Akwa Ibom students shine at 20th JETS competition

Akwa Ibom has emerged winner of the 20th national Junior Engineers, Technicians and Scientists (JETS).

The News Agency of Nigeria reports that the national science-based competition for primary and secondary school students got underway from Tuesday to Friday in Lagos.

The theme of this year’s competition is “Enhancing Food Security through Science and Technology Applications”.

En route their emergence as the overall winners of the one-week competition, the Akwa Ibom representatives garnered four trophies.

Akwa Ibom emerged first in free choice project, winning with a project on “Biodegradable Waste to Wealth”.

The state also got the second position with the project on using “Orange peels” for other uses such as weight loss, treatment of hangover, production of pesticides and candies.

The oil-rich state’s representatives were also rewarded for their effort in the inter-state quiz competition by claiming the third position.

In other categories, Ekiti emerged winner of the inter-state competition for senior category, while federal capital territory came second and Akwa Ibom third.

For free choice projects, Lagos state came first, Akwa Ibom second, while federal capital territory (FCT) was third.

For the national team project in the junior category, Yobe state emerged champion, while Imo came second and Ondo state was third.

Commending the efforts of the junior engineers, the coordinator of JETS, Grace Jakko, said the ingenuity displayed by the students showed a great future for technology in Nigeria.

“This students have done well and I praise their various efforts coming out with projects that can impact positively the lives of our people.

“This has shown that we have a great future ahead of us technologically. This is a rare ingenuity and I urge the students to pursue their dreams of becoming problem solvers in the future,” she said.

Joe Ojo, who represented the minister of education, Adamu Adamu, said his experience at the competition clearly showed that Nigeria would soon be among the top 20 economies soon.

“Having gone round to inspect the array of innovative projects being exhibited in this hall, I am deeply impressed and optimistic that these young and talented students make Nigeria proud.

“I have no doubt that they will launch Nigeria into becoming one of the largest 20 industrialised economies of the world by the year 2020,” he said.

The students responsible for the projects that won Akwa Ibom the overall prize, Terence Udoma and Enobong Etukudo from PEGASUS Schools, Eket, said their success came as a result of their inquisitiveness.

“When we wanted to design the project, what first came to our mind was how can we help the society? So, we came up with this idea through our inquisition.

“There are many problems encountered during our research, but we thank God that we are able to overcome.

“We will not stop here but research further on how we can improve on it and help the less privileged, especially those living in the rural areas,” they said.