Alliance High challenges peer schools into a Computing and Robotics Fair

The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) estimates that within the next 10 years, there will be more than two million technology jobs that will not be filled due to the lack of digital specialists.

Kenyan trainers have not taken this lightly, and are up on the game to foster such skill set into students, Alliance High being the pioneer school to host a computing and robotics fair for Kenyan Secondary school students.

Happening annually at the school, the Alliance High School Computing and Robotics Fair (AHS-CRF) premiered last year and saw the Mpesa Foundation Academy bag the Best School Award.

“With the launch of its first own satellite, the investment in the KonzaCity, M-pesa,(the first ever mobile money transfer technology in the world), Change of Television transmission from Analog to Digital and shifting of government services to online like KRA, e-citizen portal and Huduma centers as well as Vision 2030 acknowledge Kenya as a tech giant and these young brains hold the future of it. It is our responsibility to prepare them (students) well enough to the reality of the unfolding world,” says Walter Ombiro the IT Director at AHS.

A robotics kit used by students at the fair

CIO East Africa, Kenya STEM Robotics, Serianu, the Cyber Security experts and Zalego Institute among other technology industry players have joined hands in support of this fair, slated on the 25^th May 2015 at the Carey Francis Memorial Theatre of Alliance High School.

Expressing her delight, the CEO CIO East Africa said; “Learning tech skills at a young age will set students up for economic independence.” Adding that the technology world is not only a specific people’s world, even challenging students to go for the tech careers after school. “You can do it students, bring the spring back into the tech space,” Laura concluded.

The participating schools include Kenya High, Nova Academy, Alliance High (Host), Mpesa Foundation ACAdemy, Alliance Girls among others. They will get an opportunity to learn and experience a 4-minute pitch to the world while competing for the top awards as well as interact with the top-tier industry players of the tech space.

Students interact with robotics equipment during the premier robotics fair in Alliance High

Students will present projects undertaken by a team of five in the following categories: –

Mobile App development (Android/IOS/Windows)
Hardware Programming (Robotics, Open hardware (Arduino, Raspberry Pi, Intel)
Software Engineering (Python, C++, Java, Microsoft Azure)
Website technologies (HTML, CSS, PHP, MySQL).

The winning projects get awards ranging from Laptops, mobile phones, flash disks and other awards shall be awarded to winning team from Judges to determine the winning projects shall be drawn from Industry Leaders and Universities in the field of technology. Participating schools will also be awarded for promoting Information and Communication Technology.

The Computing & Robotics Fair 2019 looks forward to working with more likeminded organizations and institution that promote innovation, creativity and technology to provide solutions to our local challenges and numerous untapped opportunities.

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