A ten-day Arduino workshop for young people in Bafang: the fundamentals of electronics and programming, applied to real local problems — from water-level sensors to solar trackers.
Computer science today is as fundamental as electricity or an electric motor — it is both a teaching tool and a field of its own. FIPI — Future Engineers and Computer Programming — is the program that gives this idea concrete form in West Cameroon. FIPI-Éducation, one of its central initiatives, hands young people the tools for it: Arduino-based programming and electronics, applied to problems they know from their own everyday lives.
After a longer break, a new session took place from 1–10 June 2025 at the Université Catholique Jean Paul II in Bafang. As in previous editions, the course ran ten days and brought together more than 40 learners with an average age of 16 — 35% of them young women.
Funded by: FIPI program
Participants worked through the fundamentals of programming and electronics and then applied them in their own projects — each one a response to a concrete, local problem. At the end of the workshop, they presented their work to the public at a dedicated open day.
All participants received a certificate on completion; supervising staff received an Attestat d'Encadrement. A further session is being planned — with the goal of permanently anchoring the workshop in the university's annual calendar and giving more young women access to technology and electronics.
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