Uche Linda Okpala receives the most Prestigious Awards - 2020/2021 Outstanding Coach/Mentor Awards for FLL National Robotics championship and for her Team DAURABOTS 2nd place in Innovation project.

Uche Linda Okpala who has won several international awards and recognitions has nailed it again, She has added another feather to her collection of miles stone. She is a Global teacher, Microsoft Fellow, Microsoft innovative educator expert, Master trainer, National Geographic certified educator, Microsoft Global Learning mentor formally known as Skype master teacher and Ambassador to various Ed-tech products. She is also the lead coach of team DAURABOTS and a founder of 21stdigiskillz.

FIRST LEGO League Challenge is an international hands-on experiential program that inspires creativity and entrepreneurship skills in young learners. Uche Linda, despite dealing and coping with personal adversity due to her health challenges, led and inspired a team of students from the Federal Government College Daura to create a solution that was good enough to land them 2nd position in a National Robotics competition that saw over one hundred and thirty two teams/schools competing from all the six geopolitical zones.

To cap this all, Uche Linda won the highly coveted outstanding Coach/Mentor Award, seeing off over 264 coaches and mentors from across Nigeria.

she has distinguished herself as a capable, dependable and selfless leader and role-model for her students and other coaches and mentors. She continues to exceed expectations in her role as Coach. Her ability to coordinate and work with young learners and other adult mentors is exceptional. She is a self-driven, passionate and motivated professional.

The Minister of state for Educaton Hon. Chukememaka Nwajuba presented the awards. She received her outstanding coach/mentor awards and that of her Team DAURABOTS who badged 2nd place in FLL Innovation project.

Minister of State for Education, Hon Chukwuemeka Nwajiuba, gave the charge in Abuja, during the award ceremony for the winners of the CODERINA National first Lego League 2021 Competition, while also calling for the infusion of coding in the Secondary School Curriculum.

He said the Federal Ministry of Education has already taken the lead by partnering with CODERINA Education and Technology Foundation to ensure the growth and development of Artificial Intelligent and Robotics in secondary schools.

One thousand three hundred and twenty (1,320) students from one hundred and thirty two (132) teams including student from all 104 Unity School in Nigeria are among 500,000 + children around the world who participated in the 2020/2021 FIRST LEGO League Challenge RePLAY session Challenge.

Highlights of the season include:
Amazing custom-built robots came to life in fast-paced, timed competitions and thousands of festively dressed students and their coaches putting designs and skills to the test.

Children interacting with colleagues from other schools and meeting with judges from the Federal Ministry of Education, Abuja.

On-site teamwork, troubleshooting, problem solving

Learning research projects on display

Spirit and excitement as students and friends cheer for their school teams.

"This is the greatest joy of my life, it's a dream come true for me and my team. We had a lot of fun with these amazing kids while learning together. They are a part of my life," Uche Linda said.

And the feeling is mutual. Several students described Uche Linda as "a second set of parent."

She said she spends most weekends and nights with students working on their latest project, Robot games, FLL Core values and Robot designs. "It's just an amazing cohesive group that came together to identified a real world problems, did research, Think out of box using critical thinking and problem solving skills, proffer possible solution to it and related it to the theme "REPLAY Season" Game changers Team DAURABOTS are really Game changers, and I am preparing them for the future ready jobs "She said".
To successfully complete the Challenge, teams of young people must conduct research and then build and program a LEGO Education SPIKE Prime or LEGO MINDSTORMS robot to perform fitness-themed missions in the RePLAY Robot Game.

The missions reflect potential thought-starters for their self-directed Innovation Project, where students will identify a problem related to people not being active enough, research the problem and design a new piece of technology or improve an existing one to help them solve that problem.

The aim of the program was to help students develop innovation, critical thinking and lifelong skills and these are the skills that would prepare them for the future of work and the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4iR).

The program was organized by Coderina Education and Technology Foundation (Coderina) in collaboration with the Federal Ministry of Education with support from SAP, DOW, Ford, NITDA (National Information Technology Development Agency, the LEGO Foundation and FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology).