Cameroon’s Larissa is the only girl selected to be part of the team of students who will be representing their various countries in this year’s international robotics challenge.

The 16 year old, who lives with her mother, two sisters, three brothers and two nephews in her uncle’s house in the outskirts of Yaoundé, says she dreams of a career in electrical engineering where she can use her knowledge and passion for innovation to help advance her country.

The robotics competition organised by FIRST Global in Washington DC is aimed at igniting a passion for science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, STEM, among the more than two billion youths across the world.

Participating teams in the competition are composed of students aged 15 through 18 years old, with the common goal of increasing their knowledge in the sciences. The competition is expected to transform them into the next generation of scientific leaders who will work together to solve some of the world’s most pressing problems from food security and access to clean water, to finding better medicine.

FIRST Global is a US-based not-for-profit public charity which provides the framework for an “Olympics”-style robotics challenge. Through the robotics challenge, the organisation hopes to inspire youth across the globe to learn the skills they will need to make the discoveries their parents and grandparents would consider miracles, impossibilities, or just plain science fiction.