The POWER of SCIENCE and MATHEMATICS in building Roboots with ICT

The world is changing. Today, we rely on mathematics and science in ways we could not imagine for the past twenty-one century now. Innovations in technology help us communicate across the globe with ease through satellites, the internet, and cell phones and cars among others. They also help us every day to work better and even pay bills, medical prescription, and medical translations. Advances in medicine and science improve our health and help us to understand the world around us. From balancing a household budget to preparing your taxes to following a recipe, mathematics and science touch every part of our lives today and in the future.

Think ahead to what the world will be like when your child is an adult. What skills will your child need to succeed in life and work in our changing world? A strong background in mathematics and science will prepare your child for college or work after graduation and open doors to higher paying jobs and greater opportunity over a lifetime and help one to make the right decision when it comes to policy making.

Lighten creativity among the people of Africa; Aljazeera ‘Innovate Africa’ a new series highlighting innovation and creativeness across the continent  interviewed Benjamin Nortey on how use his coding to educate people most especially the kids. Mr. Nortey believes that coding is set to be one of the most important languages. He emphasized that across Africa, the combination of science and technology could be the formula for accelerating development.

Mr. Nortey who is innovator, Founder and CEO of Metro Institute of Innovation And Technology in Ghana, led an extra curriculum coding course for children of all ages in order to express his passion for robotics. He said that “we want to build a new generation people the kids in this particular generation, I think we just don’t have to underestimate them. I mean they are so powerful, they are smarter than their parents, they are smarter than teachers and I mean that is a fact. They are born into technology”.  He also thinks children can build robots to solve major problem and guide the blind.

Moving away from the tradition style of education where a teacher stands in front of the class and students seat to receive information, Mr. Nortey thinks robots building work so well in how children are thinking than traditional style of teaching in a sense that, “when it comes to robotics one thing is, if you are going to excel in that field is that you got to have fantasy to imagine things that doesn’t exit and try to make it happen”. He also said that, when he is teaching the kids he does not want them to learn into vacuum he wants them to see real life and also to appreciate mathematics. According to him Mathematics really works and once the kids take that approach, he believes that the kids will have that inventive mind set.

Mr. Nortey also said that when designing game for example you need to understand physics because the cause of principle in motion dynamics matters. He is also trying to use Robotics as a tool to inspire study of science and mathematics to relate to classroom theories using robots so that if when he is talking about a scientific principles Newton’s first law of motion students shouldn’t just memorize the facts they can actually use robots and he can demonstrate for them to see that the law really works.

Ben usually pay regular visit to schools across the country to drummer interest in coding robotics. He has two thousand five hundred students across the country. And once he exposed them to the field they always get a better idea of how to go about building robot. Irrespective about what the kids want to do, if the kid wants to be a politician and when they  get engaged in robotics, he/she sees technology work this way later it will influence the kind of policy he/she makes. Most at times the kids learn and forget everything but with robotics they want to achieve a result. And robotics is for filing, it rewarding, they want the results and they are happy building robots.

Most of the materials in Ben’s lab are made from scrubs. When he is not teaching he and his team gathers upright dumps for useful materials to build robots and they also go for the dumps because some of them contain a lot of component needed. He said that creating robots in West Africa is expensive because the necessary materials used in building robots are not available. 

Mr. Nortey strongly believes that, ‘it time that we really have to redefine our educational system. Because in Ghana I know we have been running and depending on an old system from the British education that they put in place for us. We really need radical change and we should be able to identify people’s interest, passion early and then put them at the right place, give them the right stuffs and with that they are going to excel’.

Again, he believes that in this twenty-one century (21^st), every kid must code just as they learn basic math algebra they should know how to code so that when they see a problem they can be able to attend to that particular problem and this will go a long way as a nation. Because the World is moving and it is not waiting for anybody.

Ben is party of Ghana ongoing commitment to include ICT and robotics in the school curricular to enable the kids study effectively irrespective of their fields.

Brief History

Have you ever wonder how some of the oldest football clubs came to being in Ghana? Well, It is believed that, cape coast was the birth place of football in Ghana where students of the Local Government Boys School were inspired by their Jamaican headmaster, Mr. Briton. “The enthusiasm with which the students followed sports was said to be fanatical”

From then, the progress and heightening love of football swept through nationwide till date. As a result lots of sports clubs were formed. In 1903, the first football club was formed. The first football club was cape coast Excelsior. The football pioneers ordered their first kits from the United Kingdom which consisted of jerseys with red and yellow stripes, white shorts, socks, football boots and caps. The first footballs they used were gifts from sailors who were regularly at cape coast ports.

