The College of Engineering welcomed 60 brilliant young women, out of a total of 300 participating students, for the 2025 edition of the Women in STEM (WiSTEM) Bootcamp under the theme “STEM Without Limit: Empowering and Inspiring Girls Who Change the Game.” The remaining participants joined sessions in Chemistry, Physics, and other science fields at the College of Science.
Students from 30 senior high schools arrived on Sunday, September 21, 2025, and were housed at Africa Hall on the KNUST campus. WiSTEM Gh executives and other supporting partners held an orientation and welcoming session for students to prepare them for the bootcamp activities.
On Monday, September 21, 2025, despite being a holiday, the College of Engineering, led by Dr. Bennetta Koomson of the Department of Materials and Metallurgical Engineering, and Dr. Eric Tutu-Tchao of the Department of Computer Engineering, hosted 60 students to the college premises.
Dr. Koomson and Dr. Tutu-Tchao introduced the students to their project assignments and helped them develop a work plan to guide their activities. A mini presentation training session was held to train and prepare students them for their pitch presentation session.
The following day, Tuesday, September 23, 2025, the students engaged in hands-on laboratory projects under the supervision of Dr. Koomson and Dr. Tutu-Tchao at the Materials and Metallurgical Engineering Laboratory and the Faculty of Electrical and Computer Engineering (FECE) Laboratory. Lab sessions were facilitated by Abubakar Osafo Kantanka, Kingsley Atta Nyamekye, Edward Kpetege, Vincent Appiah, Esmond Adjei, and Lemuel Siaw.
Dr. Koomson’s group of 40 students was divided into four teams of 10, each working on projects that collectively focused on the treatment of galamsey-polluted water. The projects included iron oxide beneficiation from slags, pH adjustment and water stability, testing and removal of turbidity, and washing, drying, and layering sand for water filtration. Students used household materials, such as baking soda and turmeric, to determine whether a solution is acidic, neutral, or basic. Dr. Tutu-Tchao supervised two teams of 10 on plant health detector project and smart plant pot project.
Mini-pitch presentation sessions were hold for all groups on Wednesday on their project in engineering and the best teams were selected to represent engineering at the main pitch presentation help on Thursday.
The students engaged in various fun and educational activities like touring various labs in KNUST to learn. Students expressed their joy about the engineering lab sessions and engagement, and they expressed their wish to pursue various engineering careers.
