Play #11: The Studentship
When you need versatile and enthusiastic talent to develop and maintain the tech, tap into the local student population.
The Pilot: 3D Printing in Nepal
If we significantly develop the 3D printing sector in Nepal, then regular-use items in the health and humanitarian response sector will be 3D printed as standard.
Use this play to answer our challenge around skills infrastructure: when there is a shortage of technical skills for local installation and maintenance of tech, or a lack of local ecosystem to develop and sustain the technology.
This play is part of our Frontier Technology Playbook: Plays by DfID Pioneers to Overcome Development Challenges. Click here to read the other plays and an introduction to the Playbook.
The Pioneers: Field Ready
Nepal has the beginnings of a 3D printing sector, with tens of organisations. To grow this sector from green shoots to scale, we needed people to be able to use 3D printers, develop businesses, and promote the technology.
We set up a Studentship for engineering students at a local university. Participants were invited to make hands-on use of our 3D printers to learn and experiment with designs. Over time, they fulfilled briefs for specific pieces of work.
These Studentships contributed to 100% year-on-year growth in 3D printing organisations in Nepal.
The Practice
- Tap into existing student groups — they can be your entry point to mobilising people in the university
- Emphasise the ‘for good’ nature of our work. Our ‘humanitarian design challenge’ captured the imaginations of engineering students
- Get Faculty members on board. We were able to get valuable advice on how our 3D printing Studentships could be a practical project on students’ curriculums
Get in touch…
Drop ben.britton@fieldready.org a line to find out more!
