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 Spectrum School of Design and Technology (SSDT)

The Spectrum Transformation Services (STS), founded by Brainy Swaibu, is a community-based organization in the Kyangwali Refugee Settlement in western Uganda and a management organization that’ll spread the success, manage multiple schools/partners and act as a charter to provide comprehensive back-office and other support to each of the schools or partners.
STS MISSION: Saving the world from moving downstream toward decadence, self-slavery, and suffering through altruistic and design education to spiral upstream toward growth, strengths, happiness, freedom, character, and purpose. 
The Spectrum School of Design and Technology (SSDT)  currently serves about 20 teenagers and, in partnership with Enso Education Institute (founded by Dr. Martin Rayala, an alumnus of Singularity's 2018 Incubator program), has created a curriculum that teaches students practical skills in exponential technologies and STEM through service learning and solving real social challenges within the settlement, such as access to clean water, food, energy and more. 
SSDT school’s mission: To accelerate the world's transition towards altruistic society through altruistic, technology and design education.
 The broader goal of the program is to help students develop the capacity for altruism and service to others.  The school has also been granted access to land to develop a university serving more students in the settlement. The settlement is home to refugees from Democratic Republic of Congo, South Sudan, Rwanda and Burundi. There are about 140,000 refugee households. Of these, 81% are women and children and 19% are youth aged between 15-24 years. The settlement is also home to the elderly, unaccompanied minors and single mothers. Most refugees live off subsistence agriculture, but their 50 m2  plots of land do not yield enough food, so they supplement by keeping livestock or selling firewood or forest products. The settlement is located at the border with Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), western Uganda top of Lake Albert escapement. and can be reached by 5 hours’ walk from Albert.
OUR CREATIVE STORY
These sign posts for various international organizations welcome you to Kyangwali Refugee settlement where Spectrum Transformation Services is currently having offices just about 3Km before you arrive in the camp.
STS’s altruistic and design curriculum focuses on the science of altruistic human flourishing (intrinsic learning),  exponential technologies and research. This is all translated into Spectrum School of Design and Technology(SSDT) whose rigorous curriculum will cultivate in students the knowledge that's beyond wit, grit and themselves. Students’ strengths, interests and needs will come together, form a purpose to offer service to others, save the world right away and safeguard humanity’s long term future. Through teaching from an altruistic and spiritually awakened perspective, we plan to raise the consciousness of humanity, raise a culture of givers and safeguard our  long term future. The model will evolve into a school-development organization with a number of sister schools/partners. 

The Problem

Secondary age refugee children challenged with costly, distant schools and opt for farming in their 50sq meter plots in Kyangwali refugee settlement
 Everyone has the power to change things for the better. But too often, refugees are at the bottom of society. They lack access to education, employment, opportunities and are left with nothing more than a sense of helplessness when faced with issues like climate change, world hunger and poverty. Never the less, the real problem in education is power without character, education without purpose or how education can help students to put their education to good use. 
The function of education today is often cheapened to: 
(1) giving away power without ensuring that power is equally matched by responsibility, duty, moral, and obligation to others, and 
(2) providing knowledge without offering the purpose behind it.
(3) modern education envisions its students to be empty vessels to be filled.
The result of giving away power without character has made possible the world where the educated could use the power they received through education to steepen the precipice or take advantage of those who are less fortunate.

Why the problem persists
Congolese children frightened by violent war scenes( dead bodies)
 There's no shortage of problems in this world that need fixing. It can be hard to know where to start or how you could make any kind of difference at all. Given that Spectrum School of Design and Technology intend to develop their school into one specifically focused on using design and technology to address social challenges, the school lacks reliable energy to support computer and multimedia classes, hybrid teaching on a digital platform, the technology lab, an e-library, AR, XR and VR projects, and other technology innovations and solutions. Kyangwali refugee settlement is at a remote location without adequate access to electricity. The national electricity grid of Uganda Electricity Distribution Board is an average of about 15 km away from the households and the school. 
On average, residents and the school experience at least 14 hours of power-cuts per day.  This interrupts a number of vital services including access to household lighting, schooling, clean water, irrigation for farming and gardening, milling and other business opportunities. This in turn creates low levels of education, unemployment and poor economic conditions overall. 
Given that Spectrum is a nonprofit, cost savings from renewable energy will allow them to offer additional financial aid to more underprivileged refugee students.
Opportunity
Spectrum is here to help by transforming refugees and humanity's long term future for good through design thinking, altruism and emerging technology education to create immersive experiences that inspire refugee people and everyone to act on their values and make meaningful change. We believe in the power of empathy driven innovation combined with technology for good! Our curriculum focuses on the science of altruistic human flourishing (intrinsic learning),  exponential technologies and research. The rigorous curriculum will cultivate in students the knowledge that's beyond wit, grit and themselves. Students’ strengths, interests and needs will come together to form purpose and offer service to others. 
Spectrum and Enso are currently working with Franklin University to explore various options to access clean energy. 
Semtive, founded by Ignacio Juarez, (a Singularity Portfolio Company) builds a number of clean energy solutions that might work in the settlement.
The windmills are 95% recyclable, come with sophisticated software to integrate with grids, and are part of a business model that encourages job creation in local communities through local manufacturing, local software development, and installation. 
Spectrum will also reshape education for the world to save the world and safeguard humanity’s long term future. Through teaching from an altruistic and spiritually awakened perspective, we plan to raise the consciousness of humanity, raise a culture of givers and safeguard our  long term future.
OUR VALUE PROPOSITION 
Design. Build. Change.
Our approach to transformational design is about people, not just products.
 OUR LEADERSHIP
Three boards of directors support the mission and goals of Spectrum School of Design and Technology.
The Spectrum School of Design Board will have governance and fiduciary level control over all Spectrum of Design and Technology schools/partners. The board will operate as a public agency.
Spectrum Transformation Services is a private nonprofit to oversee the development and operation of the facilities that house SSDT schools.
Spectrum Transformation Services is a private nonprofit responsible for securing the philanthropic support needed to develop Spectrum School of Design schools. 


 Design Principles
SSDT is guided by four connected Design Principles that set aspirational goals and create a foundation for understanding our approach: 

  • Equity
  • Personalization
  • Authentic Work
  • Collaborative design

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     STORY CREATED BY BRAINY SWAIBU ON 21st January,2022.  Before the year 2021, over 1.5 million refugees would be served with food rations in Uganda. Food being offloaded from the truck to be stacked in the rub hall (warehouse).   The wait in line During the day of food distribution, people waited in zigzag queues, murmuring about the yet-to-be served rice or corn, and the relief of receiving their next rations.  Mutimukeye Butoto, 34, a refugee from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is among  the refugees in the 11:00 a.m. sun. She stands with her son, waiting to be called on by the ushers. Most parents bring their children to help them carry the food.  Once everything is set, the ushers are ready, the WFP verification desk is ready, the distribution assistants and porters are in place, the refugees  are ushered in in groups of 20-30. After about 100 people, it would be Mutimukeye's turn. She would join the line after washing her hands at the handwashing point (a precaution
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Unconditional cash grants given by LWF where one of Spectrum's team member Bruno Tumusiime works, bring joy to refugees with special needs. A visit by Brainy Swaibu

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  Woman "Anny" with some of her fermented porridge bottles are people with special needs(PSNs) -single mother and the amputee in the photo above who receive cash assistance in Kyangwali refugee settlement.    Digging, fetching water and firewood are routine household chores in most African settings. For Anny, a 25-year-old Congolese refugee, they were her only source of income. With no other means, the single mother had to traverse the forests in the night’s wee hours to make ends meet. Anny crossed Lake Albert, the natural boundary between the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Uganda, into Western Uganda in March 2018 with her four children. Settled in the Kyangwali refugee settlement, she could hardly feed her children two meals a day with the meagre food rations. The children, in return, resorted to stealing food from the neighbors and risked mob justice if the owners caught them. “I decided to start fetching and selling water and firewood to other people in the settl
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