This being our second year since we have been in operations, our goal was to develop ZubHub (a platform providing access to low-cost creative learning and collaboration to children) further, focusing our efforts on fundraising and engaging children and educators in creative learning experiences through the tools and activities we develop. As the year ends, we are reflecting on our highlights and making plans for the coming year. Below are some updates we would like to share with our community and extend our gratitude to all those for were part of these efforts:
- After working for a year on ZubHub, we released it as open-source software.
- We partnered with Hack4Impact and mentored students from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign to help us develop new features for ZubHub.
- Outreachy accepted and funded us to work with three software engineers from India, Morocco, and Cameroon. It is a mentoring program that helps people from underrepresented groups get involved in free, open-source software.
- Through these two technical programs mentioned above, ZubHub received significant features updates - activity creation for educators, a mobile app for ZubHub, app notifications, user profile enhancement, badge assignment, etc.
- Encube Labs, a maker education organization, successfully uses ZubHub's custom installation as a showcase platform for students' projects. This year, they organized workshops promoting ZubHub's use in Vietnam, Puerto Rico, USA, and India.
- Unstructured Studio was one of the 22 global organizations focused on social impact work to receive a cash grant of USD 10,000 from Digital Ocean through their Hollie's Hub for Good program.
- Rudrani Ghosh joined our team as our first full-time employee in a Learning Program Manager role to lead our on-ground operations in India.
- We got accepted to participate in the Connected Learning Summit, a global gathering of innovators harnessing emerging technology to expand access to participatory, playful, and creative learning, and introduced educators to ZubHub.
- TeacherPlus (a 33-year-old magazine aimed at school teachers in India) covered an article we wrote entitled Tinkering: how we can think with our hands, sharing valuable resources & ideas for educators on how they can support & design for tinkering.
- We collaborated with Sai's Angel Foundation on a STEM initiative supported by TataPower as a learning and resource partner, reaching nearly 1000 students in 10 schools in Bidada village in Gujarat. Our team supports this ongoing program through teacher training, STEM kits, activity manuals, and children's participation in national science fairs.
- We launched a ZubHub Science & Creativity Challenge 2023, encouraging children to build a creative science, technology, or art project (or a combination of these three) around the theme of electricity and stand a chance to win a STEAM kit, t-shirts, etc.
For 2023, we plan to continue developing and improving ZubHub based on the feedback we have gathered from educators and children and explore partnerships on-ground to help promote its use. If you are interested in partnering with us, email rudrani@unstructured.studio.
Here’s hoping the coming year is full of learning opportunities for you all!