Last month, 11 Nigerian students came all the way from Gboko, Benin and Lagos, to Phoenix to showcase innovative projects at the 2013 Intel International Science and Engineering Fair. On the last day of the week-long event, I invited them to my Science, Technology and Society department at Arizona State University. They were received by Dr. Frederick Corey, my dean in the School of Letters and Sciences.
All work and no play can make even smart Eisenstein geniuses go dull. And so after the formal meeting, we broke out for a tour of my beautiful campus. A colleague, Ms. Deanna Lara, volunteered as the tour guide. The kids were amazed at our smart and wired classrooms. The library was another point of attraction, as much for the extensive collection as for the art pieces on the walls.
The final site was our brand-new student recreation centre. The state d'art gym, exercise rooms and swimming pool magnetised the kids so much so that it was hard to get some of them off the treadmills! I told them the facilities are free for registered students. My heart went out to the parents as I suspect that ASU would be a topic of conversation in the coming weeks. To tour my campus is to fall in love with it!
As part of the all-work-and-no-play principle, we ended the day at 'Chez Obong'. I wanted the team to meet the rest of my family as well as relax in a home environment after a week of shuttling between their hotel and the Phoenix Convention Centre. Also, someone had mentioned that it was the birthday of one of the students from Calvary Arrows College, Gboko. (Her team's project was an audio-visual learning aid for the blind.) This called for an impromptu celebration, considering that it was the famous 'Sweet 16'. We just couldn't let the day pass by silently even though the birthday girl struck me as a quietly efficient young lady disinclined to drawing attention to herself.
After a few 'conspiratorial whisperings' between the adults and I, a cake 'surfaced', complete with 16 candles! I enjoyed every moment that I spent with the students and their accompanying adults. I must say though that watching the look of surprise on the student's face when I walked into the family room with the birthday cake was the climax of the day for me. Perhaps, I was vicariously celebrating my own Sweet 16, an event that happened so long ago that it doesn't feel like I was ever that young!
Anyhow, this conversation about my contact with the Genius Illumina team began last week. I received lots of feedback with many readers applauding Dr. Jerry Orhue's work through Genius Illumina. One reader even offered to contribute material support to the organisation's efforts to promote science education in Nigerian schools. One commentator however 'challenged' me to list the names of the students on the team otherwise s/he would conclude that I'm merely promoting the students' schools.
I had never heard of these schools before May 17, 2013 when I met the 11 students. I have no stake whatsoever in these schools but we must acknowledge that these students did not emerge from a vacuum. That the success of the students is a product of their school environment, structure and priorities should be incontrovertible.
This is confirmed by an e-mail from an enthusiastic reader who said she knows the proprietor of Doregos Private Academy (one of the three schools), Mrs. Clementina Abeke Doregos. According to the reader, Mrs. Doregos is "an unassuming and active woman and motivator" who "has also produced some of the youngest Microsoft certified geniuses." Similarly, my attention was directed to the fact that students at Calvary Arrows College, Gboko, Benue, consistently score highly in national exams. A great school will undoubtedly produce winning students. (The third school was University Preparatory Secondary School, Benin City)
It's also about the students. This may explain why of all the adults who came to Phoenix, only one teacher, Mr. Olaide Lawal, was on the team. On an aside, it was eminently satisfying to learn that Mr. Lawal is an "ardent reader" of this column and remembers more 'Medals' than I can recall ever writing! He's a science teacher at Doregos, the school that produced the team with the urine project ('Urine: Metabolic Waste or Energy Source').
The students came to Phoenix, Arizona to represent Nigeria first, and then their schools. Their participation at the fair also affirmed the work of Genius Illumina and the fact that we don't always have to wait for the 'government' to create innovation. This is why I hope that some venture capitalists will provide these students with the opportunity to scale their projects for the greater good. Innovation in science, technology and engineering must have immediate social benefit or it's of no use.
However, I don't have to list the name of each student to prove that my contact with the team was not a ploy to promote their schools.
