Satellite savvy teens excel!

Swagga T
Empower a child and you have developed a nation. The above statement is true as many teenagers in Zimbabwe are assisting in the development of the country with their innovative and creative minds. Some have developed software packages while some choose to be designers whose clothes are worn by celebrities on television.
Keeping the culture thriving, Multichoice Zimbabwe announced the country winners of the third edition of the DStv Eutelsat Star awards competition at a prize ceremony held at their offices in Avondale yesterday.

Thabani Sibanda of Kyle College was voted the winner in the Best Entry Award category with an essay titled, ‘‘Satellites used for navigation and monitoring pollution’’.

He walked away with an HP laptop.
Speaking to Cool Lifestyle soon after award presentation, Thabani (16) said was happy and the prize will go a long way in developing his writing skills.

“I am very happy that I have represented my country so well. I took two days to research on the subject and two hours writing my essay.
‘‘I think the judges liked my essay because I wrote about programs which are done in other countries which are not in Zimbabwe and said that Zimbabwe could copy and have its own satellite programmes which will benefit us all,” he said.

Thabani highlighted the absence of modern resource centres as major challenge among others.
“Very few information is in our libraries,” he said.

Jonathan Whitaker of St John’s College was the first runner-up and walked away with an HD PVR decoder while Rudo Rukanda of Speciss College scooped the second runners-up prize with her poster.
She walked away with an HP laptop.

“Art is my passion. I designed a poster with three emerging continents sharing ideas on how they can improve Africa’s communication systems,” she said.

The awards are aimed at inspiring innovative thinking among secondary and high school students in Africa to create awareness on how science and technology can be applied to everyday life and to showcase the many ways that satellites already impact on the development of the African continent.

A big pom pom to all the teens representing!