Yasipi is 17 and has revolutionize a dream: Rwanda’s agriculture – with its self-developed robot. It is for many young Rwandans who want to improve their country. Not all have the same opportunities.
Full of Pride, Yasipi Casmir looks on your robot. Observed, as he turns 180 degrees, then along a Rail a few inches to the top rattles and there in the circle rotates. Vertibot, such as the 17-Year-old has been dubbed the robot is standing on a school yard in Rwanda’s capital, Kigali, the afternoon sun burns. Knee-high device, built out of gray LEGO bricks and Yasipi self-programmed. Soon Vertibot of Rwanda farmers to enable vertical farming – the Growing and Harvesting of fruit and vegetables in several levels one above the other. “I wanted to find a solution for this, as farmers in the higher floors and crops to plant, in Places that are not so easily accessible.”
Still, there is no vertical agriculture in Rwanda, and the robot Vertibot is so far only a prototype. But that doesn’t bother Yasipi Casmir, you want to think ahead, a step further. The appropriate statistics, you understood long ago: That Rwanda is so densely populated like no other country in Africa, the cultivated area are scarce, but at the same time, around 80 percent of all the inhabitants of the earnings from agriculture depend. “Our population is growing,” says Yasipi, “and we all need to eat at least three Times a day.”
High-rise buildings in Rwanda’s capital of Kigali: Here, vertical gardens could be created
With 17, a your own business card? Nothing Special in Kigali
The young woman with the rasp of short hairs is used to defend your project in front of critical ears. She is a member of the African Youth Union for Change – a private Initiative, the young people with mentors from the business or computer science students from the United States. In order to be admitted, you must present the young people with a concrete project in front of a Jury. More than 200 students from Rwanda with now.
The Embassy: Rwanda relies on its young Generation to take the country forward. Many young people have this internalized, whip out to the school, your own business cards. Also Yasipi has such a card, “CEO” and “Co-Founder” emblazoned on it in large letters. The self is aware of or creates the pressure? Yasipi describes it with a mixture of Conviction and a sense of duty: “When I see what in the world everything goes wrong, then I think that I have no time to relax, me to sit back. If I can be of help, and a part of my leisure has to give up – then so be it.”
Many young people in Kigali have ideas on how you could further develop
Poor opportunities for development in the country
Yasipi also know that you are lucky because you are in Kigali to school – where you with a Laptop and Wi-Fi is always available. You will leave the capital with their well-developed, paved roads, and driving through the hilly landscape of Rwanda, it is clear: Away from the Metropolitan areas many people do not even have a separate electricity and water connection.
Just in the schools in the country is not taught operating in the layer, otherwise, it would be possible, all of the children. Many teaching materials are outdated, and some teachers overwhelmed. Almost ten years ago, the government has ordered an abrupt change of language of instruction Instead of French is taught since then in English. “On average, each child visits in Rwanda, about 3.8 years of the school,” says Andrew Mold, the UN-economic Commission for Africa. After all, Ten years earlier, there were only 2.8 years.
Teaching in a rural school in a Ruana
Next goal: to Study and be a good example
For Yasipi it is not always easy. Their parents keep the family with odd jobs. If you can pay Yasipi the visit of a University, is uncertain. Yasipi believes, however, that you can make it if you work hard enough: “I try to be a role model, an Inspiration for young people with little money. I don’t have much, I had no one to look up to me or I was able to find. Perhaps others see in me, that there are opportunities for further development.”
In a few months Yasipi closes the school. After the exams you want to take care of more of the robots – the prototype out of LEGO, a real bricks soon, ready-to-use device, the Rwanda brings forward
The Research in Rwanda was supported by the German society for the United Nations.