Robokid

Gilbert Andanje, Kenya

RoboKid is an organization that is looking to impart STEAM-education to children through experiential learning. The name was coined from two words, robots and kids.

What inspired you to start RoboKid? 

One video I watched online on YouTube by, uh, Sugita Mitra from India. This video is featured on the UN's channel(timestamped) and is referred to in their illustration of how opportunity for all is possible suggesting potential is everywhere. 

It is an experiment that was done in 2001 that would later be known as  a hole in the wall experiment. I think most people are familiar with it and it's an experiment where he embedded a computer in a wall for kids to access it on the other side of the wall facing the street. At the time in India, I think the kids knew very little about computers, but surprisingly, a few months later, he found kids playing games on the computer.

And so it's from that point that he proved that children can learn if given opportunity, if they're led to do things they enjoy or in their own way, they can learn, they can find the ways around stuff. I think that's what pretty much inspired me. It's incredible! 

How long has RoboKid been around and what challenges have you faced so far in getting it started?

Robo Kid has been around for give or take 6 months now. We pitched the idea to this school, it's an international school, a junior school. The principal and other stakeholders in the school liked the idea of teaching children through making small robots where kids would participate actively in the activity.

We took it upon ourselves to draft a sort of syllabus, to guide students on the projects we were going to work on. We began with projects like smart houses where children will turn on a light in the house, just using voice recognition and a Google assistant. It was amazing to see how the kids pulled it off using their voices to turn on and off the lights.

But now comes with it, uh, a few challenges as well. Being something that’s being introduced in a school, something that is not popular locally, you really have to convince, especially parents, that it is something necessary for their children. On our side,we had the financial constraints and we still do have them up to now because you see, we have logistics such as having the people to manage the students, to help the students through the process, technically and also just the wholehuman factor management thing.

Uh, so as far as logistics, all of these projects we are creating for kids, require materials  bought at our local hobbyist shops or imported from Amazon. That means i  have to go into my pocket to get to sponsor the program as we are trying to push something with a slim budget. So those are the constants we are facing. Another thing is crowd management as for children, especially something of this nature there is an unprecedented reaction from the crowd.

You really need to be patient with kids, let them be kids and let them enjoy the moment.

However when things get out of hand, we have teachers at the school who help us. We are really trying to understand how to best showcase things or teach children without having much interference.

What have you found to be your best resources so far? 

I will recognize my first resource which is priceless for me. It's the team, the team that I work with that has been very resourceful. Um, I mean, that's the first thing that comes to my mind when you ask, uh, resources because these guys, uh, they are committed to the course and the way they handle the children. We are a complete team because we have a balanced gender, people from different courses (not just engineering) like human development because we felt they kind of intersect technology with the human factor.

Yeah. So that's why we saw the need to have people from human development address the human factor issue.Besides, ladies being, you know, interactiveor rather more responsive to kids and also, uh, quick to pick the emotions can really relate very well with children. And so we thought it's a good factor to also have.

And then the school was very resourceful. My school Jomo Kenyatta, University of Agriculture and Technology because, um, after speaking to the manager of our engineering workshops they lent us a lab room to work from to create our projects. My family has really supported me actually chiping in as far as finances are concerned and also just the moral support.

What has been one of your highlights? 

There is this time a not-for-profit Organization recognized us for the amazing work we were doing. Its good to know that I am nurturing a new crop of critical thinkers and innovators at a time when tech has taken off in the country and world over. It would be great to see the government get involved in sponsoring this program for the less privileged to access what seems for now a privileged activity.

What advice do you have for other young people around the world that are just trying to make an impact?

For me, first of all, is to find your passion. I'll be honest with you though, passion is not something easy to come by. You really just have to keep searching and the moment you come by that passion, you better spot it because you don't want to miss that chance. Passions will walk through your lowest moments, like your toughest times because if you're working on your passion, then you can sustain through those moments but if it’s not your passion then you can easily drop it.

So I will say passion above everything.