The focus of makerspaces in Africa is on creativity and innovation, particularly amongst the youth, and the development of products appropriate for local markets. There is a strong link with the ‘mend-and-make-do’ or hacker culture of repairing equipment with what is at hand, stemming from a lack of tools and manufactured spares but leading to creative solutions. De Beer, et al (2017) identified two streams in South African makerspace communities: those concentrating on ‘digitally-enabled fabrication’ and those that include digitally enabled and more traditional methods of fabrication. They noted that they not only strive to develop innovations into commercial projects but go beyond, to ‘scaling for socioeconomic benefits’, including skills and education.

Most African makerspaces aim to develop the entrepreneurial and technical skills of young people as a response to widespread youth unemployment. However, their geographic locations (most are in urban spaces like tech hubs or tertiary institutions), technical equipment (they offer high-tech facilities with tools like 3D printers, CNC machines and laser cutters and computing equipment), and costs mean that most ‘makers’ are well-educated, mostly male, university students or graduates while those with low literacy or without IT skills, and rural youth, are left behind.

Several makerspaces do aim to widen access to more young people and offer training to improve education and employability. Makerspaces with a strong educational component offer a mix of peer-to-peer collaboration and training, and formal classes (Njambi-Szlapka, 2019).

Prikkle Academy’s Grassroots Makerspace in Nigeria provides youth and children with a physical space where they can link with others, learn basic skills and develop their own aptitudes, and an online makerspace community (https://prikkleacademy.org). The Workspace in South Africa runs a programme to train youth from the area’s informal settlements in sewing, woodwork, welding, screen-printing and other marketable skills (de Beer, Armstrong, Ellis, & Kraemer-Mbula, 2017). In Ghana, Tech Needs Girls offers computer programming and IT education to underprivileged girls. The Beyond the Booth makerspace, launched in 2022 in South Africa, has started programmes in music production and DJing for local in-school, out-of-school and unemployed youth from communities in and around Nelson Mandela Bay, with programmes planned in engineering and design (https://nmbstc.co.za/makerspace/).

Makerspaces can bring educational and vocational opportunities out of cities and technical centres. UNICEF tested the mobile Kosovo Innovation Lab in Uganda while the iMake Makers Lab in Pretoria, South Africa has a mobile unit that links with craftspeople in rural areas. Geekulcha, also in South Africa, runs activities at its home location but also at partner premises like schools and NGO offices, and Change Hub in Nairobi, Kenya, set up a small makerspace to teach coding and 3D printing to inmates in Langata Women’s Prison.

Primary schools can set up inexpensive makerspaces using locally available materials. As students advance to secondary school, more advanced materials are desired to feed the demand for more tech- and innovation-driven education. STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) education and STEAM (adding Arts to the aforementioned mix to inject creativity) education are recognised as potential drivers of socioeconomic development in Africa. However, schools lack space and resources for makerspaces, and there is a shortage of qualified teachers.

In South Africa, for example, makerspaces, and STEM- or STEAM-focused curricula are found mainly in private schools. Most government (public) schools lack the funds for advanced equipment, while there are not enough maths, science and technology teachers. The country’s Ministry of Education will add coding and robotics to the curriculum from 2023. However, it is diverting funds from critical programmes, such as a bursary scheme to address the shortage of science and maths teachers in rural schools, to do so. This illustrates the gaps that exist between the ideal of makerspaces to foster innovation and creativity in African students, and the reality in under-resourced schools. In such schools, a more low-tech approach using recycled items and natural materials can still foster creativity and teach technical concepts.

Workshop for children at BLOLAB, the first fablab in Benin – schools can link with donors or partners to access more resources. M. Agbayazon, (2017), Wikimedia Commons. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Blolab4.jpg. Reprinted under Creative Commons licence (CC by-SA 4.0).

References

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