iNERDE’s Colonie de Vacances STEM was rechristened Ntomo Innovation Academy in 2016. The program is the same (though bigger and better). The mission is the same: to create opportunity for African youth through radical innovation in education. The name Ntomo Innovation Academy simply represents our program and mission better. Ntomo, in the Bambara language spoken in Mali, comes from African tradition. It’s the first level of initiation for boys and girls to higher knowledge. Innovation, of course, is the core of iNERDE’s program. STEM remains our strongest theme, the key to jobs and development in Africa, but iNERDE has always been focused on development of all capacities of African youth to enable them to be agents of change in their communities. African tradition, rooted in knowledge, discovery, self-affirmation, and service to the community combined with development of the skills needed to flourish in the modern world continue to be what defines iNERDE.

We have now run our program for its third year in Mali and second year in Senegal. This year saw a big new addition to our program, CodeNERDE, a second level program focused on robotics and programming for graduates of previous Colonie de Vacances STEM camps. Our first level program added many exciting new elements such as new material around DNA, the Internet, cryptography, and robots. We also put all our teacher training materials and curriculum on the internet-based Moodle platform, giving our new and returning teachers the most advanced tools possible to enable them to excel in the classroom.