CIO East Africa partners with AHS to host robotics fair

CIO East Africa has on boarded the bandwidth that will lend a hand in seeing to the success of the annual Computing and Robotics Fair at Alliance High School.

The Alliance High School (AHS) has for the second time planned to host a robotics fair meant to inspire young minds in the school setup to use technology for the provision of solutions to local problems.

Dubbed; Alliance High School Computing and Robotics Fair (AHS-CR), it is themed to Encourage Creativity and Innovation in Students and will be held on 25th May 2019 at the Carey Francis Memorial Theater of Alliance High School.

The fair was first held in 2018 by the ICT Club of Alliance High on 7th July and it attracted 13 Schools with very creative and stunning projects that saw Mpesa Academy emerge the best.  It seeks to train, inspire and encourage young people from Kenya to appreciate technology and use it to provide local solutions to problems. It helps connect schools as a source of skills and center for innovation to create solutions for problems in the society, while encouraging creativity among participating students.

“While we acknowledge TV migration from analogue to digital, KRA digital portal, e-citizen, Huduma Namba, Konza City and other well digitally executed efforts, there is still a long way to attain technological independence; a recipe in the modern day economy,” says Walter Ombiro the IT Director AHS.

During the competition, students use Mobile apps, General software tools and hardware programming technology alongside robotics, general technology and web applications to directly offer solutions on to any sectors of the economy they so choose. The submissions are their group projects.

The projects then enroll the students into the award winning competition categorized and prized differently and whose winners are determined by judges drawn from the IT industry experts.  The judging criteria is based on technology, solution creativeness and students’ ability to articulate their solution.

“AHS-CRF is very critical to prepare students face true world they live in that desperately needs their intervention,” opines Walter, adding; “At this stage, Kenya should be having their own satellites up in the sky serving security, agriculture and other critical needs.”

Walter sadly remembers the first satellite bearing the ‘Kenya Label’ that was launched on 11^th May 2018 in Japan. He says that Kenya doesn’t have the heroes behind this launch that should be celebrated.

“We need to see machines and aeroplanes made in Kenya, even missiles and rockets made by Kenyan students, our citizens. We need to see our gadgets and components spurring the manufacturing sector as compared to imports.” Walter Ombiro

This he says will not just happen in one day, that it is a process of preparing young ones to do exactly such creative thinking even from school ages. The Computing and Robotics Fair should be seen as process to exactly gear and nurture such kind of growth.

“The future of AHS-CRF will be problem based, having acquired the right skills in various aspects of technology. We envision to see patented and copyrighted solutions that work us. While Kenya Education system tends to implement the new curriculum that bridges that gap, so far it is at year 3 and hope it is implement to the end,” concludes Mr. Ombiro.