A newly planted tree whip will not bear fruit immediately. It must be given ample water, light, and good soil. The young tree must also be given time to grow and mature. So too with the young minds and knowledge.

A constant source of insight and inspiration for Magnitude.io comes from our NGO partners. They too understand that education often feels like planting young trees. The partners we would like to celebrate today are Zaidi-STEM in Kenya, and MISI in Morocco. Both of which will be joining us for the ExoLab-10 scheduled launch in mid-November to the International Space Station.

We are excited that these two organizations will become an extended part of the Opportunities for Youth in Africa (OYA) program! Implemented by United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) and Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) with support of the African Union Commission, OYA’s fundamental goal is to accelerate job creation and entrepreneurship in agriculture and agribusiness.

Zaidi-STEM is a 501(c) non-profit whose vision is to enable Equitable and Inclusive quality STEM education in Sub-Sahara Africa. According to UNESCO more girls are in school today than ever before, but they do not always have the same opportunities as boys to complete and benefit from an education of their choice. Young women are particularly under-represented in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education, and consequently in STEM careers. Through their mentoring program, community engagement, and extracurricular science activities, Zaidi-STEM has created a diverse STEM pipeline to empower young women to remain engaged and enthusiastic.

The Moroccan Initiative for Space Industry (MISI) is the fruit of the collective vision and efforts of young Moroccan scientists, engineers, space industry professionals, entrepreneurs, and avid STEAM outreach program managers. Their mission is to harness the MISI’s members significant experience in the space industry to develop and deliver creative engaging hands-on projects to students in Morocco and abroad.

For the ExoLab-10 mission MISI has connected two high schools (Bab Sahra, and Al Khawarizmi) in the remote region of Guelmim-Oued Noun, as well as to a laboratory of the department of Phytopathology at the National School of Agriculture in Meknes.