Oyindamola Aje Crowned ‘Best Science Student’ in Nigeria
- Oyindamola Aje, a 16-year-old student of Jesuit Memorial College, Port Harcourt,Rivers State, has emerged winner of the second edition of the InterswitchSPAKNational Science Competition held in Lagos.He defeated eight other finalists in an intense quiz session to win the grand prize of 7.5million Naira worth of tertiary education scholarship.
- This scholarship will spread overfive years. He also went away with a laptop and a monthly stipend for the duration of thescholarship fund.
- The first runner-up,15-year-old Oluwatobi Ojo of Apt Scholars Universal College, OgunState won 4 million Naira worth of scholarship spread over three years;
- while thesecond runner-up, 15-year-old Onyekachi Madumere from Scholars UniversalSecondary School, Ogun State, received N1 million Naira worth of scholarship for oneyear.
- Oyindamola came tops after going through various levels of the competition.
- In hiscomments after the announcement, Oyindamola said he wasn’t looking forward to thecompetition as he did not know what to expect knowing he was competing againstbrilliant minds.
- He said: “I am very happy that I won the InterswitchSPAK 2.0 first prize.It has been a very long and exciting journey for me and I am grateful to God that I amthe overall winner.
- I did not see this coming at all but I’m very excited”.Expressing his gratitude, Oyindamola said “I feel very proud to be part of a project thatis giving students in Nigeria opportunities to utilize their talents and skills to impact thenation positively.
- I would like to use this opportunity to thank Interswitch for creating theInterswitchSPAK project and giving me this opportunity of a lifetime.
- I also want to thankmy parents, teachers, friends and the other participants in the InterswitchSPAKcompetition.
- My success today is as a result of their support, encouragement andchallenge. I thank them all.” . Another highlight of the day was the presentation of the Founder’s Award to Team Earth- winners of the Innovation Challenge.==The team, made up of nine SS2 students,collaborated to identify a problem in the agricultural value chain in Nigeria,proffered a solution, leveraging technology.=Each student alongside their mentors were presented with a medal and a laptop. Thenine students will also get a chance to partake in a two-week internship programme atInterswitch Group head office in Lagos during the long school holidays
- .Mitchell Elegbe, MD/Founder Interswitch Group, in his opening remarks, stressed theimportance of science and technology to the Nigeria economy. He said: “Consistently asa nation and even a continent, we will keep having challenges, I am thereforechallenging all of you seated here today to develop an entrepreneurial mindset to facethese challenges and overcome them.”
- Mitchell further urged the students to broaden and challenge their perspectives to thinkabout the impact they can make in Nigeria using science and technology.
- He advisedyoung graduates to develop and explore skills that can help them becomeentrepreneurs rather than job seekers. “These are interesting times to be young. Indeed these are great times to be anentrepreneur. With the huge advantage the internet portends, the increasingconsciousness for mentorship and the plethora of success stories at your disposal, theNigerian and African youth cannot but rise up to the occasion.
- As a matter of fact, Ibelieve you all can do it, at least the InterswitchSPAK has proven that, twice!” he added.
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