On October 9th, 2018, JMA and iNerde signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU), entering into a partnership agreement to help make medical biology education accessible to students across Africa, in efforts to make technical STEM literacy education more widespread.

iNERDE is a social enterprise aiming to inspire and empower African youth to learn the skills they will need to make discoveries, think critically and thrive in an evolving world. To do so, iNERDE develops and disseminates a thorough STEM education program for children in primary and secondary schools and provides professional development training to teachers and educators across the continent. The iNERDE curriculum is composed of hands-on activities that teach fundamental notions in science, engineering, mathematics, coding, and robotics.

As mentioned on their website: “iNerde’s team is composed of both experienced and aspiring scientists, engineers, social scientists, economists and bankers from Mali, Canada, Togo, USA and Burkina Faso who all have intensive experience in development and education work, community service and after school programs from around the world. Being from various backgrounds, the team members are well travelled and understand the miracle of meaningful work. The iNerde team shares the belief that everyone can have a shot at living a “successful life” in a society that provides opportunities and the necessary resources for all. iNERDE is the product of many years of longing for ways to innovate education in Africa. Growing up and powerlessly witnessing the neglect of science education, one of the most important pillars of development in any nation, a group of young people from around Africa and from around the world decided to create and develop iNERDE to give African youth the opportunity to discover their potential in STEM fields and every field in the modern world that requires high technical literacy. They aim for nothing less than to give Africa’s youth the tools that they need to turn their deep aspiration for a bright future into reality.”

Throughout our partnership, iNerde plans to incorporate JMA’s proprietary medical biology lesson plans into its Nerdy Box curriculum, and also integrate key teaching methodologies to accompany the aforementioned lesson plans for interactive and engaging lesson structure. iNerde will also help to translate some of the JMA curricula into French for easier accessibility for non-native English speaking students in Africa. There will be a dissemination of lesson plans in different iNERDE franchise structures across Africa, with the potential to reach and empower thousands of students across the entire continent.