Foundervine, one of the partners of the Ghana Science and Tech Explorer Prize (GSTEP) has taken a group of twenty (20) young individuals between the ages of 14-16 years, also known as the GSTEP Ambassadors through the Youth Steering Program. This initiative was coined with the sole purpose of training young individuals and harnessing their skills in order for them to cause social change and development in the communities in which they find themselves, and to act as ambassadors for the GSTEP program.
The general focus for our GSTEP Ambassadors is to work with the GSTEP program to support and inspire 20,000 Junior High School (JHS) students – as well as teachers, schools and communities in the Greater Accra and Ashanti regions. The ambassadors have committed to using their skills to achieve social impact and increase engagement and inclusion in Ghana’s STEM education sector. Our representatives have committed to attending monthly student hacks and masterclasses that aim to equip them with a range of social and employable skills. All of these initiatives focus on making the youth ideal job candidates for companies in Ghana and the economy as a whole.
The ambassadors have been taken through different masterclasses led by international experts. Each masterclass is followed by an application task where the ambassador applies what they learned. The first two masterclasses, presentation skills and Interview skills, focused on developing valuable interpersonal and social skills in the ambassadors. Following these masterclasses, the focus was then shifted on developing the ambassador’s entrepreneurial and STEM skills. The purpose being to expose the youth to opportunities they can create for themselves and their communities. In the last three masterclasses – building a prototype, rapid ideation and CEO-for-a-day – they have been driven to think outside the box as to how STEM can be used as a resource to evoke change in their communities and ultimately Ghana.
A Mentorship Framework was also included in the series of training held for the ambassadors. This was done in a period of seven (7) weeks and these sessions were to prepare the mentees for the graduation ceremony where they would be given the opportunity to showcase and pitch their prototypes.
At the graduation ceremony which was held at the Impact Hub in Accra on the 26th of March, 2022, the ambassadors were given the opportunity to present and pitch their prototypes to a panel of judges. The showcase of ideas and skills in their presentations reflected the impact of the mentorship program they went through. The pitches from the ambassadors were applauded and critically accessed by the panel of judges.
In attendance were representatives from the other partners of GSTEP – DreamOval Foundation, MEST Africa, Nesta Challenges, and DEXT.
