GOVERNOR Willie Obiano has confirmed the six students of Regina Pacis Secondary School, Onitsha for a U.S., trip to represent Nigeria and Africa at the  World Pitch Competition in San Francisco.

Obiano said this when he received the students at EXCO Chambers, Government House, Awka.

The students who were trained in Robotics and Coding technology in solving science technology, engineering and mathematics problems placed first in Nigeria for designing Fake Drug Fighting application.

The competition, which was held in Abuja sometime in May, was organised by a United States -based Technovation, NGO.

The six students, who are in Senior Secondary School 2 are Adaeze Onuigbo, Miracle Igboka, Nwabuaku Osai, Promise Nnalue, Jessica Osita and Vivian Okoye.

The students, who were finalists in the 2018 Technovation, would travel to Silicon Valley, US, for the World Pitch Competition, including a week of networking, field trips and workshops.

The competition will provide them opportunity to win between $5,000 and $15,000 in scholarships to pursue further studies in Science Technology, Engineering Education, STEM, field.

“It will also sharpen their skills and improve their knowledge of applications.’’

Uchenna Onwuamaegbu-Ugwu, trainer and founder of Edufun Technik STEM Centre, said Robotic and Coding Technology simplifies the learning of sciences for secondary school children.

Onwuamaegbu-Ugwu is the 2017 Mandela Washington Fellow and 2018 Barrack Obama African Leadership Fellow.

She said that in January 2018, her agency in partnership with Technovation volunteered to teach some group of young girls the skills they needed to emerge as technology entrepreneurs and leaders.

“We do this by inviting girls to identify a problem in their community, and then challenge them to solve it.

“With our support and guidance, the girls worked in teams to build mobile app and business plan to lunch the app with the guide of Technovation curriculum.

“We formed two teams of 10 girls who worked and worked toward building two mobile Apps.’’

She added: “the first team is known as Team Feed the Nation (Senior), and they produced iFOOD application, which helps the farmers to maximize their profit and ensure the safety consumption by consumers.

“It also provides a platform for the farmers to deal directly with the consumers. This will help to curb the problem of hunger in our society as farmers will be able to make more profit through this application.

“The second team, known as Team Save a Soul (Junior) produced FD-Detector (Fake Drug Detector), which helps to identify fake pharmaceutical drugs in Nigeria.

“The Application leverages a drug’s barcode to verify its authenticity and expiration date.

“After we submitted our Mobile Apps online to compete with the rest of the world, our two Mobile Apps were shortlisted for regional pitch in Abuja to compete with 36 other Teams/Mobile Apps,’’ she said.

Onwuamaegbu-Ugwu, who noted that the girls were the only ones coming from the Eastern region, said that at the end of the regional competition in Abuja, the senior category took the 1st position while the junior category also placed 1st too.

This qualified the Anambra Teams for semi-final, enabling them to compete with not less than 115 countries and about 1,500 mobile Apps.

“The chances of emerging as finalist seems very odd because other countries seem to be more advanced in technology than these girls who for the first time are using the internet and opening an email account for the first time in their lives.

“The determination in them and the passion to solve problems of fake drugs, kept their hopes alive; they knew it was a life time opportunity,’’ Onwuamaegbu-Ugwu said.

For the girls, this is an opportunity to make Nigeria, their school and state proud as well as be opportune to visit the biggest technology industries in the world like Google, Facebook and IBM.

They will also network with other students to learn more about what careers would be available in STEM for them.

Two of the girls, Igboka Miracle and Promise Nnalue said the training exposed them to many opportunities to be connected to the world.

They commended Obiano for embracing measures that would enhance proper learning and improving their productivity.

Receiving them, Obiano who was elated at their performance announced a cash donation of N1 million to the teacher and N500, 000 each to the students.

He also directed that robotics and coding teaching technology be replicated in other schools in the state.

Jul. 31, 2018 @ 18:09 GMT |