| Wani Roslan |
THE Bits ‘N’ Bytes Company yesterday hosted an appreciation ceremony for sponsors of Team Brunei who attended the inaugural First Global Challenge 2017 which was held in July in Washington DC, the United States of America. The event took place yesterday at Lecture Hall 2 of Universiti Teknologi Brunei (UTB).
The guest of honour was Professor Dr Hajah Zohrah binti Haji Sulaiman, the Vice-Chancellor of UTB who later presented appreciation plaques to sponsors, and certificates to the mentors of Team Brunei.
In a welcoming remark, Pengiran Haji Zahari bin Pengiran Haji Ahmad, the Operations Manager of Bits ‘N’ Bytes Company, expressed his appreciation to the Ministry of Education (MoE) for the support and UTB for allowing the use of its premises and UTB lecturers for volunteering to mentor the students.
He extended his deep gratitude to the generous kind-hearted individuals and corporate sponsors who contributed in bearing the cost of flight, accommodation, food, transportation and equipment for First Global Team Brunei.
He then explained that First Global is a non-profit public charity organisation registered in the United States that aims to gather the world’s youth and ignite their passion for Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) through robotics.
It is the oldest and the largest youth robotics programme in the world and this year, the theme for the challenge was ‘Water’ where teams learned about water scarcity and contamination and must then develop water-cleaning technology using robots.
He further added that Bits ‘N’ Bytes will continue to work to make Science a subject that is interesting and fun for kids. The organisation looks forward to work with various agencies and hopes to involve more local youths in their future endeavour.
One of the members from Team Brunei, Siti Aisyah Syazana binti Jamain also shared her experience at the First Global Challenge 2017 where she got to learn more about the different robot designs and the opportunity to share ideas and meeting new friends from all over the world.
At the event, Team Brunei was announced to be part of the UTB’s BRIGHT Scheme through its Adopt-A-Team programme as the guest of honour presented the certificate of acknowledgement to the team captain, Iffah Wirdani binti Azman.
The BRIGHT programme was introduced earlier this year by UTB as a community engagement strategic initiative to help build a strong Science capital among secondary and tertiary level teachers and students and to develop a deeper understanding of STEM subjects in Brunei Darussalam.
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