This past fall break, during a Drexel fall Intensive Course Abroad program in Tanzania, Drexel TechServ, a student-led organization committed to bridging the digital divide in Philadelphia, partnered with non-profit organization TEDI, which strives to improve digital literacy in Tanzania, to build computer labs in northern Tanzania.
The program is spearheaded by Ahaji Schreffler, Senior Director of Education Abroad at the Office of Global Engagement at Drexel, who, over the past three years, has helped cement a three-way partnership engaging the students of her ICA, TEDI, and TechServ. This past summer, the first large-scale shipment (over 24 laptops and 40 desktops) arrived in Tanzania, setting the stage for the creation of multiple new computer labs across public schools — an improvement from the previous model of single computers carried by Drexel students participating in the ICA.
“I didn’t want it to be a parachute-type project,” said Schreffler, underscoring the core philosophy of the program. The goal of the initiative was to establish a legacy by actively engaging Drexel students in a “giving forward” mission to support a lasting local initiative.
The initiative sprang from TEDI Founder Gloria Anderson’s research on the contribution of a university education to graduate employability in Tanzania. Her findings indicated that the education system was “lacking a needed soft-skills component,” which seriously hindered job prospects for many young people. This led her to found TEDI in 2019 with the “One Computer Lab One School” initiative, which aimed to bridge the digital literacy divide in Tanzania and bring digital literacy to public schools, especially in low-income communities.
“The computer program changed the whole trajectory to say that ‘it doesn’t matter that you’re from a marginalized community. You can have the same quality of education a child in the urban areas gets,’” noted Anderson.
The Drexel study abroad program first partnered with TEDI and TechServ in 2023, as reported by The Triangle. Anderson was a 2021 Mandela Washington Fellow who was selected to attend a Mandela Washington alumni enrichment program at Drexel in 2022. Here she met Schreffler, who connected her to TechServ.
Owen Hayes, a 4th-year Computer Science major and president of TechServ, explained the beginnings of the partnership. “We originally spoke to Gloria in 2023… and really liked TEDI’s mission. Since then, we’ve been told about the impact that’s come out of this and that’s what continues to inspire us to increase the scale of our donations.”
Within the first two years, the TEDI and TechServ collaboration successfully established three computer labs in partnership with the Ministry of Education: one in Zanzibar (a Tanzanian archipelago off the coast of East Africa) and two in the Kilimanjaro region.
Each computer lab was not used for internet access, however. “It’s actually not about getting on the internet. None of these schools have data connection […] It’s educational materials, it’s access to textbooks,” Anderson said.
According to Anderson, the impact was immediate. At Nice Secondary School, all students in the high school’s first computer lab cohort passed their national exams one year after the collaboration launched. The TechServ-provided computers, which are pre-loaded with educational materials and utilize the offline server Rachel, are an essential resource center that fills gaps in teacher knowledge and makes textbooks universally accessible.
The partnership’s scope further expanded when Anderson was invited to speak at the United Nations General Assembly in New York City last year. In a subsequent visit to Drexel and after a successful brainstorming session with TechServ, the logistical bottleneck of study abroad students having limited capacity to carry laptops versus the many unused desktops available was raised. Hayes confirmed the difficulty from the supply end.
“Shipping was the primary challenge that we faced with our donation of forty desktops,” he said.
“TEDI took care of arranging the shipment but coordinating the pickup was a challenging process.”
The organizations developed a solution that bypassed travel restrictions, enabling a direct and sustainable partnership for international shipping. TechServ has now committed to shipping 40-50 desktops annually, a volume Schreffler noted was “far beyond what [they] could accomplish in the study abroad program.”
Anderson emphasized the importance of this new scale to TEDI’s mission and maintaining the computer labs long-term. The organization utilized strict criteria to select each school for the partnership, including electricity, a pre-determined room, and committed leadership. This was all meticulously planned to ensure maximum impact and long-term sustainability. Gloria’s approach also emphasizes local ownership and involves local Ministry of Education offices to ensure that the project is a shared responsibility.
Beyond local offices, the partnership has caught the attention of national and international audiences with Tanzanian national newspapers covering the Drexel x TEDI partnership, and the US Ambassador to Tanzania praising the partnership as “ideal.” According to Anderson, other milestones include institutional support from the World Bank Group, the Clinton Global Initiative, and new digital literacy initiatives in Kenya and Burkina Faso inspired from the initial Tanzania one.
Most importantly, Anderson noted, was the impact that the computer labs had on teachers and the impact that teachers had on the success of each lab. The donation of projectors from TechServ allowed teachers to plan lessons and project materials, improving the overall quality of education. In addition, a designated teacher remains TEDI’s main point of contact and is responsible for regular reporting on the operational side of each lab. The willingness of the school leadership and teachers to cooperate with TEDI and the Ministry of Education was key, Anderson noted.
On the TechServ side, their goal remains to provide as much support as possible to keep pace with TEDI’s rapid expansion into more schools, adding to the 100 computers sent already.
“You can’t make this stuff up. I mean, it truly is like a model of partner based community development,” Ahaji exclaimed.