MIT Graduate Dreams To Build Nigerias' First STEM Campus - Guide to Nigeria tourism, local culture & investments
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MIT Graduate Dreams To Build Nigerias’ First STEM Campus

Most alumni of the prestigious Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Boston have their decision of six-figure-compensation occupations after graduation.

In this case, for one graduate, an alternate calling has implied he’s relinquished an agreeable life and gone out on a limb to take after his fantasy: to open Africa’s first STEM (Science Technology Engineering Mathematics) campus in Nigeria.

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Ukwuani working with students of the Robotics training program

 

Nigerian-American Obinna Ukwuani, who experienced childhood in Washington D.C., did a reversal to Nigeria for eighth and ninth grades as his family felt it was critical for him to know his foundations. He had a disclosure when he returned amid his first year at MIT.

“I got together with my companions, the companions and cohorts I’d met amid my time there and it was stunning to perceive how long ways behind me they were. It was an undeniable affair for me,” says Ukwuani. The edge, he understood, was because of his tutoring in the United States. The awkwardness he remembered, he says, “was an injustice.”

“In the U.S., if you buckle down, you’ll be fine in this life. So I had that minute where I knew I needed to enhance things in Nigeria.”

 

Robotics training camp

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Students showing great passion for the Robotics Program

Ukwuani’s sudden acknowledgement, in the long run, prompted to the dispatch of an apply autonomy summer school in Lagos for secondary school understudies from 2012 to 2014. The Exposure Robotics Academy educated 113 young men and young ladies from 17 states around Nigeria how to code and assemble robots.

The five-week private program contracted MIT understudies to coach Nigerian secondary school understudies in a program supported by Shell Oil.

As of late, a narrative in light of the program, “Naija Beta”, won “Best Documentary Film” at the Roxbury International Film Festival. He’s trusting on rehashing the involvement with another STEM school.

 

Going out on a limb

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They made everything possible out of nowhere

Its initial days, however, beginning venture for the school, to be called Makers Academy, is occurring, and Ukwuani’s restless nights are beginning to pay off.

“I truly have faith in what I’m doing,” he says.

In the wake of composing a marketable strategy, Ukwuani burned through five months shopping it around before four financial investors approached, everyone offering a $50,000 speculation.

“It’s a long haul display. It could be 10 years before they recover their cash,” he says.

 

Producers Academy

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Students showing demo as a presentation

Ukwuani trusts Nigeria’s greatest issue right away is that the nation doesn’t create anything. “We import everything, and it returns to instruction. We’re not benefiting work,” he says. He’s planning to change that. At the point when the school opens in Abuja (he anticipates this will happen in 2018 or 2019), Ukwuani is going for 600 understudies living on the Makers Academy campus.

While there are different schools in Africa offering STEM instruction, the Academy would be the main advancement focus where students have admittance to devices, for example, laser-cutters, 3D-printers, carpentry hardware and the sky is the limit from there, says Ukwuani.

Like him, the students will have a specific capability in science and a bent for building things.

“I was dismantling things when I was 10 years of age. If you had obtained a remote control car, I would tear it and set up it back together,” recalls Ukwuani.

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Result of complete dedication and determination

The current monetary circumstance in Nigeria could be an advantage, he says. The retreat is driving individuals to take kids concentrate abroad back to Nigeria. “Presently like never before we require more choices – and we don’t have them.” Hopefully, Makers Academy will be the first of numerous for Nigeria’s childhood.

Oladimeji Adisa

A Nigerian that love to write and do research on everything. I am an #artist, #publisher and an #entrepreneur. I was the 145th winner of #PointsofLightAward by #UKPrimeMinister for my works in over 500 UK #Schools with over 1000 children and young people. There is only one me. @oladimeji

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