Some few months later, the town was boasted with a lots of clubs which has attention-grabbing names like Blankon’s XI, Bolton Wanderers, Energetics, Evertons, Garden, Judges, Majestic, MysteriousDwarfs, Rose XI, Swallows, Titanics and Venomous vipers etc. Apart from vipers and Dwarfs, currently in the premier division, the rest of the teams mentioned above are no longer in existence.

Then, in 1910, Accra Hearts of Oak joined the rise with the formation of Invincibles in James Town which has stood the test of time and can now boast of the accolade as the oldest football club in Ghana. They became a founding member of the national league in 1956 and have flourished since then. They have won the national league twenty {20} times with ten {10} Ghanaian FA cup, two {2} Ghanaian super cup, once CAF confederation cup 2004 and also in 2000 they won CAF champion league and became Runner up four years later.

1918, the football fever swept through sekondi-Tarkoradi also aknown as twin town in the western region. Later in 1919 a powerful team was formed called sekondi Eleven Wise affectionately called known as “Western Show Boys”. They became a founding member of the national league in 1960. They have won the premier league once in the history.

In the year 1925, another great team was formed called Fanti United which later reformed to sekondi Hasaacas. Popularly goes by the saying “Giants of the West”. In 1958, they joined the national league and in 1977, they won the special one round “Novelty league”. They have also won premier league once.

Twenty {20} years down the line, Kumasi, the Garden City of Ashanti kingdom also joined train in 1926. The first of all Ashanti football club formed was Ashanti united by a young driver Kwasi Kuma. The club later on changed names three times, from Ashanti United to Titanics, then Mighty Atoms and finally Asante Kotoko in 1935. The club was known as “porcupine warriors”. Asante Kotoko became one of the greatest clubs in the country. Asante kotoko has won the national league a record of twenty-four {24} times since 1958. They have also won the Ghanaian FA cup eight {8} times with two super cup, CAF confederation cup Runne up, two {2} times CAF champions and five {5} times CAF champion league Runner up.

Kotoko and Hearts have won forty-four {44} of the fifty-four {54} national league title contested and countless pieces of silverware with neither having tasted relegation since the inception of the Ghanaian elite division.

AKWAABA !!!!!!!!! BRA GRANT

PHOTO CREDIT:FOOTY-GHANA.COM

At long last you are here with the lovely and warmly welcoming people of GH. Ghanaians are warm people and very welcoming, especially to any light-skinned person popularly referred to us “Obroni’. You arrived in our beautiful land on Tuesday, 2 November, 2014 and as usual we say “Akwaaba” welcome to you. Bra Grant, I believed the GFA officials treated with you some local Ghanaian beer ‘Pito’and a local Ghanaian meal that I will personally recommend to you waakye with goat meat and wele. It is very nice when taken in the morning as breakfast between the hours of 6am to 10am especially when it is been served in the leaves.

Well, Bra Grant enjoys it while it last. Although Ghanaians are a warm and beautiful welcoming people, don’t forget the reason why you are in this country. The nation’s HEART is in your hands, and by heart I mean our national team, the Black Stars. Failure will mean breaking our hearts, and trust me; you will not like the angry Ghanaian football fan when he/she is disappointed.

Right now, it’s clear that you are Ghana’s beloved national football team, the Black Stars coach. But bear in mind that, the same people who are welcoming you are the same people who will make you feel uncomfortable you fail to deliver.

I believe by now you know the kind of people Ghanaians when it comes to football. They like giving excuses but they won't take your excuses when you don’t bring AFCON home or other trophies and surprisingly, all the twenty-five million people of Ghana are coaches so bear that too in mind that they are great and professional tacticians.

Pressure has always been an integral part of Ghanaians when it comes to sports specially, the national team, the Black stars. The clock is ticking; there are only six or so weeks remaining to make your chance at gold and glory.  Everyone is fired up and tensions are running high.

 You have barely six weeks to build a formidable team for the African Cup of Nations (AFCON), Africa’s biggest football competition in Equatorial Guinea. And it is unquestionably clear that, you are very good when it comes to organizing a team and I applauds you for that.

Bra Grant, you have few weeks to prepare the Black Stars for the AFCON. I can sense the pressure on you already. Listening to an interview on ASEMPA FM, the GFA president Kwesi Nyantakyi said "All outstanding issues with Mr. Grant have been cleared and we believe he is the right man for the job,” Ghanaians are also saying that go do your best. But the actual meaning of those words is that, go and bring the AFCON CUP. Ghanaians are hungry for cups now.

