19th January 2016 -MultiChoice Uganda has announced winners of the 2015 DStv Eutelsat Star Awards competition at a prize giving ceremony held at their head offices in Kololo.
The fifth installment of the science and technology based competition saw Gayaza High school’s Amanda Biwoye take top honours in the best essay category whilst Benjamin Ibanda from Kings College Buddo won in the best poster category. The runners up were Ian Lumonya of Kings College Buddo and Cyrus Mpagi of St. Mary’s College Kisubi who won the essay and poster categories respectively.
The DStv Eutelsat Star Awards are as a result of a partnership between MultiChoice Africa and Eutelsat aimed at stimulating interest in science and technology by inspiring innovative thinking among secondary and high school students in 42 countries across Africa. Students from all over the continent participate in writing an essay or designing a poster depicting how innovative use of satellite technology in the fields of communication, earth observation or navigation can propel Africa into the future.
Congratulating the students at the event, MultiChoice Uganda’s PR & Communications Manager Tina Wamala noted that the DStv Eutelsat Star Awards is an annual competition that is in line with the company’s Corporate Social Investment Strategy. She said, “MultiChoice understands that science and technology is a major development driver that is shaping the present and the future of our generation, and therefore the reason for which we invest in this competition. Our partnership with Eutelsat is passionately based on our common belief that the two fields are great contributors to digitalizing Africa, a transformation path that is inherent in our DNA.”
Over 20 schools in Uganda submitted a total number of 123 entries, vetted by a carefully selected panel of judges to determine the winning entrants who would represent Uganda at the continental competition where the final adjudication will take place in February 2016 in Kenya.
Presiding lead judge, Dr. Roseline Akol a Lecturer and Head Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Makerere University said, “I continue to be awed by the innovativeness depicted through the essays and posters we come across during the adjudication process. Every other time MultiChoice Uganda invites me to adjudicate the essays, I look forward to learning through these students. I must say that the students of today are well equipped and fortunate to change the world of science and technology as new discoveries are made every other day. The students that we selected as winners have the capacity to compete on a continental level and we are confident that at least we will get a winner like we have done in the past.”
Uganda is no stranger to winning in the continental competition of the DStv Eutelsat Star Awards, producing the best overall poster winner in 2014, runner up overall poster in 2013, thebest overall essay and runner up overall poster in 2012 and best overall essay in 2011.
The panel of judges this time round included; Dr. Roseline Akol, Lecturer and Head, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Ms. Sarah Agaba Kabahuma, Frequency Planner at Uganda Communications Commission, Mr. Geoffrey Agoi, Principal Broadcasting Engineer, Ministry of Information and Communications Technology, Mr. Michael Wandwasi, Representative from the Ministry of Education & Sports and Ms. Sauya Nakiyaga, Head of Retention at Multichoice Uganda.
At the continental competition which will take place in Nairobi, Kenya,the best essay category stands a chance to win a trip to Eutelsat in Paris, France and witness a live rocket launch. The best poster category winner will also go on a trip to Eutelsat offices in Paris and onwards to a satellite construction site whilst the runners up of the essay and poster categories will go to the MultiChoice Offices in Johannesburg, South Africa as well as the South African National Space Agency at Hartebeesthoek.
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