——–
On Tuesday 8 October 2013, MultiChoice Uganda announced the country winners of the third edition of the DStv Eutelsat Star Awards competition at a prize giving ceremony held at their offices in Kampala. The awards are aimed at inspiring innovative thinking among secondary and high school students in Africa, to create awareness on how science and technology can be applied to everyday life, and to showcase the many ways that satellites already impact on the development of the African continent.
Victor Okoth, a student of St Mary’s College Kisubi came out top in the Best Entry Award category with an essay entry which impressed the judges with its creativity. The essay was titled “Unlocking Africa’s growth potential with satellites” and will be competing with entries from other countries on the continent for the overall prize which is a once in a lifetime trip for two to the Eutelsat facilities in Paris, France. Angel Gabriella Atim, a student of Bishop Cipriano Kihangire S.S.S came out top in the Best Poster Entry category with an entry titled “Actualising dreams throughout the Global village.” Both entrants won a Samsung notebook. Barbara Lamara of Gayaza High School and Pius Talemwa of Mengo S.S.S came in as runners up in the Essay and Poster categories respectively and won Samsung Duos phones each.
Speaking at the award ceremony, MultiChoice Uganda PR Manager Tina Wamala said, “The DStv Eutelsat awards were created with the aim of inspiring innovative thinking among secondary school students, to create awareness on how science and technology can be applied to everyday life, and to show the many ways that satellites already impact the development of the African continent. With education as a key focus of our corporate social investment programmes, our decision to initiate this competition with Eutelsat created a natural synergy which was able to stimulate education and interest around satellites and their possible applications in Africa. We thank all the participating schools and students as well as our distinguished judges without whom this competition would not be a success.”
The judging panel members, comprised of Judging Chairperson Christine Mugimba, Uganda Communications Commission Spectrum Manager; Prof James Latingi, Makerere University Lecturere in Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering; Mr James Kasigwa, Ag. Commissioner Broadcasting Infrastructure, Ministry of Information & Communications Technology Ministry of ICT; Mr James Amatre, English teacher from Nabisunsa representing the Ministry of Education and Sports.
Commenting on the quality of entries received, Prof Lating said, “We received a number of entries from across the country and were quite impressed by the quality of entries which exhibited a lot of creativity and research done by the students. On behalf of the judges, we are delighted and honoured to have been involved in promoting science and technology in schools. The winning entry essay showed passion and demonstrated a good understanding of satellites. There was accurate detail of how satellites can be used in a story telling format, and the ideas were unique and practical. We hope that this essay will go on to take top prize on a continental level.”
The Awards are leveraged off MultiChoice’s Resource Centre programme which has been established in over 1000 schools across Sub Sahara Africa to improve teaching and learning processes by equipping these schools with audio-visual educational equipment and MultiChoice education bouquet channels such as National Geographic, the History Channel and Mind-set Learn.