My advice to you is that, if you don’t want any insult and problems please get the team to win the AFCON. Bra Grant, don’t be comfortable with the idea thrown out by some individuals that

the time for you to prepare for the AFCON is short, hence tasking you to win the AFCON is asking too much. Listen to me very carefully; Ghana has performed extremely well in our last four AFCON appearances. In 2008, when we hosted it, we qualified to the semifinals and won bronze.In 2010, in Angola, Ghana made it all the way to the finals only to lose 1-0 to Egypt. In 2012, when the tournament was co-hosted by Equatorial Guinea and Gabon, we made it to the semifinals and lost 1-0 to Zambia, the eventual winners. The downhearted team lost the third place 2-0 to Mali.

History repeated itself a year after in South Africa 2013. We made it once again to the semifinals, lost 3-2 to Burkina Faso on penalties and lost the third place again to Mali with a 3-1 score line. In four straight AFCON competitions, Ghana’s worst performance has been an appearance in the semis. Don’t listen to anybody who says we don’t expect you to win the competition they must be joking because if you don’t win you will regret coming to Ghana.

As a sports writer and an ardent fan of the national team, I will advise you to be your own man, as I indicate earlier, that every Ghanaian, football fan or not during most important competitions like world cup and AFCON automatically becomes a coach. You can verify this information from the twenty-five million best sports writer CHRISTOPHER OPOKU. Don’t hastate to contact Christopher Opoku  He will give you all the information “filla” inside out on sports issues in Ghana and beyond.    

But remember, Bra Grant how long you will enjoy your stay in Ghana will depend on you and your performance AFCON 2015. Once again, Akwaaba!!!!!

Dear Arsene

photo credit: EPL GALLERY

It is categorically clear that, you are one of the best coaches around in this era of the game in our world today. It is equally clear your potential as a talent developer in football is grosse. It is also clear that with time, your game has evolved and it's becoming the more productive.

It again is a fact that you are one of the key cogs in Arsenal, unlocking players, creating something out of nothing for the team, when we seem not to be able to break down stubborn rearguards.

What is boggling my mind fleetingly however, is how you try so hard not to match your overall game with the ruthless finishing it deserves.

Many times, you have created opportunities for the players. Many times, you have gone past your counterpart coaches who do not use their coaching skills to create or develop young players. Again, many times, you have beaten opponents by a drop of the shoulder and left many others for dead.

What is desperately lacking, Arsene Wenger , I have to say, is your inability to put chances away with the sort of precision you apply to you players. But you rather sell those that you call developed talent player.

On many occasions, you have tried to overcomplicate things when you could easily, easily, buy players from ranges of football clubs around the world but you refused to do so and insisting of using developed talent players.

My advice to you as a gunner die hard supporter, If you are to challenge the Barcelona, Real Madrid, Manchesters and co at their game at the moment, and in this era of the game, where it's all goals, goals, goals and goals, that count you among the best, then there's only one thing to do, and it's simple that you should just leave the club for someone who can bring more goals and trophies into the team.

Or put the chances players you have created and don not sell them, or make use of other coaches created players instead of putting them away with the sort of precision you apply to your tactics, darts and intelligent play.

I believe there is a way that you can help Arsenal to get back on its feet. How do you achieve this?  It is Simple. By doing the simple things. Tapping new players into the team, use accurate tactics when your key players are on injury ,and stabbing the more goals at home when you have to, instead of trying the overly complicated placements, dinks, lobs, rabonnas etc players around.

Arsene Wenger, remember I'm a big fan of yours truly, but sometimes you annoy me with some of those things you do, to be truthfully honest.

There have been too many matches this season, you could have gotten us the satisfied results and points needed, even in the champions league matches. I remember the match V Swansea city, and that v Chelsea, and recently united. If you had taken even 80% of the opportunities you were presented with, you would have hit 27+ points by now.

So, my dear Arsene as I have advice you, the season grinds into the period, where the real action starts, Endeavor to heed the request of the fans and club and be more ruthless in front of the table to make you that complete team as we want it to be, and hopefully challenge Mourinho and the rest of the coaches at their matches……………………………………………………….
Thank you.

Yours truly, happily unhappy fan!

Nana Akua

THANK YOU GIJ

I have always Imagine a world without schools and colleges! Impossible, right? No matter how much I hate waking up early for school or studying all night for the tests and exams, I knew that education is very important. I am not saying that an uneducated man has no chance of being successful or an educated man will surely do well in life but the exceptions are always there.

 However I have come to agreement that, as an educated person I get better opportunities in life thanks to Ghana Institute of Journalism (GIJ). GIJ told me that, it is easier for me to become successful and realize my dreams as compared to someone who is uneducated.

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