Award-winning engineering student's journey started with a film

A documentary film was all that 22 year old Charity Ojwang' needed to spark her interest in mechanical engineering. So inspired was she after she watching numerous film featuring mechanical engineering as she waited to join campus that it was an automatic choice for her when she finally did.

Even though she had wanted to become a neuro-surgeon, her A-(minus) in her KCSE exams could not afford her the dream , so she accepted an opportunity to study Early Childhood Education but quickly changed it to mechanical engineering when she realised that she could.

"My mother and the administrators were so shocked at my change of heart and they kept asking me whether I would manage the academic challenges that came with the course, but my mind was made up,” adds Charity.

Today, the soft spoken but resolute Charity is a fourth year mechanical engineering student at Kenyatta University and she will be travelling to China to pursue master’s degree on the same, a scholarship she won for her outstanding engineering skills.

In 2015, Charity successfully participated in a technology challenge organised by an international engineering firm which she went ahead to win.

“It’s during one of the external laboratory classes at Kenya Technical Training College that we (class of mechanical engineering at KU) received a letter from the Ministry of Education Science and Technology inviting colleges to take part in an upcoming mechanical engineering competition,” she says.

The engineering competition was Africa Tech Challenge (ATC), an initiative of the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology and AVIC International- a Chinese state-owned engineering firm, that seeks to empower and expose students in the field of technology by either awarding scholarships or monetary support to winning students or project.

“The competition required a team of three students and a technician, so we organised ourselves into a group of four then registered for the challenge. Our team was not among the overall winning teams. But there was a slot for individual categories where the judges narrowed down on each individual’s skills and capabilities that’s how I won the award,” she adds.

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ABOUT THE CONTEST

The ATC, is a contest that aims to train students in Africa, equipping them with technical skills and competence on engineering and technological innovations.

This year’s challenge, themed Made in Kenya, involved 15 teams, who undergo intense training on lathe making, in various technical institutions in the country.

Launched in 2014, ATC has trained more than 290 teachers and students, equipping them with technical and vocational training in their different tertiary institutions.

The challenge consists of training, then the challenge itself, the training lasting for three weeks, with the challenge set for end of August to early September.

At the moment, after the first two weeks training, the 100 remaining contestants are undergoing their final stretch training at the Technical University of Kenya.

According to Jessie Zhang, the project manager, AVIC International, judging of the contestants will be done by judges from China, with the General engineering contest being held in late August, while the Computer Numerical Control contest will be in early September, in the same university.

For the first time, the contest has been opened up for students from Uganda, Zambia and Ghana.

Louise Dang of AVIC International is calling on more mechanical engineering students to register for the annual competition which will take place in July.

According to Louise, Africa Tech Challenge consists of two parts—training and contest; the training lasts for only two weeks where 29 teams from different vocational schools in Kenya are picked- a team consists of three contestants and one advisor. The top 17 teams are qualified for the finals-the finalists are further trained for 20 another days.

Finally, the top 6 teams get cash reward and those who stand out in the whole competition acquire fully funded opportunity to study in China.