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Tinkering with Tech and AI — UNICEF's Girls-Inclusive STEM Pilot in San Pedro Sula, Honduras

Honduras · San Pedro Sula · See the Honduras profile

Evidence: Descriptive / self-reported Top 24% 60/100 · Ask Evidence Copilot about this practice

UNICEF's Tinkering with Tech and AI pilot brings Micro:bit-based STEM and AI learning to 100+ school centres in northern Honduras, with dedicated support for girls. Piloted in 2024 with Maldives, Montenegro and Vietnam, it is expanding with Arm and Raspberry Pi Foundation.

100 centres (100+)
Educational centres reached in Honduras
4 countries
2024 pilot countries (2024)
Tinkering with Tech and AI — UNICEF's Girls-Inclusive STEM Pilot in San Pedro Sula, Honduras

Details

Promoter
UNICEF Global Learning and Innovation Hub / Micro:bit Educational Foundation
Period
2023–2026 (ongoing)
Keywords
AI literacy, STEM education, gender equity, teacher training

Context

UNICEF's Global Learning and Innovation Hub, based in Helsinki, runs 'Tinkering with Tech and AI' as a hands-on STEM and AI-literacy pilot built around programmable Micro:bit boards, and in Honduras delivery partner the Micro:bit Educational Foundation has worked since 2023 with more than 100 educational centres across four departments in the country's north, including areas around San Pedro Sula, Villanueva and Puerto Cortes.

Activities

The programme explicitly targets equity, with UNICEF materials describing girls as 'very often overlooked' in STEM and giving them dedicated support to advance alongside boys; students use design-thinking methods to build projects such as flood-warning systems and agriculture tools, while teachers and school leaders are trained directly on Micro:bit lesson plans.

Results

Honduras was one of four 2024 pilot countries alongside Maldives, Montenegro and Vietnam, and by 2026 the initiative was expanding with new partners Arm and the Raspberry Pi Foundation and a stronger AI focus, with planned expansion to Lao PDR and Uzbekistan.

Conclusions

Published evidence to date is descriptive, consisting of teacher and student confidence gains reported in partner statements rather than an independent quantitative evaluation, and no disaggregated results for girls have been released.

Implementation
Indicative cost
Medium (€50k–€500k)
Time to results
Short (< 1 year)
Staffing & skills
UNICEF Global Learning and Innovation Hub (Helsinki), Micro:bit Educational Foundation (delivery partner in Honduras), trained teachers and school leaders

Conditions for success

  • A hands-on, hardware-based curriculum (programmable Micro:bit boards) paired with design-thinking projects
  • Dedicated support pathways built specifically for girls, named as an overlooked group in STEM
  • Direct training of teachers and school leaders on ready-made lesson plans

Common failure modes

  • No disaggregated outcome results for girls have been released, and reported gains are qualitative partner statements rather than independent evaluation

Where it fits

Governance type
UN agency/NGO-led
Scale
sub-national
Income level
lower-middle-income

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Data sources

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