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Programs
STEM Centers
STEM Centers are specialized learning facilities that offer hands-on engineering lab experience. Local-area students voluntarily and eagerly enroll in various age-appropriate programs offered by the STEM Centers, at no cost to the students. Lab mentors guide the students, to accessing modern scientific equipment in a comfortable setting. The Centers also serve as venues for local gatherings and regional Science Fairs. Most sub-Saharan Africa STEM Centers are located near or on a university campus, as a university asset. Such ownership nurtures strong university-community bonding, provides academic oversight, and achieves sustainability. The larger STEM Centers are eco-friendly buildings configured for labs, offices, storage, and an auditorium for science fairs and community meetings. In 2009, our founders constructed the first STEM Center, located in the Foka area of Bishoftu industrial city and then many more. Today, 110 STEM Centers operate in 18 countries across the continent. As such, we serve as a force for national peace and development. STEMpower is establishing more STEM Centers in Ethiopia, SouthSudan, and other sub-Saharan nations. Through the extended family of STEM Centers, we distribute and encourage new hands-on engineering curricula. Beyond our standard labs of virtual computing and electronics (digital&analogµcomputers), 3D printing, we also develop soil&water tech, chemical engineering, and biomechanical programs.
Smart Classes
Our Smart Classes accommodate 30+ student workstations, using only one computer! Each student’s workstation (a keyboard, mouse, and display monitor) is connected to a miniature to “thin client”, which is an energy-efficient microcomputer. Those ~30 thin clients are networked to a single powerful PC computer, running a modern operating system. Each student workstation acts like a real computer, performing the workstation’s computer tasks, but in reality, there’s no PC computer at any workstation! The “smart class” arrangement saves large amounts of electricity, lessens the need to install heavy gauge wiring in school buildings, generates much less heat, and even prevents computer virus infection. This is a “green” solution that offers great benefits. The installation and operating knowledge have been successfully transferred to local implementers, i.e., we “train the trainers”. The old idea of “one-physical-computer-per-student” is disappearing from Ethiopia. There are now more than 100 successful smart class implementations across Ethiopia, supporting thousands of student workstations. Moreover, the novel smart class concept has been implemented across government, education, and research institutions.
STEM-TV
STEMpower endeavors to reach every student in Ethiopia, no matter how far from urban areas. Our biweekly STEM-TV show reaches students who are unable to access the internet but have access to a home or community TV satellite dish. For the maximum audience, the show is produced by local talent, in the national language Amharic, including student-age actors who encourage all youth to become engaged in STEM thinking and possibilities. Our satellite broadcaster Walta estimates that 5 million viewers watch our regularly-scheduled Saturday dinnertime dish broadcasts. English-language captioning is added upon uploading to the internet.
Please subscribe to our YouTube channel: STEMpower Ethiopia
Science Shared Campus
“Shared Science Campus” (abreviated as “SSC”) successfully achieves a very high-quality secondary school education that rivals developed nations’ best schools. The concept draws in the most superior public school students from a metropolitan area to a science-focused public school of excellence, i.e., an SSC. The SSC offers students a superior teaching staff and an advanced classroom environment, over what is typically found in Sub-Saharan Africa secondary schools. Interestingly, 60% of the SSC student beneficiaries are female. The SSC offers top-rated lab equipment and computer facilities. The science curriculum is deeper and broader. Theory is accompanied by student experiments, research materials, and university visitors. There are now 4 operating SSC’s in Ethiopia (Axum, BahirDar, Hawassa, and Kotebe). instill a rising quality of STEM education across all public high schools in Sub-Saharan Africa. The expanding implementation of SSC’s is a rising tide that raises all boats in the nation.
University STEM Outreach
University STEM Outreach takes advantage of the summer break. During that idle period, STEMpower founders demonstrated how university existing assets (e.g., labs, dormitories, and cafeterias) and available university mentors (professors and college students) could be efficiently utilized to create a University STEM Outreach summer program for hundreds of talented students in the university catchment area (i.e., local community.) The result and cost-benefit ratio was persuasive. After two years, the Ethiopian Ministry of Education fully incorporated our program, extending it to all public universities in its domain (~40 universities) as as a permanent program run by the government. During the break, nearly every public university’s facilities transform into a large pop-up STEM center. 10,000+ students benefit each year.
Science Fairs
Locally-run Science Fairs give students the chance to develop their creative skills and compete with their classmates. The local Science Fair winners go on to compete in larger Science Fairs, and those winners go on to the National Science and Engineering Fair. The Ethiopian Science Fair approach may seem more engineering-oriented than traditional Science Fairs of the developed world. Instead of a hypothesis-experiment-conclusion format, the students participating in an Ethiopian Science Fair tend to design and showcase practical solutions to problems they see facing their nation and their Sub-Saharan African neighbors. The community-level Science Fair competitions in Sub-Saharan Africa are open to students in grades 7-12. At this grass-roots level, a student will discuss their project concept with their local mentor. Mentors are always available through the STEM Centers. Moreover, as the STEM momentum is rapidly expanding across the entire nation, increasing numbers of private and public schools have been also holding their own local Science Fairs and providing mentors with a total estimate of 1,000 students participate each year.
Fab Labs
Fab Labs bridge the transition from hands-on STEM education to product manufacturing. Inside our Fab Labs, innovative students design commercially-viable sophisticated products. Then the students implement their design, by machining raw materials, designing custom electronics, and ultimately producing attractive products. Creativity and entrepreneurship are equally nurtured. Our Fab Labs create jobs and sustainable industries. Read More...
STEM for Trees
​Annual flooding inundates vast areas of SouthSudan. STEMpower is attempting to reduce the flooding by planting water-absorbing trees alongside roadways, which facilitates tree nursery facilities and calculations.​​
Entrepreneurship and
Incubation Program
STEMpower and VISA International (the world leader in digital payments) formed a partnership in 2020 to drive financial inclusion and job creation in Ethiopia for innovators and aspiring entrepreneurs. STEMpower provides special national trainings on the Entrepreneurial Mindset, Entrepreneurial Skillset, and Basics of Financial Education to selected trainees, most of whom have already created prominent engineering projects in our STEM Centers and national Science competitions. Read More...
