Soresa Tadesse is attending his secondary education in Saden Adea Secondary School in Bishoftu city. Parallel his formal class, Soresa joins Foka STEM Energy in Bishoftu as he has special interest to science and math subjects. After he joined the Foka STEM Center, it helped him to develop his knowledge and cultivate his talents in the science field. The practical education he received from the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) center helped him not only to develop his knowledge in the fields, but also to translate his idea into innovational products.
By innovate an Autonomous Driving Robot; Soresa came to compute at the 9th National Science and Engineering Fair, organized by Ministry of Education with other stakeholders at Addis Ababa Science and Technology University (AASTU), in Addis Ababa where talented primary and high school students from across the country attend the competition. Participated for the first time at the national Science Fair, Soresa won the national Science Fair (students’ competition) in robotics category.
Speaking to The Ethiopian Herald, Soresa said that beyond winning the competition in robotics category, the experience he learnt from the science fair is more valuable to realize his vision. “The competition is interesting as it exhibits a lot of innovations created by students and I am happy for winning the robotics category. Beyond winning the competition, the experience means a lot for me,” Soresa said mentioning the four days experience sharing event with other talented participant students and from the invited guests.
Soresa’s Autonomous Driving Robot, is a robot designed to perform its activities by moving from place to place independently using its automatic sensors. It has the ability to detect obstacles and safely pass the obstacles during its movement. He designed the robot dreaming to develop robotics in Ethiopia. He said that the robot is designed to perform different tasks in factories to fulfill difficult tasks.
Soresa is dreaming to realize his idea of creating a company and manufacturing his own designed robot for actual purpose as it currently is at prototype level. As to him, his participation at the national science fair, the experience he got from the fair and the recognition he received as he won the robotics sector competition initiated him to continue working on translating his innovative ideas into a practical product. So far there is no autonomous driving car in Ethiopia, Soresa said adding despite his current idea is autonomous robot, he is dreaming to create an autonomous driving car in Ethiopia in the future. Soresa calls the youth generation to cultivate their talents, to give due focus to science and math education and to join STEM Centers to develop their innovative talents as there are theoretical and practical trainings.
Yonathan Afework, is a grade 12 student in Adama City and parallel to his formal class he joined the Adama Science and Technology University STEM Center as he loves science and math subjects. Yonathan also participated at the National Science and Engineering Fair bringing his own designed IOT Assisted Vertical Fodder Producing Machine. He designed the machine after taking the practically-supported trainings he got from the STEM Center.
Yonathan’s ideas is to produce a machine that can produce nutrient-rich fodder as he realized there is a shortage of fodder especially during dry seasons. His idea is to develop a machine that can produce nutrient-rich fodder to address shortage of fodder in Ethiopia, a country with top livestock resource in Africa. Yonathan also won the competition in the category at the ninth national science and engineering fair, which brings talented innovator teachers and students from across 29 STEM Centers and 10 regional states of Ethiopia.
“I am happy as I won the competition in the specific category at national level and it initiates me to translate it in to practical project,” Yonathan noted dreaming to create a company in the future.
“The key issue here is not to win the competition, but translating the ideas into practical projects that can solve existing problems” he underlined. He eyes to create a business and wealth by realizing his innovative idea into a meaningful project in the near future. As to him, his innovative machine was designed to produce fodder by using sustainable inputs with variety of nutrients.
Teachers and Educational Leadership Development Lead CEO, Muluken Negatu (PhD) said that the national science and engineering fair is organized for the ninth round and is organizing in connection with World Science Day. The main goal of organizing the national teachers and students’ science fair, according to him, is to develop STEM education in Ethiopia as it is key driver of development.
Approached by The Ethiopian Herald, Muluken said that Ethiopia gives due attention to quality education and the science sector remains top priority in this regard. As to him, the development of developed countries was achieved by developing STEM education. Hence, in addition to working on developing quality education at school level, the Ministry of Education started organizing national science and engineering competition to cultivate talents, to promote innovators and researchers in the STEM education. During the 9 rounds, the National Science and Engineering Fair promote a lot of innovators, researchers and entrepreneurs currently creating and owning technological companies. The national annual competition promotes science education and creates competition among students.
In addition to the national level competition, Muluken said that, Ministry of Education is creating structures to promote lower structures to organize science and engineering fairs at regional, zonal, district and school levels. This helps to cultivate talents at the grassroots level early and develop the competition. The national participants, as to him, are winners from each area and the winners at the national level are winners of winners.
“The fair brings not only competitive participants, but also stakeholders from various sectors and company owners with the aim of creating linkages between the innovators and stakeholders to help realizing the innovations,” Muluken reiterated. As to him, the aim of the annual science fair is not limited to award the winners, but to promote youths to continue invest on innovations and to support the innovators to create linkages with companies and entrepreneurs to achieve their goal. As to him, the goals is all about creating innovative businesses, promoting scientific innovations and promote local technological inventions to create local technology companies.
For example, Ezedin Kamil, founder and CEO of IBEX Technologies, was among the winners of the national science fair some six years ago. By developing his idea, Ezedin created his own technology company creating a lot of job opportunities for youths. Ezedin visited the 9th science fair and inspired the innovators to continue working on their innovations and create their own businesses. He translated his innovative technological ideas in to products and becomes an entrepreneur. He shares his experience to the participants and calls youths to continue working on develop their talents and create businesses by translating the talents in to products. “You have to continue to realize your problem-solving innovations. You have to use this opportunity to elevate your project ideas in to new heights,” he added.
Mentioned the success of Ezedin, Muluken further stated that the national competition is hunting talents to help realize their innovations and the fair shows significance progress from year to year. As to him, Ministry of Education is working to strengthen the science fair at school and local levels to reach and hunt talented students in rural areas of the country.
BY DARGIE KAHSAY
THE ETHIOPIAN HERALD FRIDAY 29 NOVEMBER 2024
