Nisti’s Open Innovation Challenge |03 October 2020
The certificate recipients in souvenir photographs (Photos: Jude Morel)
More students rewarded
Following last week’s ceremony to reward the winners of the Open Innovation Challenge, the National Institute of Science, Technology and Innovation (Nisti) hosted a certificate ceremony for the remaining students who participated in the challenge.
The ceremony was hosted at the Site auditorium in separate groups, primary students first followed by secondary and post-secondary participants, on account of the public health measures.
The student innovators had to conceptualise and pitch their innovations in keeping with the competition’s theme: ‘Developing innovative solutions for the Covid-19 pandemic and post-pandemic Seychelles’.
The initiative was a call to action for students to join forces to tackle one of the greatest challenges of the 21st century so far and co-create impactful, innovating solutions.
Nisti received a total of 42 projects under the primary category, of which only 28 were successful to go through the pitching competition. Meanwhile 25 projects were registered under the secondary school category and after screening process 23 were successful for the pitching competition. Post-secondary institutions brought 10 innovations, all of which reached the pitching stage.
Chief executive of Nisti, Xavier Estico, noted that the institute had been unable to present the remaining participants with their certificates during the prize-giving ceremony, held at ICCS, since the place would not have held everyone comfortably as per the health guidelines.
In his speech, Mr Estico commended the students for their efforts and noted that some of their works will be shortlisted to Nisti’s incubation programme to develop them.
Considering the success of this first challenge, Mr Estico also launched the second one, under the theme ‘Developing innovative solutions and climate change’. The competition will have an open category for members of the public who wish to contribute their solutions.
One of the participants, Fumankie Lungu, thanked Nisti for its initiative which provides students with a platform to explore how innovative they truly are.
Elsie Pointe
