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Reporter Jade Natacha was introduced to TEACH Rwanda when she attended a New Hope LEGO Robotics Team meeting at Bright School. Here’s a link to her report: Jade, a student at African Leadership University, was intrigued by TEACH Rwanda’s approach to mentoring Rwanda’s teachers. She immediately followed up with an interview of TR’s Founder and President, Jan Brown. That lively interview resulted not only in this article,
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Bright School’s Future Hopes LEGO Robotics Team Launches in partnership with STELA and TEACH Rwanda2/6/2022 Watch this video to see team members in action! Two passions connect! In 2019, TEACH Rwanda’s in-country board members, Jan Brown and Bill Whipple, welcomed Eric Biribuze to Bright School, TEACH Rwanda’s flagship Exemplary School. He was so intrigued with our engaging, evidence-based approach to education that he returned in February 2020.  Eric (holding the child) and Jan joined with two other visitors in February 2020. Eric is from Burundi, married to a Rwandan, and is an award-winning engineer in the U.S. at Corning Incorporated. which makes the glass (aptly named Gorilla Glass) in the Rwandan-made Mara Phones. His passion is to advance STEM in Rwanda, Burundi, and around the world, by increasing accessibility to opportunities for students to uplift the potential of their communities. One of his dreams has been to field an internationally competitive LEGO Robotics Team from Rwanda. He even founded a nonprofit organization, called STELA (Science, Technology, Entrepreneurship, Leadership Academy), to support his ambitious goals. After visiting Bright School twice, Jan, Bill, and Eric recognized that our TEACH Rwanda Exemplary School would be a perfect home for the first Rwandan LEGO Robotics Team. Bright School’s evidence-based education, focused on experiential learning through projects and play, with inquisitive, engaged students from all levels of society supports the collaborative, exploratory, inclusive learning exemplified by the LEGO robotics program. Due to COVID closures, it took almost 2 years to get the robotics team underway. Meanwhile, Bright School students at our mobile library continued to ask when it would start. When the time came to apply, many more applications were received than could be accepted, so an interview process was used to choose which students were the best candidates. Rwanda’s first LEGO Robotics team launches! On Saturday, November 13, 2021, thirteen excited students between the ages of 7 and 14 along with five adult coaches gathered in a classroom at Bright School to begin combining the LEGO kits’ specialized sensors, motors, and hubs to begin their exciting journey. Since then, students have created a variety of vehicles and machines that move, rotate, write, and perform other actions that their makers program them to do. Students use Spike Prime programming language and the LEGO robotics kits to create a variety of inventions.  Two students were inspired by this book to make a Ferris wheel, an engineering feat they have never seen. In Rwanda, volunteers to lead the team include two computer engineering graduates from Carnegie Mellon University’s campus in Rwanda (Gloria Umutezi, Solange Iyubyu), secondary school graduates (Philemon Amanzi Mucyo, David Ishimwe), are our pioneering volunteers, along with other curious adults who work with three teachers from Bright School. In the U.S., two more engineers from Corning, Sam Zoubi and Carlos Alonzo join Eric to mentor our Rwandan volunteers through a weekly Zoom call. Eric returned to Rwanda in late December 2021, this time with STELA T-shirts for his partners at Bright School. Little did we know that an article about our LEGO Robotics Team published in The New Times would soon garner national attention.  Most of our Future Hopes Robotics, sporting their new STELA T-shirts. Rwanda’s Minister of ICT and Innovation Tours Bright School On January 21, 2022, Paula Ingabire, Rwanda’s Minister of ICT and Innovation came to see the Future Hopes in action. Team members explained to the Minister, an MIT graduate, how they design, construct, and program robots. She has promised ministry support of our unique initiative.  Minister of ICT and Innovation, Paula Ingabire, talks with Future Hopes team members at Bright School. This pilot team is a challenging learning experience for everyone involved on both continents. Our goal? That our Future Hopes team will be ready to compete by September 2022.
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