Advocacy

The trip's main event was Culture Meets Code, which Dare to Dream hosted with Swerve Robotics and the U.S. Embassy in Gaborone. There we advocated with government ministers and business leaders for more STEM funding in schools, funding for robotics clubs, and lower tariffs on educational STEM goods. I was one of the four who gave the "Introduction to FIRST and FLL" speech, which we wrote and memorized within a day of meeting: FIRST's technical side, its core values, and what it had done for each of us. After a panel, the dignitaries who had to leave early saw a quick robot demo, and the guests went round the stations, where the coding and robot demos drew the most interest.