African-based global defence and aerospace company, Paramount Group, has launched the 2018 edition of the Parabotics competition aimed at equipping youth with science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) skills.
Announced at the Africa Aerospace and Defence (AAD) Exhibition 2018, Parabotics is a robotics initiative hosted in partnership with the Technology Localisation and Implementation Unit, an initiative of the Department of Science and Technology, and the AAD Youth Development Programme, a youth component of the show.
The competition is open to high school pupils, college students and university undergraduates across SA. It will teach young learners how to build and program world-class, desktop-scale robots, and further encourage them to pursue a career in the STEM fields.
The competition will include a year-long training programme, aimed at equipping previously-disadvantaged school pupils with support and training in electronics, programming and robotics.
Alison Crooks, CEO of Paramount Industrial Holdings, explains: "We wanted South African youth from across SA to be able to participate in an open source hardware robotics competition like no other, which means also delivering training and opportunity to remote parts of the country.
"SA may be an emerging market, but we can be world-class in every way; through the boons of the fourth industrial revolution, we today have the potential to effectively leapfrog the west in technological proficiency."
The competition commences in January, with finalists scheduled to be announced in December 2019.
The company says its year-long ICT training programme is aimed at equipping school pupils with next-generation skills such as electronics, programming and mechatronics.
Vital skills such as automation and control, machine learning and artificial intelligence technologies are required to meet the challenges and opportunities presented by the fourth industrial revolution, it adds.
Last year's edition of the JCSE ICT Skills Survey revealed that despite a number of initiatives to bring technology into education, the education system is still not generating a cohort of work-ready youth within the ICT field.
Adrian Schofield, JCSE manager of applied research, explained at the time that the ICT skills shortage continues to constrain SA's capacity to increase economic activity and create jobs.
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