Students from Uganda and Tanzania have been named international winners of the seventh annual DStv Eutelsat Star Awards competition, at the climax of the latest edition of the increasingly popular pan-African competition that focuses on science and space technology.
At a special event held recently in Kampala, Uganda, it was announced that the essay section of the competition was won by Amos Mumbere of Ntare School in Uganda, while the poster section was won by Rasheed Taher of Al-Madrasa-tus-Safiya-tul-Burhaniya School in Tanzania.
The competition attracted hundreds of entries from 20 countries across Africa, including Zimbabwe.
Levels of accuracy, creativity and originality were judged to be higher than ever before, in both categories.
The topic of the essay category for this latest edition of the competition required entrants to highlight the long-term effects of the pioneering Sputnik satellite on the 60th anniversary of its launch into space.
The winner of the essay category has won a trip to Paris and also a launch site in French Guiana, where he will witness a rocket being launched that will place a satellite in orbit.
The poster section winner has won a trip for two to visit MultiChoice facilities in Randburg, South Africa, and the South African National Space Agency near Johannesburg.
The schools attended by these overall continental award winners were also each rewarded with a DStv installation, including satellite dish, television set, PVR decoder and free access to the DStv Education Bouquet.
Said Liz Dziva, publicity and public relations manager of MultiChoice Zimbabwe, said that over the past seven years Zimbabwean students had featured well at international level.
“This year we were not lucky enough to have a winner at this level, and the top continental prizes have gone to other countries, but we know that judges were delighted with the quantity and quality of entries from Zimbabwe and we look forward to continued entry by Zimbabwean high school students when the 2018 competition takes place ,” she said.
Zimbabwean winners of prizes at country level were announced last month: in the essay category, the winner was Einstein Mubemi (14) of St Columba’s High School, Mutare, while the runner-up was Kudzai Kafesu (17) of St Ignatius High College near Harare.
In the poster category, Takunda Nyambuya (17) of Mutare Boys High School was named winner, and the runner-up was 17-year-old Gabriella Makandidze of Matopo High School near Bulawayo.
In 2010 MultiChoice Africa and Eutelsat combined their expertise to initiate an annual pan-African student competition called the DStv Eutelsat Star Awards, which is aimed at encouraging 14 to 19-year-old students to write an essay or design a poster on a satellite-related topic.
Country winners are named in each category and they then compete with colleagues from across Africa for the overall awards.
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