Meeting a world leader is always exciting. Especially so for a 9th grade student from a rural school in Ghana. Princess, a member of The Exploratory, had that chance last week. Princess is holding a light box, an invention she improved upon, which she uses with her neighbors, in her unfinished house, as you can see in the background image.
The Chancellor’s visit to Ghana as part of her west African tour in August 2018. At ImpactHub Accra, Merkel met entrepreneurs and innovators across Ghana, including our own inventor Princess, as well as our partner, Charles Ofori Antipem from Dext Technology.
Don’t you love the satisfaction and confidence exuding from this young girl, as the world’s most prominent world leader? Since Chancellor Merkel is a PhD scientist, her genuine interest in the lightbox that Princess and her team created last year during The Exploratory’s #SolveforGhana design challenge is extra special.
How the light box came about
Princess’ house is not serviced by electrical lines. So she used to have to go to her friends’ house to do homework as night falls. However, power outages, or dumsor (off-on in Twi), are relatively common in Ghana.
The design challenge asked students to solve a problem relevant to them – how to continue studying during dumsor. Princess, using the principles she learned and the components in Dext Technology’s Science Set as part of the prototype, designed a lightbox that is battery-powered, that has dual LED lights, one on each side, so two students can study together.
But it turns out Princess has many friends. So she reconfigured and rebuilt the circuit, adding brighter lights, so now, as you see in the photo, four people can study together.