National Science Fair Set for Kisii

By Robert Nyasato

All roads lead to Kisii County Wednesday)for the inaugural national Science and Engineering Fair(SEF) for secondary schools.

The four-day competition, the first since it changed its name from Students Congress for Science and Technology will be staged at Kisii High School.

SEF National Treasurer and hosting chair Zachary Abongo said about  600 boys and 500 girls from 384 schools countrywide as expected to participate in the event.

Speaking to The Standard in Kisii on Tuesday, Abongo said preparations for hosting the competitions had been completed and participants would report today.

And for the first time, the competitions will be held without a theme following what organizers termed as efforts to conform to internationals standards.

“We established that coming up with a theme was limiting to participants and is against international practices,” explained Abongo.

He said Kisii Governor James Ongwae will open the exercise while Mt Kenya University, Kisii Campus Principal, Prof Constantine Nyamboga will close it on Saturday.

Among the schools to watch is Rangala Girls with eight entries which claimed the Lake Region SEF honours last month at the same venue, hosts Kisii High, Maseno School, Kisumu Senior Academy and St Josephs Rapogi Boys.

The Lake Region will be represented by 31 schools.

A major challenge facing the competitions, Abongo said was lack of enforcement of intellectual property rights.

This, Abongo lamented led to inventions by students being adopted and improved by some university lecturers who claimed ownership, denying the innovative students their patent rights.

“The main challenge we’re facing is that good talent exhibited by students is not patented and some people capitalize on their innovations and make fortunes out of that,” charged Abongo.

Kisii School Principal Casper Maina noted that innovation and technology were key for investments and development saying it had helped countries like Malasya and Singapore develop their economies faster, overtaking majority of third world countries at par with them during independence.

Maina urged the government to support innovators, nurture talents and formulate a policy to protect their innovations to motivate them improve on them, saying the inventions should not be left gather dust in stores.

He said it was a waste of time and resources to hold the competitions and end just their without a clear progression path beyond the fairs.