The Ministry of Education on Thursday donated $2.5M to the Guyana STEM Robotics team to compete in the first International Robot Olympics for high school students scheduled for Washington D.C from July 16 to 28, 2017.

The donation was made at the office of First Lady, State House to support the process. The contribution was handed over to the seven team members by Minister of Education, Nicolette Henry in the presence of First Lady, Mrs Sandra Granger.

Henry noted that her ministry is pleased to support the team and encouraged that they grab the opportunity to serve as ambassadors since “the experience would be valuable to their development.”

The seven students selected to compete on Guyana’s team are: Shawn Singh, Arianna Mahase, Anthony Frank, Chris Nelson, Deviknandan Ramnarase, Horace Mosely, Farnaz Baksh and Ricky Chand from STEM Guyana. The students will be building and programming a robot.

The FIRST Global Challenge is an international robotics event where students from nearly 160 nations worldwide will travel to Washington, D.C. this July to participate in the inaugural game. It is the organisers hope to ensure that it becomes an event that will be held in different nations annually.  Teams are comprised of high school students with the goal of increasing their knowledge of STEM so they can become the next generation of scientific leaders who will work together to solve some of the world’s most pressing problems.

Established in 2016, STEM Guyana, with support from the government as well as local and overseas sponsors, prepares young people in Guyana to use their creativity, brilliance, and innovative spirits to create technology-related solutions to problems in their community.