This 23-year-old is helping make education accessible through 3D printed schools

Maggie Grout knows how important getting an opportunity in life is. In her case, it was a chance of life itself.

Abandoned in a basket shortly after she was born in Dawu, Hubei, a rural village in China, little Maggie would have perished had it not been for an orphanage worker who discovered her and saved her.

The second time fortune smiled on her was when Maggie was 18 months old; her life changed when she was adopted by an American couple and taken to Colorado, US.

Brought up by her adoptive parents to believe that ‘our time on earth should mean something’, Maggie says that while they encouraged her to dream of making a differencein people’s lives, they also offered her all support to make her dreams a reality

‘Growing up, I had an understanding of what my life could have been like without access to education and the opportunities,’ says the now 23-year-old, in an exclusive interview to Friday. ‘My life could have followed a very different path if it weren’t for the opportunities I found through education.’

Even while a student at school, Maggie was toying with the idea of how she could help less privileged children across the world have the opportunity to study and get an education so they could improve their life. She knew firsthand how crucial education is in ‘changing the trajectory of someone’s life.

‘With education comes more choices and opportunities of aspiring towards anything a child may dream of’, she says.

The first step

Some eight years ago, when Maggie was 15, she was chatting with her father Harry Grout, one of the founders of MapQuest, when the first brick for what would become a path-breaking initiative to help children get access to a school and an education was laid. ‘My dad and I were discussing how we could leverage technology to address real, pressing problems in the world,’ says Maggie, ‘and he mentioned the potential of 3D printing – how it was in the initial stages of being used in architecture and building structures.’

The idea intrigued the young girl. ‘I found it fascinating – the potential of technology to create architectural solutions for a world of good.’

Maggie mulled over the possibility of using modern technology to solve a major problem children were facing in some parts of the world while also leaving behind ‘a humble legacy that had the potential to impact millions’.

The result: Thinking Huts, an international NGO she set up whose mission is to increase global access to education infrastructure by building 3D printed schools in places where they are most needed.

Funded entirely by individual and corporate donations, the NGO goes beyond providing just the infrastructure. It works towards empowering the community - giving them the tools to lift themselves out of poverty while making local people stakeholders of the school.

Convinced that this tech could be used to build strong schools in a fraction of the time it would take to construct using traditional methods, she began studying less privileged regions across the world and compiled a list of places which were in dire need of schools.

From the list, she and her team narrowed it down to Madagascar. The reasons were many. First: her NGO team had personal connections in the country and she was sure her initiative would get strong local support.

Second, there was an estimated need for over 22,000 schools in the country. ‘Madagascar is the fifth poorest country in the world and according to a World Bank report, 97 per cent of Malagasy 10-year-olds are unable to read and understand a single sentence,’ says Maggie. ‘The power of investing in education is clear with every year of schooling raising earnings by 10 per cent.’

Maggie began seeking advice and reaching out to people who she looked up to in areas related to construction, architecture and technology. She also touched base with grassroots organisations in several parts of the world that were in the field of improving educational facilities for the poor, to learn more about the kind of structures that would work well in the regions.

Slowly but steadily since she started the NGO in 2015, she began putting together the bricks of what would go on to be Madagascar’s first 3D printed school.

Apart from the local community, Maggie’s team worked closely with Ecole de Management et d’Innovation Technologique, a university in Fianarantsoa, to build the school on its campus. ‘The idea is also to form a long-term partnership to eventually employ their STEM students,’ Maggie says.

While the roof, doors and windows were locally sourced, the walls were 3D printed with a special cement mixture that can withstand the elements.

If the planning for the first school took seven years, printing the walls took barely 18 hours and completing the structure three weeks.

Finally, in April last year, the first 3D printed school in Madagascar opened in Fianarantsoa. Called Bougainvillea, the 700sqft school can house 30 students at a time.

For the woman behind the mission, realizing her dream come true on April 14, 2022 was a goosebump-inducing moment. ‘That day when we opened the school was very special,’ she says. To mark the occasion, she planted a bougainvillea vine, a symbolic gesture to indicate their commitment to increase access to education.

