Lab Hackathons to Overcome Laboratory Equipment Shortages in Africa: Opportunities and Challenges
This addresses a critical problem for STEM education in Africa by enabling local, sustainable equipment solutions, though it is an incremental adaptation of existing hackathon and open hardware concepts.
The paper tackles equipment shortages in STEM education in Africa by introducing LabHackathons, which are events where students build frugal and reproducible lab equipment, with a pilot event in Zimbabwe demonstrating feasibility.
Equipment shortages in Africa undermine Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) Education. We have pioneered the LabHackathon (LabHack): a novel initiative that adapts the conventional hackathon and draws on insights from the Open Hardware movement and Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI). LabHacks are fun, educational events that challenge student participants to build frugal and reproducible pieces of laboratory equipment. Completed designs are then made available to others. LabHacks can therefore facilitate the open and sustainable design of laboratory equipment, in situ, in Africa. In this case study we describe the LabHackathon model, discuss its application in a pilot event held in Zimbabwe and outline the opportunities and challenges it presents.