The African continent is facing a multitude of challenges that continue to evolve. From the devastating impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, through strained healthcare systems to the persistent energy crisis and poverty. Now is the best time to involve children in solving these problems.

Fortunately, STEM education has emerged as a powerful engine for innovation. From communication technologies to medical breakthroughs, STEM fields have been instrumental in improving living standards and creating new economic opportunities for decades.

We believe that schools in Africa must integrate Design Thinking in STEM curriculums to empower students to become creative problem solvers.

The Significance of Design Thinking in STEM Education

“Design thinking is a human-centered approach to innovation that draws from the designer's toolkit to integrate the needs of people, the possibilities of technology, and the requirements for business success.”

— Tim Brown, CEO of IDEO

In simple terms, Design Thinking is a non-linear, iterative process that students can use to understand people, define problems at hand and create new solutions. We believe that incorporating Design Thinking approaches to STEM education can elevate  the creativity of students in problem-solving in the African context.

01. Design Thinking as a Teaching Method

We use Design Thinking to enable learners to approach STEM topics from a point of realistic African problems. Setting up projects to solve these problems spark students’ curiosity in understanding problem contexts, enabling inquiry and discovery of relevant solutions.

02. Learning Through Rapid Prototyping

Rapid prototyping is a Design Thinking principle that enables our students to convert their ideas into physical prototypes. This helps them to visualize and suggest improvements on solution features whilst using cheap material. Visualization plays an important role in enhancing learning and sparking creativity in the classroom.

03. Running STEM Experiments Through Design Thinking

We recommend students to apply Design Thinking in exploring, experimenting and developing solutions that meets the needs of people in Africa. Through Design Thinking, students can understand the interconnectedness of African people, the issue around them and socio-economic needs so they can design inclusive solutions.

04. Fostering Collaborative Thinking

Through Design Thinking, students learn to tackle challenges together by generating several possible solutions to the problem at hand. This is an important skill students can apply when solving problems both in real life and at work in the future.

School Collaborations

Work with us and transform your classrooms into an innovation space, and equip your students with the creative skills for them to be future changemakers! Use our Design Thinking curriculum and toolkits to amplify the creativity of your students in running STEM (robotics and AI) projects.

Design Thinking for Teenagers

Enroll in our Design Thinking for Teens course — an excellent hands-on course designed to elevate the creativity of African teenagers in problem-solving. Have access to Mator Design's Design Thinking Toolkits that enables you to collaboratively solve-problems whilst saving up to 75% of the resources and time required in developing commercially viable solutions.