Tons of of patrons flocked to the grounds of the Cave Hill Campus of the College of the West Indies (UWI) on Saturday, because the 2023 Science and Know-how Pageant culminated.

Arlene Weekes, coordinator of the three-day occasion, hailed it successful, saying it attracted hundreds of individuals because it opened on Thursday morning.

Weekes, who’s the Innovation Officer with the Ministry of Business, Innovation, Science and Know-how (MIIST), advised Barbados TODAY that the purpose of the pageant was to additional “popularize” and rejoice science and know-how.

“We try to deliver science to the individuals. We wish to popularize science and know-how. We wish to demystify it and in addition we wish to rejoice science, the way it impacts our life as a result of each single factor that we do has a genesis in science,” stated Weekes, who stated she was already wanting ahead to the subsequent science and know-how pageant.

This yr’s occasion, which was held beneath the theme Innovation for Sustainable Residing, supplied the chance for youngsters and adults to have interaction and work together with the reveals, which span a number of areas of science and know-how, together with synthetic intelligence, agriculture coding and robotics.

There have been about 65 exhibitors from nursery, main, secondary and tertiary studying establishments, in addition to representatives from the non-public and public sectors and non-governmental organisations.

“The response has been phenomenal. We’ve got had hundreds of faculty youngsters move by means of over the previous two days and as we speak dad and mom are coming again and bringing again the kids as a result of they wish to work together with the robotic some extra, they wish to do some extra coding and hands-on actions,” stated Weekes.

“We had quite a lot of hands-on reveals the place the kids got here and created numerous issues – they made ice cream, slime, bubbles beneath the tent and interacted with the robots and do coding and robotics. There was additionally animation, there was the flight simulator within the again and there was Patsy the Bajan avatar,” she reported.

The occasion, which was a collaboration between the College of Science and Know-how on the UWI, Cave Hill Campus and the Division of Science, Analysis and Innovation in MIIST, was birthed from the then SciTech Expo, which was held as much as 2020, however needed to cease as a result of COVID-19 pandemic in 2021 and 2022.

“We’re again out and up and working,” Weekes declared, “We modified it as a result of we needed to deliver a distinct perspective. We’re coming into the digital age,” she stated.

Exhibitors who spoke with Barbados TODAY stated they had been happy with the curiosity from each youngsters and adults, including that they had been assured the nation had a shiny future within the Science, Know-how, Engineering and Arithmetic (STEM) topics.

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