Fundi Bots
Model & Strategy
Fundi Bots provides practical, hands-on science-education tools and resources that accelerate learning outcomes for African students. By 2030, the Fundi Bots goal is to radically improve learning for one million children across the African continent.
Fundi Bots works through two main learning experiences: an extracurricular learning model that uses robotics and an extracurricular model that develops learning tools for direct use within the national curriculum. These models provide practical, hands-on training for students in everything from building robots and coding to project-based learning experiences built on top of the official government curriculum. They utilize a well-rounded and engaging methodology to increase students’ performance in classrooms, encourage exploration of science at home, and provide career training and technical skills through custom STEM programs and curriculum.
The Fundi Girls program leverages all of this to provide equitable access to high impact, practical science learning opportunities for girls in Africa.
Solomon King Benge founded Fundi Bots as the fulfillment of a childhood dream and a desire to see better education systems in Uganda. After personally experiencing the frustrations and struggles of exam-oriented science education in secondary school in the 90s, Solomon’s dream was to create a space in which learning for children could be fun, practical and purposeful.
In 2011, Solomon started Fundi Bots as a hobby project and grew it to a team of 115 over the next decade. In 2012, with a small grant from Google RISE, Fundi Bots held its first Robotics Camp at Nabisunsa Girls’ Secondary School. In 2014, Solomon was selected as both an Ashoka Fellow and Echoing Green Fellow. These fellowships were the catalyst Fundi Bots needed to transition from a hobby project to a full-time non-profit organization. He has also been selected as an African Visionary Fellow by the Segal Family Foundation and a 2020 Skoll World Forum Fellow.
Impact
Since 2014, Fundi Bots has worked with more than 21,000 students, primarily in Uganda, with outreach training in Rwanda and Tanzania.
In 2022 alone, Fundi Bots was able to reach 10,500 students across all its programs, a significant jump from the 11,500 students it reached in the last ten years combined.
Fundi Bots is planning for increased scale, deeper testing and tighter curriculum integration as more classes and schools continue using their learning models, with a goal to reach one million students across Africa by 2030.
In 2022, Fundi Bots launched the Enhanced Science Curriculum (ESC) pilot with 34 schools, 65 teachers and over 6,000 students. The primary goal of the ESC is to integrate advanced, practical learning models directly into the official National Curriculum.
The results Fundi Bots is seeing out of the evaluations are very promising, with some schools seeing a 93% improvement in performance. The ESC program could provide significant impact at scale.
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Applications for the multiple job openings that we recently advertised, officially closed as of March 20th 2023 at… https://t.co/YhlInbfJh7
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RT @solomonking: So excited (and surprised) to learn that Fundi Bots in Northern Uganda has organically reached a school in my village! M…
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"We cannot always build the future for our youth, but we can build our youth for the future." - Franklin Roosevelt… https://t.co/waF4nt2N3a
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Checkout our latest YouTube video and let's learn how to create a light control system using a special type of resi… https://t.co/w0CMQXBZZQ
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New YouTube video drops tomorrow🥳 We'll be continuing our Arduino series. In this part, we will introduce potenti… https://t.co/IZTwNAhbU5
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RT @solomonking: Update on the CV/Application training thing: We've gotten so many requests for collaboration on this, so we'll be moving…
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RT @hakiza256: Met with Solomon King, founder of @fundibots , a STEM/Robotics training provides extra-curricular learning experiences that…
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RT @FundiGirls: It was a wonderful and insightful experience visiting @akirachix at their offices in Nairobi this morning. We hope to hav…
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One of our core values is continous improvement and we believe it's the only way build on the new. Old experiences… https://t.co/ynFzqQaxmh
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New YouTube video up🥳 Our lovely hosts @CarolKagezi and @vnuwaha talk about creating an inclusive environment for… https://t.co/qt4HpqdwEf
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In our YouTube video tomorrow, we'll conclude our #BreakTheBias series with two phenomenal women @CarolKagezi &… https://t.co/Jxdnqk68Vb
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Our Kampala Regional Manager @nsita_bella will be a panelist @OneYoungAfrica #AfricaUnplugged conversation about th… https://t.co/R6xVh3LQz2
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This #IWD23, we'd like to celebrate all the women who are making a difference in Tech, STEM & every sphere of influ… https://t.co/5vPzDcvX4B
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We are thrilled to let you know that our Gulu office officially relocated to Senior Quarters, Onono road, Plot 26A,… https://t.co/CYDSpkGlfw
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To apply, send your CV and application letter to careers@fundibots.org by 5pm, 20th March 2023. https://t.co/6xMiBKg6te
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Join our team by applying for any of these multiple new openings; 1. Rollout Support Staff (6 Openings) 2. Administ… https://t.co/0K3zQR1KoK
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Fundi Bots to Africa, one country at a time🥳🥳 Onwards and upwards! #WeareFundi https://t.co/8bQVKYu2cO