Friends Of Cancer Patients drive youth towards Innovation

SHARJAH: ANA-vation, the one-of-a-kind initiative by UAE-based nonprofit organisation, Friends Of Cancer Patients (FOCP), to raise awareness about childhood cancer and the importance of a healthy lifestyle, using innovation through Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics; S.T.E.A.M education, workshops, were launched last February, during Innovation month among 150 students from 15 schools across the UAE. The programme kicked off in February with the distribution of individual Ana-vation DIY robotics kits that participants are using to explore simple inventions that can identify cancer symptoms.

Under the theme, ‘Putting the Future in Their Hands’, the Ana-vation School Championship is an endeavour to educate the youth and stimulate their participation in the global fight against cancer, by integrating their efforts through the use of futuristic technologies. To be delivered over four months, the programme is currently in the training and evaluation phase across the 15 participating schools taking place until Apr.15.  During the course of these months, the Ana-vation tech team will hold specialised training workshops designed to help competing teams turn their ideas into reality by building their projects following a three-step procedure: Ideate, Design & Code.

In the ‘Ideate’ phase, the tech team will hold brainstorming sessions to validate the executional value of the ideas students have conceived. Next will be the ‘Design’ phase, where they will design models with the recyclables they choose as building materials and connect electronic modules. Finally, in the ‘Coding’ phase, the robot/gadget that the students create in the previous phase will be brought to life through programming and coding. 

The four-month timeline includes the Championship launch held in February, followed by training and evaluation roadshows in March, and will be succeeded by the workshops phase in April. All preparations will finally culminate to the School Championship Award ceremony in May 2018, where participating teams will present their final projects and winners will be announced.

Sawsan Jafar, Chairperson of FOCP Board of Directors, highlighted the importance of training and development in a project like this, saying: “How often does the idea of building a robot that will potentially be able to identify early symptoms of cancer using every day recyclable materials come about?”

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