Croatian Makers is a privately financed initiative developing and deploying a ‘layered family of platforms’ for STEM initiatives in school. The founders of IRIM are Nenad and Rujana Bakić and their crowdfunding campaign was the most successful crowdfunding campaign in Croatia.
Since the Croatian Makers League started in September 2015, more than 1800 robots were donated to over 360 schools and youth centres so that they can compete in the league. This has brought about a real STEM Revolution in Croatian schools.
The Institute for Youth Development and Innovativeness (Croatian acronym IRIM) believes that the mental gap between the developed world and Croatia is deep, but the good news is that this is a time of open and publicly available technologies and media, so it is easy to jump over the gap.
IRIM sees robotics and automation as the main platform for development of children and young people, and they have become easily accessible because technological and financial barriers have decreased.
Robotics and automation make ideal tools to enter the world of coding, programming and STEM in general, areas the Croatian school system seriously falls behind in. However, STEM’s main contribution to society is not purely technological, but also social: it helps in changing people’s mindset and shifts the focus from the past to the future.
Follow Croatian Maker’s Facebook page here, visit their website and make sure to donate here and help children turn from passive technology users into active little makers.
Source: Croatian Makers
