In today's globally and digitally interconnected world, it's crucial for children to develop key 21st-century skills to become good citizens who can be civically engaged, think critically, and be digitally literate. The Ethafa Steammians Kit project began as a BA thesis at the design university of Lugano. As I started working on the project, I became interested in learning more about Arduino. During my research, I discovered that girls are often intimidated by technology. As someone who is half Egyptian, I wanted to develop a project that could address the gender gap in technology worldwide. To achieve this, I created several prototypes and participated in maker education events around the world to better understand how to bring this knowledge to young girls in a simple and accessible way.

In 2019, I received support from the Leonardo Foundation, and in 2020, I received additional support from the GRS Foundation to bring my idea to life. I assembled a team of interaction designers, developers, and electronic engineers and worked intensively on developing the tablet application, the hardware components of the physical kit, and creating co-created content with K12 educators and teachers from various countries. Thanks to the support of Fablab SUPSI, I was able to prototype and test the product with users, which helped to refine the final product.

This project has been instrumental in shaping my skills as a project manager. Through this experience, I had to improve my business skills as well as my interaction design skills. One of the most important lessons I learned was how to manage a team and ensure timely delivery of all project components. Manufacturing the physical kit was particularly challenging, as I had to understand the process of producing a hardware product while optimizing costs and maintaining unique features. Today, Ethafa is an Sagl based in Lugano, and we deliver pilot programmes in Switzerland and abroad. Overall, this project has been an invaluable learning experience for me.