A collaborative initiative involving STEM Guyana and a number of state agencies will deliver the country’s first ever National Robotics Competition, Stabroek Business has been informed.
The disclosure was made to this newspaper by Karen Abrams, one of the co-founders of STEM Guyana, the organisation which, in July 2017, guided a largely inexperienced team to a highly creditable 10th place in the 164-nation inaugural First Global Games, a robotics competition held in Washington, D.C.
On Monday Abrams told Stabroek Business that she was proposing to collaborate with the Ministries of Public Telecommunications and Business along with the Department of Youth and other public and private sector partners and that the competition will be designed by two global partners, K12youthcode.com and My Robot Time.
The April competition will be used as a local pre-qualifier event ahead of Guyana’s participation in the August 2019 International Youth Robotics Competition (IYRC) which will be held in the Republic of Korea.
Guyana, meanwhile, is scheduled to host a Caribbean robotics competition, the first of its kind in the region in November, in which 10 teams are expected to participate.
Earlier this week Abrams told Stabroek Business that while she anticipated that 2019 could be “a busy and engaging year” for young Guyanese robotics enthusiasts in terms of participation in both local and international events, her first order of business was ensuring the successful staging of the April event. “A lot of this is new to Guyana and the preparation involves a good deal of work but thankfully the work that we have done to popularise robotics in recent years has left its mark. She said that STEM Guyana was working towards attracting more than 1000 young Guyanese grouped in more than 60 teams and that entries are anticipated from schools, community centres, youth clubs and other organisations. “Our success will be measured by the extent to which we are able first, to mobilise large numbers of young people from the far corners of the country and to further popularise robotics as a national preoccupation. Teams will be grouped by age in 6-8, 9-12, 13-17 and Open categories, for the purpose of the April Competition.
Abrams said that she was hoping that 2019 would be “a watershed year” for robotics in Guyana “in terms of us being able not only to become familiar with the pursuit but also to help develop “an enhanced national understanding of the relevance of robotics to Guyana’s development. Asserting that she had noted the recent disclosure that the Ministry of Education is in the process of undertaking a robotics initiative in the school system, Abrams said that was “a pleasing disclosure.”
“We cannot afford to wait any longer. We cannot afford to take the position that Guyana is not ready. The reality is that we have to put ourselves in a state of readiness. International society is changing, technology-aided development is a reality and we cannot afford to be left behind.”
Abrams says that while Guyana is still some distance away from developing an indigenous work force capable of covering all of the areas of expertise required in the oil and gas industry, it is not too early to secure an overall grasp of robotics and its role in the sector. “The oil and gas sector has already seen its first ever autonomous robot deployed on an oil rig and as the industry moves in an innovative direction, robotics could have a profound impact on the industry’s occupational health and safety record. While it was only relatively recently that the oil and gas industry became aware that its robotics ambitions were workable, they have quickly moved to a stage where investments in the sector are valued at possibly hundreds of millions. The oil and gas sector’s investments in the robotics industry is being undertaken in an effort to maximise human capital by eliminating the need to assign workers to dangerous and strenuous offshore assignments,” Abrams said, asserting that “this is an eventuality that we in Guyana have to begin to prepare for now.”
