In every competition there must be a winner. But what happens when people are willing to do anything to emerge at the top? This was quite evident with the girls from St Thomas girls’ High school from Kilifi when they showed up not with one but four projects. The zeal and thirst to win is what I think prompted these girls to think beyond just an ordinary project. Surprisingly, it was their first time at the competition.

Waste to gold, advanced physics, tidal energy and blink patrol security (a project for detecting bombs) are the projects that these brilliant girls from St Thomas presented. This speaks volumes on our education system. It shows that the generation of today is growing more intelligent and the knowledge being provided to them is not going to waste. Kudos to the teachers behind those smart projects.

The highlight of the day was how three of those projects managed to go home with awards and certificates. Am quite sure that celebrations were awaiting them back at school for the job well done. Advanced physics teaching kit a project that aims at making the technical subjects like physics more attractive to students with the aid of more visual components and hands on experience managed to be the winning project at the category of market viability.

Scooping the second runners up position in the category of best innovative idea was the tidal energy project which also aims at generating more energy and also curbing the problem of power shortages and rationing. Finally, the project that won the best innovative idea as well as the chance to go the United States of America was the waste to gold project. This project aims at turning waste into things that can be reused.

The confidence and the hype that was in these girls when they were presenting this project was out of this world. Winning was no longer an option for them but a priority. It is a project that once put to work will help deal with the problem of unemployment. For example, they came up with a way that salty water could be reused for welding. Who would have thought of that? This is something that a common mwananchi can afford and right away start earning from it.

It was not only a challenge to me but to all in the room. We will soon have women runnng this country. With such brains we are surely headed in the right direction.

Congratulations to St Thomas girls’ high school for showing us what it means to want something and go for it.