Chips in Schools and European partnerships: Discover technology together

Factsheet international and EU partnerships: Discover technology together

Junior IOT Education (Junior IOT Onderwijs BV) delivers hands-on technology workshops, Teach-the-teacher training, and complete classroom worksets for primary education (ages 8 to 12), secondary education, vocational education (VET), and beyond. Delivering over 100,000 STEM learner contact hours annually, our approach is built to be inviting, inclusive, and directly applicable in the classroom. By working with small, achievable steps and real-world industrial components, every learner and educator experiences within minutes: “I can do this.”

With our fourth theme, Chips in Schools, Junior IOT provides an accessible, hands-on introduction to the semiconductor and microelectronics sector for learners from 8 to 77 years old.

Early activation to strengthen the European talent pipeline

Addressing the structural skills gap in engineering and microelectronics requires inspiring young learners long before they choose their study profiles or career paths. This need for early, sustained engagement in primary and secondary education is a central conclusion in the European Chips Skills Academy (ECSA) report Skills Strategy 2025: Update on the Talent Gap in the EU Semiconductor Ecosystem.

Junior IOT provides a practical mechanism to bring this ambition straight into the classroom. We create streamlined, interconnected workshops that fit seamlessly into existing school schedules and school curricula, building a lasting personal connection between young learners and the technologies that drive Europe’s high-tech and semiconductor industry.

Our four interconnected technology themes

Our workshop series starts with tangible electronics skills and expands step by step into 3D prototyping, coding, and microelectronics. The activities are so engaging that students and teachers are eager to keep building even during their break:

  • Electronics & Soldering: Learners are guided to learn from each other,  discovering how electricity works by building their first circuit with a battery and an LED. After their first soldering connection, students help each other and build creative electronic models and PCB circuits.
  • 3D Design & 3D Printing: We introduce design and prototyping skills using accessible design software such as Tinkercad or SketchUp Web. Students collaborate to design their own 3D objects en learn to operate the Prusa Mini 3D printer in the classroom to discover and grow their own engineering skills.
  • Building & Programming: Using electronic components and breadboards familiar from earlier sessions, students take the step into coding through a clear, block-based programming interface (such as PictoBlox or Scratch) to control Arduino microcontrollers, sensors, and motors. This provides schools with a much simplified approach, enabling confidence in the schools to build their own projects on top of this workshop.
  • Chips in Schools: Our dedicated workshop track that demystifies the world of microchips, cleanrooms, and photonics right at the classroom desk. Starting with ‘Chips in LEDs’, learners engage with chips at microscopic scale, gaining an ‘inside’ view of the chips production pipeline. Their first hands-on introduction into the world of semiconductor technology helps them in creating a long lasting connection with this important sector!

Chips in Schools: from classroom to cleanroom

With Chips in Schools, learners explore microelectronics at a microscopic scale and experience the core principles of semiconductor manufacturing:

  • Chips in Leds: In our foundational workshop Chips in Leds, students use digital microscopes to inspect the inside of different LEDs they have worked with in earlier lessons. They discover and sketch the semiconductor die and the delicate gold wire bonds, gaining a true ‘inside view’ of microelectronics.
  • Desktop photolithography and PCB etching: Learners experience the principles of lithography, masking, and chemical etching by creating and soldering their own functional copper circuit board in the classroom.

Proven international milestones

  • Launch at SEMICON Europa 2025 in Munich: Junior IOT launched the Chips in Schools series and the Chips in Leds workshop on the European stage during SEMICON Europa in Munich, as part of the From Classroom to Cleanroom: Building the Talent Pipeline programme in the TECHarena and at the EU Innovation Cluster.
  • University-accredited Teach-the-teacher at Infineon Austria: Together with Infineon Technologies in Villach en the University College of Teacher Education Carinthia (PH Kärnten), Junior IOT delivered an international, university-accredited Teach-the-teacher training for 20 Austrian educators. Read more about this collaboration at: https://junioriot.nl/chips-of-europe/

How we work: from classroom delivery to Teach-the-teacher

To create sustainable regional school implementation across Europe, Junior IOT Education (Junior IOT Onderwijs) combines four complementary elements:

  1. Hands-on classroom workshops: In the Netherlands and selected project regions through Europe, our trained Junior IOT instructors bring all soldering workstations, 3D printers, microscopes, and classroom materials directly into primary and secondary schools.
  2. Co-teaching in the classroom: The school’s own teachers and lab assistants participate actively alongside their students during our workshops, experiencing how accessible and rewarding the workflow is.
  3. Teach-the-teacher training for educators: For schools, universities of education, and international partners across Europe, we provide dedicated Teach-the-teacher training sessions. Educators master the worksets and materials, safety routines, and inclusive didactic approach so they can confidently run the workshops themselves.
  4. Standardised classroom worksets and materials: To run the same program in their own location, schools and regional partners can acquire the exact same durable classroom worksets, low-voltage soldering workstations, Prusa Mini 3D printers, microscope worksets, and consumable kits used by our own team, supported by our step-by-step online workshop guides.

Opportunities for Junior IOT integration in European programmes

As a registered SEMI Member (ID: 1201032), partner within the European Chips Skills Academy (ECSA) network, and member of the European Commission’s Pact for Skills (ID: 3774), Junior IOT Education actively collaborates with industry, governments, and educational alliances. We offer concrete opportunities for Junior IOT integration within:

  • European Chips Competence Centres (CCCs) and national skills hubs: Providing a ready-to-deploy STEM outreach toolkit, Teach-the-teacher training, and classroom worksets to connect regional schools with national semiconductor ecosystems.
  • Industry SROI and IPCEI Microelectronics spillover: Partnering with semiconductor and high-tech companies to deliver measurable, high-impact regional school implementation around industrial sites (such as our structural collaboration within the StemUp programme with ASML).
  • European consortia (Erasmus+, Digital Europe, Horizon Europe, Interreg): opportunities to contribute proven primary and secondary STEM workshops, inclusive pedagogy, and scalable educator training to international work packages.

Connect with Junior IOT Education

Our workshops, training formats, and classroom worksets are ready for international scale-up. Would you like to explore a partnership, organise a Teach-the-teacher session in your country, or bring Chips in Schools to your region?