How is it possible to keep such gorgeous news unpublished for about two months? By the time I wrote this blog post, I tried to find the reason to why I didn’t release such good news in advance. Oops, I don’t have any reason in mind! Wait-wait, I get one! Over the past two months, I was digesting and ruminating what it means to be selected among 20 fellows out of 200 applicants from 30 different countries. I couldn’t still understand this not because I didn’t believe it but because it’s unbelievable to represent my continent, Africa, this year together with another fellow, Koffi Dodji Honou, from Senegal.

FabLearn Fellow, Cohort 2016-2017

What is FabLearn?

Led by Stanford University Assistant Professor, Paulo Blikstein, “FabLearn [is a fellowship program at Sandford University that] disseminates ideas, best practices and resources to support an international community of educators, researchers and policy makers committed to integrating the principles of educational makerspaces and constructionist learning into formal and informal K-12 education.”

The decisions about selected fellows were announced in the month of September 2016, close to the annual conference of FabLearn. Fellows have been invited to attend a diversity in making themed conference which held at Stanford University for three days, from October 14-16, 2016. Traveling to the U.S. was an experience I have ever had. I learned a lot from researchers, educators, makers, and policymakers. Prior to the conference, I participated in the 2-day workshops on Designing Making Experience at Castilleja School, Palo Alto.

Designing Making Experiences led by Aaron Vanderwerff  from Lighthouse Community Charter School, Oakland, and Angi Chau from Castilleja School, Palo Alto, both in California, USA.

The conference was inaugurated on Friday, October 14, 2014, with a keynote by Leah Buechley who is the developer of the LilyPad Arduino toolkit.

I met great minded people and learned from them the reason why I have to join maker movement.  Many thanks to FabLearn organizers who made it possible for fellows to join the annual conference of FabLearn. During the conference, I met family members from International Development Innovation Network (IDIN ). What’s fantastic #IDINetwork!

The picture above reveals that FabLearn made it possible for folks from IDINetwork to meet. Left to the right drawing zigzag line from front to the back is Mustafa Naseem, Molly Rubenstein, Alphonse Habyarimana, Koffi Dodji Honou, Arvind Badrinarayanan, Pedro Reynolds-Cuellar, Deborah Tien, Johana Sanabria, Umar Shehzad , Aggrey Mokaya, and Manon Woringer who is an Electronics Fellow at the IDIN-supported Twende Innovation Center in Arusha, Tanzania.

Nobody can believe how it would be possible to be part of two incredible international organizations in only less than three months.

Hang in there for more updates to come:)