“…it’s also important for people to understand and engage with research in a way that is familiar and makes sense to them. If research is presented in a way that is relevant to their own culture and conveyed in terms of their own language, it’s just more engaging to people.”
Amir Kelifa, former Global CO2 Initiative (GCI) research intern, co-founder of Think Africa Research and Innovation Center (TARiC) and recent graduate of the Addis Ababa Institute of Technology (Mechanical Engineering BA).
This issue features TARiC, the nonprofit organization in Ethiopia focused on teaching youth about STEM through hands-on experience. We caught up with co-founder Amir Kelifa, who told us more all about it.
What is TARiC?
TARiC is the Think Africa Research and Innovation Center, a nonprofit organization that helps young, passionate students bring their visions into reality while also building solutions for the community. We believe in creating an all inclusive environment where ideas thrive, and knowledge is shared.
Our mission is to empower the youth in Ethiopia by exposing them to research and innovation that is often missing from the regular educational curriculum.
Our vision is to facilitate research that can be used to address societal problems–especially environmental challenges–by finding sustainable solutions.
We have four goals.
1) We want to provide young innovators with the resources, skills, and mentorship needed for them to pursue their ideas and projects.
2) We would like to foster a culture of curiosity, creativity, collaboration and excellence among both our students and staff.
3) We would also like to facilitate our students and staff engaging with stakeholders to identify and solve relevant problems in our community.
4) We hope to publish and disseminate our findings and learnings to the public and academia in order to amplify the awareness of sustainable solutions.
Ultimately, we would like to transform Africa into a hub of research and innovation that addresses our societal and environmental challenges through sustainable solutions.
Fun fact about our name–the word TARiC in Amharic translates into English as “history” and we want to make history with our research center. We call our students “Taric-seri” which means “history-makers.”
Ultimately, we would like to transform Africa into a hub of research and innovation that addresses our societal and environmental challenges through sustainable solutions.
Fun fact about our name–the word TARiC in Amharic translates into English as “history” and we want to make history with our research center. We call our students “Taric-seri” which means “history-makers.”