African STEM Revolution? How Sciency is bridging the science skills gap in Africa

Under the sprawling baobab trees in rural Zimbabwe, 12-year-old Thandiwe wonders why the crop harvesting she’ll have to do after school tends is so tedious. If her classroom's leaky roof didn’t drown out the teacher's explanations of simple circuits - maybe there would be a greater chance that Thandiwe and her peers could build solutions that address the community's plight... Thandiwe's story echoes across Southern Africa, where a persistent STEM education gap threatens to dim the brightest scientific minds.

This is one of the many problems plaguing the continent and the reason why there’s an estimated gap of 2.5 million engineers in Africa. African governments have to find a way to solve the problem of low participation and a weak pipeline in STEM fields, with less than 25% of higher education students pursuing STEM fields.

We recently caught up with Nkosana Masuku, the founder of Sciency - an education startup. Going by their tagline, their core focus is providing “low-cost access to practical STEM & Robotics Education in Africa, preparing learners for the future of work.”

We discussed the extent of the problem Sciency is looking to solve along with the ramifications of not addressing Africa’s STEM education gap. Beyond that, we also explored the startup’s experiences building out a business in Southern Africa and more…