The Social Entrepreneur Using 3D Printing to Build Schools

Maggie Grout was born in a rural village in Dawu County, Hubei, in China. When she was just a few days old, an orphanage worker found her abandoned in a basket. Grout was adopted when she was around 18 months old, and brought to the U.S.

It was this “transformative experience” that ultimately inspired her to come up with the idea for Thinking Huts in 2015, when she was a teenager. The organization is a nonprofit dedicated to building schools in communities that need them.

Now 25, Grout says her start in life prompted her to think about “how lucky we really are to have even basic essentials that a lot of people just don’t,” especially access to education.

When Grout was in high school in Colorado, she became interested in technology, including 3D printing. “I just had the idea that maybe we could have this technology applied to more of a humanitarian perspective in constructing schools,” she says. “That’s what set off that journey.”

Thinking Huts aims to “bridge this divide between poverty and opportunity” through education, Grout says. The nonprofit uses an architectural-scale 3D printer to produce the construction material needed to build schools. Grout opted for 3D printing because it can speed up the construction process and because its precision reduces the generation of waste. The nonprofit opened its first school in 2022 in Madagascar, and three more are expected to be completed by 2025 in the same country, according to Grout. Thinking Huts works with local partners to ensure that the schools will be staffed and maintained.

Grout remains focused on the ever growing need for schools. Africa alone will need 9 million classrooms by 2050. “I think 3D printing can fill that gap,” she says, “if other people are able to also replicate it.”

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