TITLE: ShapeCreator Mobile: Bringing Math and Coding Together in Low-Resource Settings
SPEAKERS: Angela Zavaleta Bernuy and Oluwaseun Owojaiye
DATE: Thursday, 1st May 2025
TIME: 15:00-16:00
DESCRIPTION:
Access to quality STEM education remains a major challenge in low-resource settings, where persistent shortages of qualified teachers and infrastructure significantly limit students’ learning opportunities. As of 2020, over 463 million school-aged children worldwide lacked access to computers or the internet. In 2016, only about 50% of secondary school teachers in Sub-Saharan Africa were considered qualified, with student-to-trained-teacher ratios averaging 43:1 in mathematics. The situation in computer science is even more critical: for example, in Zambia, there were only 482 trained computer studies teachers for over 96,000 learners, resulting in a ratio of nearly 200:1. Furthermore, many schools lack reliable electricity, internet connectivity, and devices, further excluding millions of children from meaningful engagement with STEM education.

Given the high rate of smartphone ownership (54% ownership globally), we leverage this opportunity to create a tool that addresses some of these barriers.

ShapeCreator Mobile is an innovative educational tool that provides an offline, low-data platform to help children develop foundational skills in mathematics and coding. Through a highly visual and interactive environment, ShapeCreator Mobile enables students to practice pre-algebra concepts and basic programming logic without requiring constant teacher supervision or heavy technological infrastructure. By empowering students to learn independently and creatively, ShapeCreator Mobile offers a scalable, inclusive solution for expanding access to STEM learning, particularly in low-resource settings where trained teachers and technological resources are scarce.

First published: 21 February 2025

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Speakers: Angela Zavaleta Bernuy and Oluwaseun Owojaiye