President Akufo-Addo has lauded the sterling performance of students of Prempeh College in Kumasi and Methodist Girls Senior High School (Mamfe Girls) in this year’s Robofest World Championship and 2020 World Robotic Competition respectively.
This was when students from both schools who participated in the two separate competitions called on him at the presidency on Monday to present their trophies to him.
The President expressed the belief that the youngsters have the power to change Ghana through their mastery of artificial intelligence.
The Robotics team from Prempeh College, were crowned champions of this year’s Robofest World Championship which was held virtually due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Prempeh College team which was among the six representatives from Ghana, beat 21 other contenders in the senior game GolfBowl.
Methodist Girls Senior High School also emerged winners of the 2020 World Robotic Competition for the second time.
In all, thirteen (13) second year students in the robotic club, participated and emerged winners of the World Robotics and Coding Competition also organised virtually by Intelik/Robogroup from the USA and Israel as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The President thus reiterated his government’s commitment to help develop Science, Engineering, Technology and Math (STEM) education.
He believes artificial intelligence (AI), is the surest way to a future of greatness and prosperity for the country when well tapped.
This, the President says, is evident in the story of Silicon Valley which has changed the way the world works.
“The people who begun Silicon Valley were very young people at the time, not much older than you are and they have changed the way our world works. So you have it in your power also to come and change the way Ghana works and change it for the better,” he said.
The Robofest World Championship is designed to promote and support Science, Engineering, Technology and Math (STEM) education.
Teams from Canada, Egypt, Ghana, Hong Kong, India, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, South Korea, Taiwan, the United Arab Emirates, and the United States of America showed up to unveil their extraordinary efforts and perseverance in the competition.
The participating teams were tasked to design, construct, and program their robots to act independently and compete for trophies in a variety of competitions.
A total of six teams represented Ghana at this year’s competition, namely; MomaGolf from Mount Olivet Methodist Academy, EddyGolf, MikoGolf and AgyengoGolf from Prempeh College and private groups; CMOS and PSIBOT.
MomaGolf and CMOS represented Ghana in the junior GolfBowl game while all Prempeh College teams took part in the Senior Game. PSIBOT was engaged in the senior Unknown Mission Challenge (UMC).
By Charles Takyi-Boadu