Designing Learning Environments to Harness Creativity, Maximize Potential And Support the Next Generation of Female Leaders

By the summer after ninth grade, I had raised enough money by selling my art to support the installation of three borehole water wells in villages in Malawi. I was allowed to attend their dedications, and I got to see the absolute joy of crystal clear water flowing for the first time from water pumps into the lives of communities that never had them before.

On that trip, because of my interest in art, I was asked to paint an installation on two large water towers that stood at one edge of a basketball court on the campus of a secondary school in the city of Blantyre. As I painted, I witnessed the energy of the students: their dance moves and the things that made them laugh.

During one lunch hour, a girl broke away and came over to introduce herself. Her name was Faith, and she told me she loved art and returned the next day with her portfolio. With conviction, she told me she would become an animator one day.

I believed her. But I had also spent the hot hours of the days in the back rows of classrooms in the low brick buildings that flanked the basketball court. Faith’s school is at the heart of one of the biggest cities in Malawi, with excellent leadership, teachers, and some of the best educational opportunities in the area. Yet, even here, there was no electricity or running water.

More than 80% of Malawi is off the power grid. The large classrooms I visited had rows of wooden desks facing a blackboard that spanned the front wall, with shafts of light entering through gaps in the walls. A couple of dog-eared textbooks sat on the teacher’s desk. The teachers gave energetic, engaging, and challenging lessons, but they were hard to see and hear from the back of the classroom. Though it was an inspiring environment, it didn’t seem to have the resources an aspiring animator might need at the start of her exploration of the field.

When I got home, I couldn’t stop thinking about the spaces in which Faith went to learn. That same summer, I attended a pre-collegiate course called Architecture in the City. I got to sit in well-lit, high-tech maker spaces, collaborating with new friends on design projects. The design labs were bright and airy, with shelves of drafting paper architectural handbooks and mobile furniture.

It clicked for me then that well-designed spaces are an essential part of a student’s experience. I thought about this when I started grade 10 at my beautiful, all-girls school. Again, I saw that welcoming and well-equipped spaces for science and design learning could make a huge difference in the education of young people — especially for students who have never had access to these types of spaces and the opportunities they inspire.

I wondered if there was a way to bring design labs to Faith’s school. So, I drafted a floor plan and asked everyone I knew for help.

The very first BloomBox Design Lab was built from an upcycled shipping container and equipped with a 3kW solar system to power a well-lit indoor/outdoor classroom with 20 laptop computers connected to an off-grid server with thousands of resources, including Khan Academy and Wikipedia.

We shipped this lab to Malawi, and after weeks of logistical hurdles and intense installation work, on the last day of the build, we flipped a switch in the BloomBox. It lit up the night sky above the school with electric light for the first time. At the other end of the basketball court, even at night, I could see the water towers I had painted 2 summers before. It was an absolute joy.

We watched students at Faith’s school use the lab with engagement and enthusiasm. Girls and boys were learning together and asking each other for help. In follow-up evaluations of solar energy use and surveys conducted at 6-month intervals after installation, we’ve seen constant use of the lab and high levels of teacher and student satisfaction.

I’m now a college student in engineering, architecture, and design. In my first year at Stanford, I took architectural drafting, product sketching, and prototyping classes and spent late nights in the product realization labs — spaces that inspire and necessitate creativity.

The design of the BloomBox Design Lab classroom was reimagined to capture this environment for remote and austere environments. The most recent classroom installation was in July 2023 in Dzaleka Refugee Camp, a lab that embodies our most streamlined, portable, and locally built design.

Faith is now studying art and animation at university in Blantyre as one of the less than 1% of students that attend college in Malawi. I can’t attribute any of her brilliance to BloomBox, but in conversations we had this summer, she said that having access to an inclusive, creative space gave her confidence and supported her to create without limits.

According to a report by the Institute for the Future, 85% of jobs that will exist in 2030 have yet to be invented. We need everyone’s imagination to make strides in sustainability and public policy in ways never thought of before.

To set us up for a bright future, all girls must have access to education. However, the real magic comes when young women are supported to lead design-thinking in classroom environments that set them up for success.

About the Author – Sofie Roux is the visionary Gen Z Founder & CEO of BloomBox Design Labs, transforming education through innovation. Sofie’s journey began long before her current sophomore status at Stanford University, where she studies civil engineering and architecture. It all started with “Sparkly and Smart,” an art enterprise that remarkably raised $450,000 to support girls’ education. Today, through her revolutionary BloomBoxes ingeniously crafted from repurposed shipping containers, she’s reshaping education in Malawi by crafting vibrant STEAM learning environments. Sofie’s accomplishments, underscored by her impressive achievements, reflect her unwavering commitment to women’s education. Her impactful work has earned her recognition and coveted speaking engagements at TEDx events, where she shares her inspiring story. Sofie’s mission: make high-quality education accessible through powerful design. A true Gen Z leader, she’s an advocate for change and a beacon of hope.