Help Tanzanian Youth Make Tech to Help Themselves

Twende - Orkolili Satellite Center in Kilimanjaro.
On the 13th of August 2021, Twende successfully launched a satellite center in Orkolili Secondary School. The aim of having the center in Kilimanjaro is to extend our reach to the communities around the region by empowering them through our workshops and providing access to the makerspace and technical support
Our team met community members from Ormelili, a village near the school, who showcased different, useful technologies they have been creating and will further improve them through the Twende – Orkolili Center. We had students from 8 schools who joined the event too and after learning about what we do, they are planning to work with the center on a 'build it program'. One of the activities our team demonstrated was creating a bottle opener. We engaged with the participants with the aim of giving a clear understanding of how we do these activities during trainings at our headquarters. Apart from our demonstrations, there were other exhibitions of different projects introduced by the students and communities that attended the launch. It was a very positive and insightful day as everyone who attended and hosted gained an understanding with regards to local technology and innovation.
Virtual Youth Exposition Day - Innovators Showcase run by Twende
Twende was honored to partner with the Jakaya Mrisho Kikwete Foundation (JMKF) to organize and run the Innovator’s showcase as part of the Virtual Youth Exposition Day-2021. Five of our innovators got the opportunity to showcase their tech and demonstrate how they are transforming the food systems and 2 innovators (Alfred Chengula and Jesse Oljange) won in the Food Processing category.
JMKF’s mission is to work with governments and other stakeholders to bring about progressive change which is in line with Twende’s mission to empower people to design and make their own technologies to solve community challenges.
Creative Capacity Building
We conducted 1 creative capacity building workshop with the Habari Maalum College students and managed to get 23 participants and a few members of staff attended.
Half of the workshop took place at the Habari Maalum campus and the rest at Twende after realizing that it was easier working on projects in the workshop than in classroom. The program was partially paid to subsidize material cost and the projects introduced were Cooking gas gauge, solar heater, and an automatic drip irrigation system.
As students did not have a mechanical engineering background, it was difficult to develop their ideas and so their teacher suggested leaving the prototypes at the first phase and improve them later.
Build-It Workshop
Twende reached out to 38 students at Likamba Integrity School located in Kisongo for the Build it program. The students made 20 rubber squeezers for cleaning their school. We met the priest of the church led school who was impressed by the program and asked if there were programs for elders too. We are looking forward to introducing creative capacity building to the Likamba community.
The 2021 Jamii Tech Program
The Jamii tech program commenced on the 16th of August and is ongoing.
Twende accommodated 9 graduates from 6 universities (Sokoine University of Agriculture, University of Dar es Salaam, Mbeya University of Science and Technology, Arusha Technical College, National Institute of Transportation and Dar es Salaam Institute of Technology). Among the projects that came out this year and the past JTP programs, 4 were selected to be incubated. The projects that will be incubated are Maize sheller and thresher, Plastic chopper, palm oil extractor and potatoes peeler. The projects selected have a high demand in the communities where these participants come from. From this, we have seen the effort and passion the innovators have put into these projects.

Through continuous support, we have been able to go beyond our makerspace walls and beyond our expectation. it is through your contribution that we are getting closer to our vision of more local technological solutions to local challenges.

Thank you so much (Asante Sana)!

Nzira and the Twende team