Jetro Njukeng and Assumpta Chinwe Nwanya winners of the 1st “Science by Women” Contest

Madrid, October 27th. Jetro Njukeng and Assumpta Chinwe Nwanya are the two winners of the 1st “Science by Women” Contest. A wide variety of projects with high social impact in the different research areas in which we work were presented: Health; Energy, Water and Climate Change; Agriculture and Food Security.

Jetro Njukeng, from Cameroon, is the winner of €4,400 in the “scientific dissemination” category. Her awareness-raising and training project will focus on reducing the overuse of pesticides and improving the yield of cocoa farms through the production of compost and biochar from the crop’s own husks.

Dr. Njukeng says that this method will increase crop yields and thus also improve farmers’ income. Considering that cocoa is the country’s main commercial crop, this project could have a high impact in terms of food security: both by increasing production without depleting the soil, and by reducing hunger and malnutrition.

The winner in the “technology transfer” category and €7,400, is Dr. Assumpta Chinwe Nwanya, from Nigeria. Nwanya is specialized in the use of rice husk biomass residues for energy storage and in this framework, she presents her project of Laser Induced Rice Husk Derived Graphene-based portable coin cell supercapacitors.

This new energy storage or power generation system proposed by the Doctor will have a direct impact on women and girls, as they are the most affected by the use of kerosene or traditional lamps for cooking, with the dangers that this entails.

This contest has been carried out with funding from the Eurofins Foundation, with whom we have been collaborating for the “Science by Women” program since last year.