SPIE 2021 Education Outreach Grant - UEW Project
SPIE has awarded Photonics Ghana a grant of $4 842.82 as part of its 2021 Educational Outreach Grant. This is in support of one of Photonics Ghana's aims to promote Optics and Photonics in high schools in Ghana. In particular, the sponsored activity will be executed with one of our partner universities, the University of Education, Winneba, in Ghana. The activity involves the use of Photonics Explorer Kits (PEK) for action-based education in about 15 high schools. The PEK package consists of 110 optical components for practical demonstration of Optics and Photonics phenomena. With this excellent teaching tool, we estimate to reach a minimum of 2 500 students and to promote the awareness of the fast-developing field of Optics and Photonics in Ghana. It is our hope that the activity initiates the attraction of brilliant minds in the field of science and engineering to address the challenges of Africa. We are grateful to SPIE for the award and also use this opportunity to invite other interested persons to assist in replicating such activity in many of the high schools in Ghana.
FinCEAL Grant - KNUST Project
FinCEAL through the FinCEAL Plus BRIDGES project has awarded Photonics Ghana and the Department of Physics and Mathematics of the University of Eastern Finland (UEF) a grant, close to EUR 4 000. This is in line to support the development of partnerships and collaborative research activities between the Finnish research community and those in Africa and to promote Photonics education in Ghana, in particular. Specifically, the sponsored activity will be executed with one of our partner universities, the Physics department of the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) in Ghana. The activity involves the use of the 110 optical components of the Photonics Explorer Kits (PEK) for the development of simple devices, such as webcam-based visible and Raman spectrometers for sample characterization. We expect these activities to give students the opportunity to have a hands-on experience with Photonic devices and to further ignite their interest in the field. Photonics and its partners are grateful to FinCEAL for the funds and the UEF for the constant support. We hope that the students will take advantage of this to begin targeting solutions for problems facing the region.