BlitzTech Co-Hosts the Inaugural African Edition of the Robotics for Good Youth Challenge

On 15 January 2025, the Harare Institute of Technology hosted the first-ever African edition of the ITU Robotics for Good Youth Challenge. BlitzTech Electronics is proud to have served as Equipment Sponsor, Planning Advisor, and Event-Day Setup partner, working alongside national chapter host Omorfo Tech Labs to bring this prestigious competition to Zimbabwean youth. **The theme: Disaster Response.** Twenty teams from across Zimbabwe, including students from Dominican Convent High Bulawayo, Mavhudzi High, Glenorah 2, Monte Cassino Girls High, Hillbright Science College, Rusununguko High, and Westridge Primary, designed, built, and coded robots to tackle scenarios drawn from the UN Sustainable Development Goals. **The winners:** Zimbotron_06 took the Senior division. Zimbotron Jnr 08 won the Junior category. Both teams earned Grand Finale tickets to the AI for Good Global Summit 2025 in Geneva, gold passes for every team member and mentor, a Youth Zone exhibition booth, and a pitching slot on the Youth Stage. **The mentors:** Einstein Makuyana (BlitzTech) and Simon Muzariri (Omorfo Tech Labs) guided competing teams through the challenge cycle. **The judges:** Monica Gondo and Sternford Mavuchi, both from HIT, evaluated robot performance against the rulebook's autonomous-task scoring criteria. Watching Zimbabwean high-schoolers solve hard engineering problems in real time, with BlitzTech-supplied competition kits in their hands, confirmed what we've believed since we founded the company in 2017: African problems deserve African engineering, and the engineers are already here. They just need the equipment, the venue, and the framework to compete on the world stage. We were proud to provide all three. Read the official ITU event page at https://aiforgood.itu.int/event/robotics-for-good-youth-challenge-zimbabwe/. Looking ahead: BlitzTech has applied to ITU to become the official Zimbabwe Local Chapter Host for 2027, keep an eye on this blog for updates.