From twelve clubs to 232 – and counting
We started in 2019 with twelve clubs, set up as after-school workshops for children and young people aged 9 to 15 in rural regions. Today there are 232: 150 in Vietnam, 56 in Bhutan, 9 each in Cambodia and Laos, 8 in Kenya. In 2025 alone, 4,284 young people developed 798 new projects in these clubs – bringing the total since launch to 1,568 solutions to real problems. Our next milestone: 500 clubs by 2030, across Asia and Africa.
Standing on their own
Start-up funding. We train the Master-Trainers and teachers continuously fand fund the full technical set-up, hardware and software. We carry the initial risk.
Transition. Pupils apply their new AI skills to real problems in their communities – and prove the value of the club in doing so.
Handover. From the fourth year, the club passes into the full ownership of the school as planned. The school takes on the running costs, and the club continues without us.
From fundamentals to a project of their own
Before project work begins, participants learn the basics: coding with Scratch and Python, first AI concepts, working with Micro:bit and similar tools. They then go deeper into areas such as finance, cybersecurity, artificial intelligence and blockchain. In the club they build on that – from the first prototype to a finished application.
A proving ground, not just a classroom
The clubs are more than a place to learn. Participants have already won over 50 awards at national and international competitions. In 2025, a project from Quang Tri province in Vietnam – a self-driving wheelchair for people with ALS – took fourth place at the Regeneron International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF) in the United States.
Digital entrepreneurship: from project to business idea
Each year we select around 250 of the strongest participants for our digital entrepreneurship programme. Volunteer mentors from companies including Google, Microsoft, Intel and Qualcomm coach them intensively so that they can compete in business plan competitions. We developed the curriculum ourselves; several universities in Vietnam have already adopted it for their own students.
Open to the community
The Tech Clubs do not stay behind school walls. They are open to the local community as well. Schools become places where digital skills are visible and shared.
Scalable – and eventually without us
We support each Dariu Tech Club for no more than three years, funded by a mix of local and international sources. Responsibility then passes to the school. What remains is not a dependency but a structure that can carry itself. We do not design programmes to stay. We design them to be handed over.
