By John Churu, Gaborone, Botswana
As has become tradition at the local ICT institution Botho University in Gaborone, every time this time of the year the place is host to the LINKZ ICT challenge. The student ICT fanfare offers events of local and regional ICT tertiary institutions and students. This year the challenge was held from the 16TH of September.
Events for tertiary institutions included Paper Presentation– Photo Editing, Debugging– Mobile App Development, Animations– IT Innovation, Database Design– Network Design– Cyber Security Challenge, Public Speaking–
On the other hand, the events for secondary schools this year included tackling issues like PC Assembler, Online Puzzle, Quiz, Database Design, Working Model and Public Speaking.
In 2009 Botho University launched an ICT based competition called LINKZ ”The ICT Challenge”, which brings together the best ICT students in the country and is currently the only competition of its kind. LINKZ is the brainchild of Botho University academic staff and tests students’ knowledge & application capacity in the field of IT.
This unique competition has seen most of the tertiary institutions in the country participate in an exciting battle of technical skill, speed and knowledge. ”Its original aim was to bring together the Botswana student community in the field of IT from across the country by fostering learning excellence through healthy competition,” said Botho University’s Linkz organisers.
“With the growing popularity of the LINKZ competition it was decided to include secondary schools also in the event. In 2012 LINKZ brought together students from secondary schools across the country to participate and the response was overwhelming. LINKZ continues to be an event to watch out for on the calendar of schools and tertiary institutions in Botswana. Plans are also underway to broaden the scope of LINKZ making it much more than just an IT event and include business, accounting and other fields.”
At the 2016 event, prizes for winners of each event and the top secondary school and tertiary institution included printers, cell phones, speakers, CD drives, Bluetooth devices and gift vouchers. The event also rewarded audiences with on the spot competitions and exciting giveaways. Winners have also been featured on prominent newspapers and radio stations.
Previous winners have been rotating between Limkokwing University of Creative Technology and the host Botho University for the tertiary category.
