131. High Schools Uplifting the Scientific Capacity of Uganda

Our speaker, Robert Freeman, spent nineteen years in the computer industry, rising to Vice President at the seventh largest software company in the world. After that, he taught at Los Altos High School for 16 years. In 2011, he was named "Bay Area Teacher of the Year" by the San Francisco 49ers Organization.In 2007, Freeman founded The Global Uplift Project. TGUP offered high school students the chance to build classrooms in developing-world countries from donations of one dollar. In 2020, when COVID closed all the schools, TGUP opened to adults. The ethic remains the same: small donations, aggregated, to build educational projects in the poorest countries in the world. TGUP has completed 592 such projects in 26 countries.In 2022, he presented to our Rotary club about TGUP, and this week, he shares a bold initiative that his organization has launched.The project is to upgrade the scientific capacity of the entire nation of Uganda. Already underway, TGUP is doing this by installing TGUP's Science Lab in a Box™ (SLaB) at 50 of the top high schools in the country. Early results show 80+% improvement in nationally normed test scores within the first year of installation of SLaB.If this project improves Ugandan GDP by only 1/1000th of 1% in 10 years, it pays for itself 200 times over. TGUP has the support of the Rotary International infrastructure at the highest level of the country. The Ugandan District Governor, Christine Kawooya, has submitted a letter of support stating, "Please know that our entire Rotary team is fully committed to the success of this groundbreaking program."To learn more, go to:The Global Uplift Project: https://tgup.org/ TGUP's Science Lab in a Box™: https://tgup.org/slab Website for this project: https://tgup.org/SEUU The 573 projects TGUP has already completed: https://tgup.org/Project-Thumbnails