The Ideas Challenge Competition was initiated by the Centre for Applied Research and Technology (CART) to help tackle Unemployment and societal challenges. The second edition is what has come to be known as the 2nd Ideas Challenge Competition.

Unemployment is a universal issue and Ghana has its fair share of the problem. It is one area that has been a challenge to many past governments as well as to the present authorities.

Anytime WORK, JOB or EMPLOYMENT is mentioned, a lot of images come to mind. It is either a factory set up with people in the same uniform, road works with mighty cars moving up and down in a cloud of dusts, educational institution with teachers standing in front teaching, banking offices with staff neatly dressed in an air cooled room, chain of stores with sales girls attending to customers in a busy business environment, and things like that.

However when one carefully examines all the activities that go on at such places, one could see that they are all doing the same thing; namely, solving a problem of some kind. So we can comfortably say that anytime a solution to a problem of some kind is found, job or work is automatically created. Interestingly this ability to find a solution to a society problem is not a gift of everyone. Few people may be gifted with such abilities, just as it is true in fields like music, artwork, football, writing, linguistics, etc.

CURRENT SITUATION

Many people still wonder whether our universities/colleges, polytechnics and technical institutes are not doing just that; and the answer is yes.

Our academic institutions have been doing well all this time to equip our graduates with solutions to (assumed) society problems. At school, after taken the required knowledge, principles and theorems, teachers create artificial problems in a form of class-work, home-work and project works for the students to solve; this process activates what we call critical thinking in the use of the acquired knowledge and understanding of it. As a motivation the students are rewarded with diplomas and degrees. When the students graduate, they are equipped with “artificial” solutions and hope to solve some real life problems in the society that may come up. This is where the problem lies!

If professional teachers are trained to create work (in a form of class work, assignments, project works) for students on campus, it is logic that we would also need experts to create artificial or real life challenge activities for the graduates, now that they are out of school, and in the society for them to use their acquired solutions for a living; and this is where the Centre for Applied Research and Technology (CART) comes in to support.

Basically, all we do is to help create jobs and job avenues for those who have the potential and the desire to do work!

The Centre for Applied Research and Technology is a support program for Human Resource Development and Capacity Building in Technical and Vocational Education, and is not for profit making organization.

Last year CART launched 1st IDEAS CHALLENGE COMPETITION as a vehicle through which many jobs could be created. This year, we have launched 2ND IDEAS CHALLENGE COMPETITION and wish to invite many people who are looking for jobs to take the chance, which will come along with many fantastic awards. Through this program, we hope to create about 200-600,000 jobs and job avenues. We wish to welcome institutions and individuals and other stake holders who wish to sponsor any of our programs to do so freely.

BENEFITS TO SOCIETY

1. Creation of jobs through (SET)-Science, Engineering and Technology.

2. Provide enabling environment for research work, innovation and creativity ideal for the up-and-coming Engineers using our available resources.

3. Provide a common platform for all such potential ones for exposure, and use CART as a medium for the “Helping Hands” of many well wishers to reach such brilliant ones.

4. Assist in attracting investors not only towards our natural resources but also to invest in the nation’s meaningful Human Resources, Manpower and Technological Developments.

5. Help many to reduce the time spent on leisure and entertainment for productive activities.

6. Assist the mentally healthy but physically challenged or the sick to contribute to this wealthy course.

7. Provide healthy competition among our technical institutions, thus, adding value to our technical education.

8. We hope this project would help maintain our experts in Ghana and reduce brain drain.

9. Promote transfer of knowledge and maintenance culture through systematic and scientific approach in solving some of the problems we face daily.

10. Finally, CART strongly believes that our activities may be one of the solutions to save our collapsing National Museum for Science and Technology in Accra, and hope to contribute towards it.