Maker‘s Red Box will receive grant from Google.org to bring a comprehensive STEAM education programme to disadvantaged children. The grant helps Maker‘s Red Box’s storytelling-powered teaching method to be extended to children in foster care at a critical time, when education has been disrupted by the pandemic and the gap between privileged and underprivileged students has greatly expanded.

Google Impact Challenge Central and Eastern Europe selected 13 applicants from 11 countries from over 800 submissions. With a mission to turn kids into avid makers and school labs into inspiring learning spaces, we at Maker’s Red Box are committed to assisting teachers and schools in providing better education to children of all backgrounds.

Google.org’s grant enables Maker’s Red Box to organise educational programs for 400 children in foster care in Hungary.

The courses will help children to improve their soft and hard skills, to find their passion, to embrace lifelong learning and to succeed in school and later on the labor market. Maker’s Red Box is on a mission to enable kids to become the thinkers, creators, problem-solvers and innovators that tomorrow’s workplaces will need.  

Meeting the needs of 21st-century learners – and employers  

These are challenging times for educators all over the globe, not only due to the ongoing pandemic but also due to the fact that educational institutions have been constantly challenged to cope with the accelerated digital transformation.

“The role of parents and families has increased, from extracurricular activities to career chats at the dinner table,” explained Gábor Major, CEO of Maker’s Red Box. 

The purpose of our project is to offer the latest soft and technical skills to 400 children with no family role models –

something that is usually only available to kids studying in the most progressive and best-equipped schools.” 

“Let’s build a digital economy for everyone” 

Google.org is among the world’s most avid supporters of social change and development, backing like-minded causes such as Khan Academy. Following an open call for invitation across 11 countries in the CEE region, the Impact Challenge awarded initiatives that put digital inclusion at the heart of economic recovery and use technology and innovation to help individuals and communities gain new skills for the future.  

“We are proud that Maker’s Red Box has been selected to receive support in delivering workshops to students living in children’s homes in Hungary,” said Ádám Horváth, head of pedagogy at Maker’s Red Box. “One of the greatest benefits of our courses is that they do not focus on a single technological area like coding or 3D printing but offer a complex pedagogical program, including comprehensive career guidance, to both participating students and teachers. Maker’s Red Box showcases the technology based creative possibilities instead of restricting it to one particular profession or tool.”

Turning dreaded tasks into exciting challenges, one box at a time 

Maker’s Red Box came to be when founders Péter Fuchs and Dóra Dobi, plus a small team of seasoned educational experts, started experimenting with developing maker education programmes five years ago. Their goal was to create teaching materials that engage and inspire each student in the classroom, no matter their interests, strengths or background.

Using the power of storytelling, our materials both guide the creative process and help students gain transferable knowledge through hidden learning. And become the thinkers, creators, problem-solvers and innovators that tomorrow’s workplaces will need. All this through building solutions to save a Mars mission, design the city of the future or combat global warming.

Each box includes STEAM-focused teaching materials for 16 maker sessions with a comprehensive teacher’s guide and supporting digital content. The materials have been tested with over 10,000 students aged 11-16 in various environments, from extracurricular workshops to summer camps, and are currently being used in several schools in Hungary, Finland, Holland and Luxembourg.