A free Saturday programme where young people learn to look at an ordinary farm and see the opportunities everyone else walks past, then use technology to do something about them.
Every Saturday, a small group of young people meet at our farm in Odogbolu. They spend the morning learning how clever ideas actually get made, and the rest of the day trying to make one.
The programme is built on a single idea: most real innovation does not start with someone saying "let's build an app". It starts with someone noticing a resource that is already there and going unused: spare time, idle equipment, local knowledge, wasted crop, an empty building, or a skill nobody is calling on. Technology is what connects that resource to the person who needs it.
So we do not begin by teaching our students to code an idea. We begin by teaching them to find one.
The method
Find the value. Find the need. Build the connection.
1
Find what is going to waste
Knowledge, time, land, water, tools, transport, crop waste, empty buildings, skills. Students walk the farm and the community looking for value that is sitting idle.
2
Find who needs it
A resource is only useful if somebody is trying to reach it and cannot. Students have to name a real person with a real problem, not a vague market.
3
Build the connection
Only now does technology enter, as the bridge between the two. Often the answer is far cheaper and simpler than the obvious one.
Underused resource + human problem + simple connection = innovation
Every idea has to survive contact with the actual farm.
How a Saturday runs
From a real example to an idea of their own
A real case study. We start with something that genuinely worked somewhere in the world, and take it apart to find the principle underneath it.
Out to the farm. Students go into the field, planting, checking crops, looking at the tools and the waste, with a specific question to answer.
Build or design. Back at the laptops, they turn what they found into something: a sketch, a map, a simple clickable prototype, a plan.
Present it. Every student presents their own work, in their own words, to camera. They have to explain the problem, the obvious expensive answer, and why their answer is better.
Saturday session, Odogbolu.
What we have studied so far
Learning from ideas that already work
Our students learn from real platforms and real campaigns, how they work, and more importantly, why they work.
United Hatzalah
Volunteer first responders reach an emergency before the ambulance can.
Be My Eyes
A sighted volunteer lends their eyesight to a blind user over video.
OLIO
Surplus food from one household becomes dinner in another.
Wheelmap
Thousands of tiny observations build one accessibility map.
Zooniverse
Five spare minutes of attention becomes scientific research.
Missing Maps
Volunteers map vulnerable communities before disaster arrives.
PlantVillage Nuru
Crop disease diagnosis inside a farmer's phone.
Farm Radio / Uliza
Agricultural advice built for radio and basic phones, not smartphones.
From these, our students have worked on ideas of their own for Nigerian agriculture, including Farm Eyes (photograph a sick crop or animal and reach someone who knows), Farm Map Nigeria (a community-built map of boreholes, tractors, mechanics, vets and agro-input shops) and Farm Share (a local board for the tractor, the spare transport or the workers that would otherwise sit idle tomorrow).
A constraint that changes the thinking
The £0 Invention Challenge
Students are not allowed to solve problems by spending money. They cannot buy new equipment, add a new rule, or hire anybody. They have to find something valuable that is already being wasted around them and put it to work.
It teaches the habit that matters most: discover invisible resources first, build technology second.
Who it is for
Curious young people in and around Odogbolu
Secondary-school age young people in and around Odogbolu who are curious, willing to speak up, and happy to get their hands dirty on a working farm.
No prior coding experience is needed. No laptop is needed, we provide them. What we ask for is attendance, effort, and a willingness to present your own thinking out loud.
Practical details
Where
Mooshi Farm, Odogbolu, Ogun State
When
Every Saturday
Cost
Free to attend
Ages
11 to 17
Equipment
Laptops and materials are provided
Places
Limited. We keep the group small deliberately, so every student presents their own work every week.
Local to Odogbolu? Enrol your child.
If you are local to our farm in Odogbolu and you would like your child to join the Saturday Tech Farm School, send us a message on WhatsApp. Tell us your child's name and age and we will let you know about the next available place.
