Sofie Roux, ’26, was accompanying her physician parents on a work trip to Malawi in 2019 when she befriended a girl named Faith. They bonded over their love of art and their future ambitions: Roux wanted to be an architect; Faith, an animator. But Faith’s school had no electricity or running water—let alone the technology to teach computer animation.
Roux, who grew up spending her summers in Africa, had fundraised for computers, water wells, and menstrual care supplies to make STEAM education more accessible for girls. The lack of electricity at Faith’s school presented another barrier. “The best way I could think to address it was by building a prototype of a solution,” she says.
That’s how, at 16, Roux found herself in her Vancouver, British Columbia, backyard designing and building (thanks to fundraising efforts and some skilled volunteers) a computer lab inside an upcycled shipping container. She dubbed the creation a BloomBox, hoping it would be a space where students would feel inspired to create. Roux filled the lab with computing equipment, then topped it with a solar roof for reliable power. In the summer of 2021, she took it to Faith’s high school in Blantyre, Malawi.
‘The best way I could think to address it was by building a prototype of a solution.’
Once installed, the BloomBox benefitted hundreds of students and caught the attention of the Malawi Ministry of Education, which saw potential in the labs to advance STEAM education. “They want everyone to be very technologically literate by 2063,” Roux says, “and that starts with making sure that young people have access to technology and creative maker spaces.” The ministry approved a plan to install 70 more labs across the country.
To expand, however, Roux and a team of 30 professionals needed to address issues of efficiency, security, and transportation to remote communities. BloomBox Design Labs formed in 2023 as a public benefit company after moving all production to Malawi and South Africa to bring down costs, reduce transport time, and employ local workers. Inspired by flowers, Roux, a sustainable architecture and engineering major, redesigned the lab’s solar roof to include retractable “petals,” which draw in and lock at night for security.
Photo: Courtesy Bloombox
Today, Faith studies art and design at the University of Malawi. And BloomBox has four functioning labs in Malawi, including in the Dzaleka Refugee Camp, a settlement of more than 50,000 people. When Roux finishes the 70 planned labs, they will reach 200,000 students so that their love of learning can blossom.
Jacqueline Munis, ’25, is a former editorial intern at Stanford. Email her at stanford.magazine@stanford.edu.
