By Henry Uche
The founder, Digital World Forum (DWF), Mr. Ajibola Abiola, has honoured the recently crowned Global Mathematics Champion, Faith Odunsi with a scholarship award to study Robotics and Artificial Intelligence in furtherance of her incredible talent.
Odunsi, a 15-year-old final year student at Ambassadors College, Ota, Ogun State, gained international fame after she thrashed contestants from Europe, America, Asia and Australia to win the Global Open Mathematics tournament.
Astonishingly, not only did Odunsi win the keenly contested tournament, she did so with a land-sliding 30-point margin, clinching 40 points to floor her nearest competitor, the first runner up with 10 points.
Abiola who was a former Director, National Broadcast Academy- (FRCN Training School) Ikeja, Lagos, maintained that perennial negligence and relegation of science and technology is the reason for Nigeria’s economic backwardness, noting that every developed economies in the world placed top priority on science and technology with huge investment therein.
Abiola made this know when he paid a visit to Ambassadors College, Ota where he offered a training scholarship on Robotics and Artificial Intelligence to Faith Odunsi.
According to Abiola, Nigeria lost it when less attention was paid to science and technology while greater energy and resources were directed to entertainment and other sectors which does not make any nation great.
“No nation can survive nor stand the test of time without enmeshing itself in science and technology. The Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) initiative is a way forward but we need to do more. The difference between one country and another is the level of science and technology at which each other operates.
“As a way of supporting science and technology, we at Digital World Forum, poised to promote digital initiatives and STEM education. We have decided to offer Faith Odunsi, a training scholarship on Robotics and Artificial Intelligence, sponsored by Robotics & Artificial Intelligence Nigeria (RAIN), an Ibadan based robotics company.
Abiola described Odunsi as a genius in the class of Isaac Newton, Pythagorus, who has not only made the ladies folk very proud but the whole Nigeria and Africa at large.
He affirmed that Nigeria has remained backward technology-wise because the needed investment, support and attention meant for young talents in science and technology have been jettisoned.
Odunsi expressed gratitude to DWF and her school for the offer and opportunity to participate in the competition respectively, and implored the federal and state governments to give young people the necessary support to be able to compete with their counterparts in the world in area of science and technology.
She said:”I want to be an engineer, but the government at all levels must provide us with the necessary support in Nigeria instead of traveling to other climes to study. It is not ideal if we keep traveling abroad to seek even quality education,” she stressed.