colleges.