Kasungu, Malawi – Pupils in Malawi are getting the chance to explore technology thanks to a US foundation that provides laptops, internet connections and solar power to schools in a rural district.
At Nthunduwala Community Day Secondary School, surrounded by tobacco and maize farms at the end of a dirt road that floods in the rainy season, students in blue skirts and shirts stepped out of classrooms to watch technicians install a Starlink satellite internet terminal. Solar power had been connected the week before.
The school is one of 35 to benefit from the Tech Bridges To Malawi project, which delivers laptops and other IT equipment to rural schools in Kasungu District, in the centre of the country roughly 115 kilometres north of the capital, Lilongwe.
In many cases, pupils have never before had access to the technology.
"I am very happy to switch on the computer and learn what I can achieve with it," said Wasili Maulidi, 17. "This is my first time using a computer."
The fourth of his siblings and the first to progress beyond primary school, he hopes to become a teacher.
Technology gap
Since 2017, the project says it has supplied around 1,000 student devices, 84 classroom projectors and 15 Starlink connections to schools in Kasungu, one of Malawi's principal tobacco-growing districts.
It has also installed 17 solar power systems and delivered thousands of hours of teacher training.
Funded by the Hardy Bunch Foundation, a US-based charity established by retired computer engineers Dow Hardy and Jennifer Gauthier-Hardy, the project has its roots in a trip taken by the couple's son in 2016.
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Then in his final year of high school, their eldest son Tyler visited Kasungu as part of a two-week mission organised by Bridges to Malawi, an American non-profit focused on health care. When he returned, he told his parents about the needs he witnessed there.
"He had a hard time reintegrating into the United States pace of life," Gauthier-Hardy told RFI. "He was so impacted by what he experienced coming to Malawi, both in the clinical and medical setting and what he saw in schools."
She worked in research and secondary-school ICT instruction, while her husband had a career spanning research, development and education technology. Both retired in 2022 and established their foundation to channel private family funds towards what they saw as a gap that technology could help close.
What began as a 10-day trip in 2017 to deliver 30 laptops to three Kasungu schools their son had visited has since grown into a programme that now includes a team of seven local technicians, and aims to reach 44 schools by the end of 2026.
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Tools for life
Elisa Mussa, 16, is among those trying out the devices, which come preloaded with educational software covering mathematics, science and other core subjects, alongside logic and memory exercises.
She began computer studies in 2024 following donations from the foundation.
"I felt good because it was the first time," she said, describing how she had learnt to build PowerPoint presentations and spreadsheets. "I have learnt how they can ease the work."
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For Hardy, small signals tell the larger story. "Seeing a teacher tell us that more students have been accepted into university, those things where you see the improvements, that is amazing," he said.
"Computers are in our life – not just a job in computers, but how we improve, how we learn."
