How Students Become Innovators
What if students could learn by solving real-world problems? What if they could create technologies that improve their lives and communities?
That’s what Twende is all about!
In this newsletter, we want to share with you some of the amazing success stories of our innovation clubs program, which we have been running in partnership with the School of St. Jude. We also want to update you on our other activities including Jamii Tech Incubation Program and introduce you to some of the people behind Twende.
Happy reading!
From Problems to Solutions: The Technologies from our Innovation Clubs
We teach students how to design and prototype technologies that address their community’s challenges. Our technical team guides them through the Creative Capacity Building curriculum.
The first cohort from the School of St. Jude created nine amazing technologies: a bean sorter, a peanut roaster, a chicken feeder, a bell ringer, a shoe polisher, a vegetable slicer, a water vendor (pictured above), a waste collector, and a toilet flusher.
We will incubate three of them into marketable products. Which ones do you like best? Please reply with your top three choices.
You can also see the technologies in action in this playlist. You’ll be amazed by what these students have done!
Innovation club members proudly posing with their peanut roasting machine Mathayo from the School of St Jude poses next to his technology, the automatic chicken feeder.
Program Updates
Jamii Tech Incubation Program – Arusha
We had a great time hosting amazing innovators during our Jamii tech Incubation Program in Arusha.
The program brought together students from various universities and colleges who collaborated with local community members to co-create tech solutions for the identified technological challenges.
The cohort consisted of 14 participants, aged 17-35, with 6 females and 8 males.
They participated in a Creative Capacity Building (CCB) workshop, Basic Business Skills (BBS) training and Refine workshops. Out of these, 7 were students and 7 were community members.
The technologies developed were a Well-driller, coconut dehusking machine, cassava peeler and peanut harvester.
The projects were developed to the testing stage, and they were all exhibited at the demo day as part of the graduation.
We were honoured by Mr Eliakim Mtawa from the Prime Minister’s office as the guest of honour.
We’ll keep you posted on what happens next, but for now, here is a sneak peek of the program and what they said about their experience.
STEM Outreach
Our team has reached out to 4 schools with the aim of sparking interest in innovation and problem-solving through practical sessions. We have reached 118 students through this program.
Jamii Tech Innovators showing peeled cassava from their cassava peeling machine
Jamii Tech Innovators demonstrating their coconut dehusking machine
Humans of Twende
In this edition, we will be shining a spotlight on some of the individuals who contribute to our mission.
This includes our partners, board members, staff team, interns, volunteers, donors, innovators and anyone who supports our work.
Leora Copeland
Leora joined Twende in 2021 as a case study writer for our innovators and from there on, she fell in love with our mission through our innovators stories. She then joined our fundraising team by championing the “Teach Tech Innovation to Girls & Women in Tanzania”. She would love to see more women and girls shaping their own futures and providing more opportunities for their communities.
Daniel Mokrauer-Madden
Daniel was one of Twende’s founding members and to date he still donates to Twende on a monthly basis and he still champions our crowdfunding campaigns. We appreciate Daniel because even with his busy schedule, he is one call away for Twende.
Kyaro Founders
It feels like yesterday when Colman, Eamon and Sudi were prototyping the Multi-Purpose Wheelchair at Twende but that was 5 years ago. Everything about Kyaro is cool including their makerspace and how you can configure a wheelchair online, I’m not kidding, try it here.
Check out their annual report.
Fennah Bongani Bonongwe
We are excited to introduce you to Fennah, our partnership management superstar who is volunteering in our partner presentations. He is working with our amazing programs manager Epifania to connect Twende with potential partners and collaborators. You can reach out to him to learn more about Twende and the opportunities for partnership; or he might contact you soon.
What’s Next?
Get ready for a Virtual Makerspace Tour
Get ready to take a virtual tour of our makerspace as we have partnered with MegaMinds with the aim of having a virtual space that showcases our technologies, the makerspace and a closer look into our projects.
Thank You!
We are deeply grateful for your support, which allows us to continue doing the work that we do. Your contributions enable us to make a positive impact on the lives of Tanzanians by developing local technological solutions to local challenges, one innovation at a time.
Your support helps us move closer to our vision of empowering communities through technology and innovation.
Thank you for your invaluable contribution.
You can catch up with our work on social media through
LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram
