our story
Tekmania Learning Labs is the vision of its founder and CEO, Dawn Suter. It originally began as an after-school workshop in 2015 called
TM
under the development and direction of Technology in Learning. Technology in Learning is a non-profit organization dedicated to helping Educators use technology at the Primary School level. They have been working in and around the Zürich area since 2014.
Working in partnership with foundations and strategic partners, Technology in Learning has provided free or discounted robotic and programming workshops to over 350 schools in the Zürich area, most recently expanding to Luzern and the canton of Thurgau.
Dawn originally started Technology in Learning shortly after arriving from the United States with her husband and infant daughter. Having a strong belief children today are born digital natives, she set out to help Educators at the Primary school level introduce and use technology with their students. She believed the focus should be at the primary school level, where it was critical to engage both girls and boys before the age of 9 in STEM, when "science is still cool".
Because of the interest from the students and their parents to do more after school, the Adventures in Robotics programs were developed and offered directly to the public. Due to its increasing popularity and interest, the after-school program was spun-off from Technology in Learning in 2019, and its offerings expanded to form Tekmania. Our learning labs now include workshops in Digital Animation and Coding & Gaming, in addition to our legacy offerings in Robotics and Engineering workshops for kids. After a soft opening in January 2020, and a forced shut-down due to CoronaVirus, Tekmania officially opened on 8. June 2020.
Dawn's tech culture has a Bell Labs legacy, the prestigious research and development arm of AT&T / Lucent Technologies, today part of Nokia Corporation. The idea of creating a "kids lab", a space for experimenting with STEM concepts in a playful way, was critical in the planning and design of our learning labs and course offerings. It needs to be a place that encourages children to naturally learn and discover through collaboration, sharing of knowledge, respect of their peers, while having fun at the same time.
To learn more about Technology in Learning, our founder, or their training courses for Educators please visit Technology in Learning's website:
