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Kari Santos, ICTD alumna and member of the Laboratory for Playful Computation, lends a hand as Letang Sefako (left) and Ketletseeng Sedumago (middle) drill holes to add a hinged door to the peanut roaster they built in Kaputura, Botswana in August 2018. The peanut roasting business was one of eight enterprises that were developed during IDDS Botswana 2018.

During the project, Kari worked with four residents from D'Kar and Kaputura villages to design and build a portable wood-burning peanut roaster. Kari's team built the roaster, experimented with roasting and flavoring techniques, conducted taste tests in Kapatura and developed a business plan for the peanut business, including marketing, supply chains and distribution. 

"The IDDS summit taught me how to work with an incredibly diverse group of individuals and how to quickly iterate through the design cycle and create a business that can continue past the summit," Kari says. 

Kari also worked with a local teacher, mentoring him in computer science teaching methods that engage and interest children ages 8 to 14. As part of the collaboration, she taught a group of his students how to use micro:bits, fully programmable computers that are roughly half the size of a credit card.

IDDS's theme, “improving rural community livelihoods in Botswana,” focuses on co-creating grassroots technologies and innovations, while supporting business models that will be adopted by the rural community members to enhance and sustain their livelihoods. 

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Dressed in a black bowtie, a purple and blue-haired groom sings to his bride. The groom’s curly-haired bride then sweetly sings back while guests politely listen.

Under the wedding arch, lit by blinking rainbow lights, a white cat wags his tail as he reads the couple their vows: “Do you, Fred, take Celery as your wife?”

“I had the idea to have a fake, funny wedding, and everyone got super excited and made their own characters,” says Marley Santos, 13, an eighth-grader from Casey Middle School.

Marley and 11 other students are participating in Girls on Fire, a five-day camp that teaches middle school girls, especially those from low-income families, to write code and work with electronics. Held at ŷ���ڱ���Ƶ Boulder’s ATLAS Institute, the event is sponsored by the ATLAS Laboratory for Playful Computation (LPC), the National Center for Women & Information Technology (NCWIT), the National Science Foundation, and ŷ���ڱ���Ƶ Science Discovery program.

With the help of BBC Micro:bits—pocket-sized microcontrollers designed to make programming fun and easy for the uninitiated—three girls wrote the code that connects their cellphones to the LED lights, the cat’s tail and the sound for the couple’s songs. They also created the bride, groom and wedding party from styrofoam cups decorated with colorful pipe cleaners, felt and various accessories.

Kari Santos, an Information and Communication Technology for Development (ICTD) graduate student with 25 years of software engineering experience, developed the class in partnership with Ben Shapiro, director of the LPC. Santos, who is also Marley’s mother, wants to give young girls the opportunity to enter science and technology. She started programming in high school after a teacher encouraged her to sign up for a one-week Intro to Engineering program for women at Carnegie Mellon University.

After that she decided to become an engineer, says Santos. “But certainly all through college and at every job, I was a minority. For many of my college classes, it was all men and me.”

In the first year of Girls on Fire, Santos taught programming with micro:bits separately from programming phone apps using App Inventor. Since then, she’s written software that connects the technologies over Bluetooth, making the process more seamless.  One of the “wedding programmers,” 12-year-old Anastasia Martinez, said she didn’t know anything about coding before she attended Girls on Fire, and she didn’t think she would enjoy the camp.

“My brother was into programming and programming just didn’t sound interesting to me,”  Anastasia says.  “My mom encouraged me to go to Girls on Fire. I ended up liking it. I learned a lot, and I am ready to learn more."

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