YTF Website: 3D Africa

YTF launched 3D Africa in tandem with the first GE Garages innovation lab in Africa. Since then, 3D Africa has inspired almost 500 youth, girls, and women entrepreneurs in Nigeria, Kenya, and the United States, capturing their imaginations for new income and employment possibilities.

At the heart of 3D Africa is innovation. Innovation to solve real-world problems. Innovation to lessen environmental impacts. Innovation to increase income generation. Innovation that equalizes the playing field.

Just recently, several Sub-Saharan countries have attained 100 percent wireless coverage and have cell phone ownership rates which equal or exceed that of the U.S., which currently sits at 92 percent. This combination now allows Africa to join the global online marketplace 24/7, anytime, anywhere—greatly increasing revenue prospects. It further reduces the need for rural youth to move to urban centers to find employment or for entrepreneurs to only conduct business when light or electricity is available.

Through 3D Africa’s human-centered engineering design approach, youth are introduced to engineering, technology, and STEM fields and careers. They are supported through each phase – ideation, creation, development, and implementation – by expert staff, female engineers, and women in technology. The program is delivered by in-person and virtual means, with in-the-field engineers and on-the-ground 3D printing practitioners. Participants are mentored by YTF-trained women entrepreneurs.

For many students and teachers, understanding the connection between science, math, technology, and engineering is not a straight line. Nor is how these skills apply to a child’s future. Not so in 3D Africa. Participants, even at the youngest age, eagerly soak-up math and geometry concepts in action: coordinates, measurement, angles, subdivision, color, time, variables, axis, planes, shapes, symmetry, etc. Tech talk, 3D printing lingo, and electronic workings are a breeze when participants apply them right away. Participants learn that 3D printing is used is a variety of careers including biology, surgery, architecture, design, fashion, environment, and gaming.

Using a human-centered, empathy-driven approach, 3D Africa includes such projects as:

• Toys for children and household items for those in refugee camps.
• Parts for broken water pipes after natural disasters that can be printed onsite without waiting.
• Security alarm systems and motion detectors.
• Small parts and machinery gadgets that can bring water, electricity, or indoor toiletry to villages, slums, or schools for the first time.
• Animal collars with GPS tracking to prevent cattle rustling and animal thefts in rural, arid, and dormant locations in Kenya.
• Traffic light controllers.
• Robotic arm parts for children born without arms.

YTF gives marginalized and at-risk youth the foundation necessary to live, learn, and work in a global digital age, compete with their global peers, and be the next generation of leaders. In 3D Africa, YTF connects new, vanguard technologies with sustainable livelihoods, threshold streams of revenue, and exponential entrepreneurial growth for youth most at risk for under-education, vulnerable employment, and under-employment.