A National Technology Leadership Society (NTLS) Initiative

The Sangala Initiative

Developing technological solutions appropriate for the needs of local communities

The word sangala means joy in the Lugisu language of east Africa. We aspire for students to find joy in learning through innovations that improve their communities.

About the Initiative Sangala Studio CAD Model Library
Three secondary school students examining a three-dimensional printed microscope on a workbench.

Scientific Instruments

A 3D-printed microscope that can be fabricated in a makerspace for roughly one-tenth the cost of a commercial model. Students design and build instruments their own communities can use.

The Sangala Studio design program, showing a crested crane placed on a page with cut and fold controls.

Design Software

Sangala Studio, an open educational CAD program, teaches two-dimensional and three-dimensional design. It installs from a USB drive and runs without Internet access.

Two students holding a cut-paper collage of a hunter and an antelope at sunrise, with other collages on the wall behind them.

Digital Fabrication

Students move from two-dimensional art to three-dimensional design and on to working mechanisms, cut in cardstock and printed in plastic.

A prototype solar-powered weather station with rechargeable cells and a long-range radio antenna.

Environmental Monitoring

Solar-powered weather stations, built locally and linked by a long-range radio network, will carry forecasts to an agrarian economy that has none.

ITEEA · University of Virginia · FabLab Winam, Kenya · REACH for Uganda