YSK, BLAZE By Safaricom and Education Ministry hosts bootcamp for 2019 exhibition winners

Young Scientists Kenya (YSK) in collaboration with BLAZE by Safaricom and the Ministry of Education has today kicked off a week-long bootcamp for last year’s winners of the YSK contest at Strathmore University, Nairobi.

The bootcamp aims to give the forty five students with outstanding scientific projects an opportunity to showcase their ideas and get trained on intellectual property (IP) protection and making their solutions sustainable. This will also give them an opportunity to interact with various public and private sector industries like Isuzu, Safaricom and Kenya Agriculture and Livestock Research Organization (KALRO) among others.

“As a company whose success is founded on innovation, we believe that we owe it to all our children to give them a chance to play a part in transforming Kenya through encouraging innovation in STEM. I would like to urge all stakeholders, from public sector to private sector, academia to investors, to make this vision of making STEM accessible to all a reality,” said Charles Kare Wanjohi, Consumer Business Unit Director, Safaricom.

The 2019 exhibition had numerous outstanding projects with that of a Universal Health Care Solution System by Iyad Tahlar and Tanvi Hirani from SCLP Samaj School being crowned as the overall best scientific innovation of the year. The two also got a chance to visit Ireland Courtesy of Irish Embassy to learn from other young innovators.

In line with supporting girls in STEM, Safaricom is also giving training platforms in engineering to young women in high school, colleges and universities through its Women in Technology Programme.