Seven-year-old Nigerian robotic kid aims for World title

Seven-year-old 2019 World Robot Olympiad (WRO) joint champion Brendon Ikem has said that he aimed to be the best Artificial Intelligent (AI) developer in the world. The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that Ikem, emerged champion alongside his pair Christian Peter-Jesse at the just-concluded 2019 World Robot Olympiad (WRO) held at the Oriental Hotel, Victoria Island on Saturday. The 2019 WRO Nigeria serves as the qualification stage to the upcoming WRO in Gyor, Hungary from Nov. 8 to Nov. 10, the qualifiers may have about 22,000 participants according to the organisers.

The theme for the 2019 WRO is “Smart Cities”, had over 120 students drawn from the public and private schools in attendance. The 2019 WRO Nigeria was put together by Arc Lights Foundation, the national organiser of the programme since 2011. The 2019 WRO Nigeria serves as the qualification stage to the upcoming WRO in Gyor, Hungary and the qualifiers may have about 22,000 participants according to the organisers. Ikem, a pupil of Children’s International School, Lekki, Lagos, said that the robotic education means a lot to him, adding that he would love to be the world renowned AI.

“I am excited and happy to be the winner of 2019 WRO, I did not win last year but I came second, so, I am more determined to be the champion this year. I practiced and worked hard for this because robotics means a lot to me. I want to be the best in the world. I will work hard to become the world champion,” he said. Ikem’s father, Obed, an Engineer, said many preparations had gone into the preparation of his child before he became champion. So, much preparations had gone into his winning. We have been preparing for this for a long time. We had to teach him coding and build an application for him. I am a researcher and I gave him a lot of support towards realisating his dreams. Nigeria can be a great nation through Artificial Intelligence,” he said.