A team of five students known as SAVE A SOUL comprising Jessica Osita, Promise Nnalue, Nwabuaku Ossai, Adaeze Onuigbo and Vivian Okoye from Regina Pacis Secondary School, Onitsha, Anambra State has won a place in the 2018 global finals of Technovation challenge in Silicon Valley, California, USA.

The program mentors young ones around the globe on how to use Technology to solve problems in their communities. The team won a place with an idea for an application that detects fake drugs called FD detector. The application leverages 2D barcode Technology to verify drug authenticity and expiration dates. The barcode has two layers of information, one that is visible to the human eye and another that can only be read by anyone using their application. Team SAVE A SOUL is the only team from Africa that competed, competing with teams from USA, China, Uzbekistan, Spain, and Turkey                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      in the finals. It was the first Nigerian team to participate in junior category of the competition since inception in 2010 and emerged Global Champions in August 8 2018.

The team’s mentor is Mrs. UChe Onwuaegbu-Ugwu who stumbled into the program by accident when she attended an international Educational summit. The program, the STEM (SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY, ENGINEERING AND MATHEMATICS) and Robotic model made her angry and scared. She was angry at ignorance and scared that her children and others would experience same feelings of inadequacy if nothing were done about it so she brought the materials home. She started Social Enterprise EDUFUN TECHNIC STEM HUB taking STEM and Robotic Educational materials to schools to enable them learn and access. That was how team SAVE A SOUL was founded.

The success of the team has convinced and piked people’s interest in SREM EDUCATION. She wishes that NAFDAC, and other pharmaceutical and relevant institutions would collaborate with team SAVE A SOUL so they would use innovation and Technology to save lives in their communities.

SOURCE: NIGERIAN HEALTHWATCH