It was a moment of celebration for the locals in the area too. The Fianarantsoa community includes farmers, construction workers, cooks, teachers, and students. ‘They all came together to celebrate a vision that became theirs too,’ says Maggie.

She still remembers a local resident who came up to her to thank her for opening the school for students. ‘The young father, Herman, told me that he now hopes that his children can grow up and aspire for more than he had the opportunity to because of the hope that our 3D printed school brought to their community.’

The changes are already visible.

‘The effect of having access to education is that through education we can no longer live in ignorance,’ says Eddy Benito, a student of a school that the NGO built.

A beehive-inspired Honeycomb Campus, consisting of multiple connecting hexagonal huts, is next on the horizon. Also located in Madagascar, it will be the world’s first 3D-printed school campus and will serve three villages on the west coast for students aged 4 to 16. Apart from the school building, Maggie’s team is incorporating facilities that include solar power panels, drinking water for the students, WiFi and clean and adequate toilets.

Sustainability at its core

One of the big advantages of Thinking Huts’ model is that it reduces waste.

‘We are leveraging humanitarian-driven technology solutions through architectural scale 3D printing to build schools in a fraction of the time and in partnership with communities in developing countries where infrastructure is needed,’ says Maggie, a graduate of CU Boulder, Leeds School of Business, encapsulating her initiative in a nutshell.

The use of 3D construction printing allows Thinking Huts to build schools faster than ever before and can reduce CO2 emissions by limiting the amount of construction waste produced. This hybrid model allows Thinking Huts to further support local economies and will be replicated with its future campuses.

‘The per-unit costs will exponentially decrease as economies of scale are reached,’ says Maggie.

Also, if implemented properly the process could pave the way for breaking the cycle of poverty that many families are saddled with for generations.

‘There are simply not enough schools and we seek to change this,’ she says. ‘Our vision is a world where every child has the opportunity to grow up and achieve their dreams; and for that to happen they first need access to education.’

And that is a serious concern in several regions.

Earlier this year, UN secretary-general Antonio Guterres revealed that ‘a staggering 78 million girls and boys around the world today don’t go to school at all because of conflict, climate disasters and displacement.

‘No matter who you are, no matter where you live, no matter what barriers stand in your way, you have a right to a quality education,’ he said, at the Education Cannot Wait High-Level Financing Conference in Geneva.

Having visited some impoverished communities in Africa, and seen for herself the conditions of children of school-going age there, Maggie knows only too well that education, definitely cannot wait.

With an infectious, charming optimism that reverberates in her tone and words, she and her team are determined to make a difference in children’s lives.

‘Did you know that almost 50 million students are out of school in Sub-Saharan Africa and Asia and in most cases, it is due to overcrowding and long walks of up to 9 miles to the nearest school?’ she asks.

According to one study, roughly three out of four secondary-age children in Madagascar are unable to attend school for various reasons including lack of class rooms and long and often dangerous commutes.

Maggie’s mission is to fill this gap while bringing together its local and global partners to oversee daily operations, ensure teachers are supplied, and coordinate maintenance.

Once the nonprofit has collaborated with communities throughout Madagascar to holistically meet the need for schools, its goal is to expand its operations globally until every child has the opportunity to achieve their dreams.

‘Education has ripple effects that impact the student, family, community, economy, and beyond. Not just one, but thousands, if not millions of lives,’ says Maggie. ‘Change does not happen overnight, but it impacts multiple generations. When we incorporate technology thoughtfully, the impact can be scaled with the necessary resources.’

An estimated 22,000 more schools must be built to fill the need in Madagascar alone. Once Thinking Huts has addressed the deficit locally, it plans to expand globally so that every child gains access to education, she says.

Long term, the nonprofit plans to create 3D technician programs to support the training and growth of native teams, so they will be able to find a solution to many of their needs. Creating local jobs is part of Thikning Huts’ plan and will continue to be incorporated into each project, along with community feedback to adapt the design, says Maggie, optimistically.

‘I want to love in a world where one is always around to lift another up,’ she says.