RuralBots Initiative, Silver at DI_PLOMA Awards 2026
RuralBots Initiative received the Silver award at the DI_PLOMA Awards 2026, in the Tech Inclusion category by Worldpay.
For us, it is a recognition that matters because it puts another public confirmation on a direction we have believed in since the beginning: children in rural areas need real access to technology and quality education.
In the last two years, RuralBots Initiative It grew step by step. It started with summer workshops, continued during the school year, took children from Vasilați to their first national robotics competitions, and then expanded to Mitreni and Valea Roșie. All of this has already been documented on the ARTESA website, in articles, photos, and materials published along the way.
DI_PLOMA Awards is a competition dedicated to diversity and inclusion projects created in Romania. The 2026 edition brought together over 400 projects, evaluated by a jury of 45 professionals from companies and organizations.
The Tech Inclusion category, in which RuralBots Initiative won the Silver award, is one where the project naturally fit in. RuralBots Initiative doesn't talk about technology in the abstract, but takes it to places where access to such activities is very limited: in schools in rural communities where children have curiosity, energy and potential, but have too few opportunities to work directly with robotics, programming and applied STEAM education.
We are glad that this work has been noticed outside the communities we work in every day. Sometimes the most important results are seen in the little things: in the children who return week after week to workshops in communities where the risk of school dropout is very high, in the questions they start to ask, in the robot that walks after many attempts, in the courage to participate in a competition, in the way a rural school ends up having its own robotics lab.
Thank you Open Minds for this recognition and Worldpay for supporting a category dedicated to inclusion through technology.
We thank the children, parents, schools, partners and everyone who made this journey possible.
Together, we build a better world.