Engineering His Life An impoverished young prodigy of robotic technology in Cameroon strives to fulfill his childhood dream
(in northwest Cameroon) when the conflict broke out in November 2016. I was going to school [at the time], but decided to drop out because of the constant fighting. So, I was forced to leave Bamenda and move to Douala to pursue my education and research projects,” he said.
Chi often thinks about what he left behind in Bamenda. Being away from his mother (his father died when he was a toddler), his aunt, uncle and cousins and childhood friends leaves him heartsore. He also could not take his textbooks, drawing board and work table with him, on which he had spent long hours studying and teaching himself engineering.
To escape the conflict, Chi was sent to live with his aunt in Douala, Cameroon’s economic metropolis, in May 2018, where he is now looking for sponsorship for school.
When he left Bamenda, nothing was more precious to him than his electronic creations, especially a plywood tank with a 360-degree swivel barrel, a dump truck that could lift and deposit cargo, and a wooden bulldozer that can push earth and rubble into tiny piles. He packed them carefully in cardboard boxes and prayed that they would safely arrive in Douala.
On his arrival in the city of 5 million inhabitants, things started off badly when a street child stole his cell phone out of his hands and ran off before he could be caught. Chi, who comes from Cameroon’s English-speaking region, also had difficulty expressing himself in French, which is spoken in Douala. But these setbacks did not discourage him. The innovative teen began demonstrating his mini-machines on the main streets of Douala and was regularly surrounded by hundreds of passers-by admiring his work and sometimes even dropping coins into his donation box.
“This child’s work is genuinely that of a genius. I appreciate what he achieves because when we were children, we saw these objects as miracles. We thought they were skills and secrets that belonged only to Westerners, but he proves that Cameroon can industrialize,” said city resident Jean Biboum.
Stephen Akoh, a tech expert based in Yaounde, the capital of Cameroon, said the young Chi is a genius. “I think that the government of Cameroon has a duty to make
To find out what to do, I studied electronics and battery-operated objects and asked professionals in the industry how to connect a battery to a car. I didn’t expect it would become such a big part of my life. BLAISE AWA CHI
an exception and support Chi. If he can produce such machines as a boy, imagine what he will do as an adult. So, I think he just needs good coaching coming from the state,” said Akoh.
Chi’s resourcefulness continues to make progress, and he has moved on to the construction of aircraft capable of flying short distances, as well as drones and tracked vehicles. These miniatures all possess impressive functionalities, thanks to the quality of his reproductions.
His dream is to build his own car and aircraft and make the study of technology-based engineering his life. To achieve these dreams, he is totally dependent on financial and logistical support and is hopeful of finding a good Samaritan in the near future. He said there are positive signs from a university mathematics professor who has said he will take Chi under his wing.
Ongoing conflict
Fighting broke out at the end of 2016 between the regular army and the separatists in English-speaking Cameroon. The conflict occurred following corporatist demands from the national Lawyers’ and Teachers’ Association of the two English-speaking regions of Northwest and Southwest, who contested the appointment of many French speakers in their courts and schools, which would have amounted to the marginalization of their organizations. The association organized a peaceful march in Bamenda, which was dispersed by security forces, leading to further demands, including a return to federalism. Finally, the Lawyers’ and Teachers’ Association demanded the secession of the two English-speaking provinces from the rest of Cameroon.
These claims triggered the civil war that has been going on for four years, causing massive human losses, tens of thousands of displaced persons, and the non-enrollment at school of nearly 850,000 children, according to UNICEF and the Cameroon Government. In this atmosphere of ongoing conflict, the young Chi left his beloved Northwest region to settle in the Frenchspeaking area of Cameroon, where, with the right support, he has the potential to become one of his generation’s greatest technological assets. CA