STEM training hosted for youths

To increase innovations in the areas of technological creations, some twenty-five youths were on Thursday engaged in a training exercise facilitated by STEM Guyana (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics), in collaboration with the Department of Youth.
This collaboration between the Department of Youth and STEM Guyana was a two-day exercise, and one of the first training activities that was organised for the young individuals who are interested in learning the art of robotics.
It is seen primarily as a way of fostering youth involvement and engagement in the varying fields of the Science, Technology Engineering, Mathematics (STEM) initiative.
One of the co-founders of STEM Guyana, Ima Christian, in her remarks at the commencement of Thursday’s training exercise, noting that these efforts will enable students to learn the skills of robotics and programming, as well as computational thinking.
“We want these students to be able to be trained and ingratiated enough with the information, so that they may then go ahead and join our robotics league.”
She also noted that, as part of the robotics league, the participants will be given challenges every week on an interdisciplinary topic which will require them to program robots and discover solutions to these problems. This is part of an online challenge that was created to keep the minds of these young individuals active and inventive.
“The goal is that they are able to engage with the subject matter while at the same time, pursuing technology to develop solutions to these problems that we pose to them every single week. It’s a very competitive focus to the platform, because we want people to be engaged and incentivised,” Christian posited.
Meanwhile, the Director of Youth, Melissa Carmichael, emphasised that technology is an important factor in creating innovative creations which can help mankind and moreover, the environment.
“We believe that young people across Guyana, especially the out-of-school and unattached young people, will be able to benefit from this partnership. We’re looking forward to great things happening for our young people in various communities (in) regard to innovation, technology and robotics as we continue to create for them safe spaces.”
She noted that the Department will this year also be facilitating a youth camp, themed “Innovate to Accelerate”, which is also part of the collaboration with STEM Guyana. The camp will run from July 23 to August 17, and will reach every administrative region of Guyana.
“Every region will have at least three maximum, minimum two, camps for the July-August period. Again, young people will be exposed to robotics, recycling, tenets of the green economy, [and] animation to some extent,” the director said.