Six weeks ago, Dr Lazarus McCarthy Chakwera presided over the launch of the Africa-US Presidential Forum on Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM)/Artificial Intelligence.

Today, the initiative is already bearing fruits. Malawi has secured educational loans of up to US$100 million for 1000 Malawian graduates in the United States.

We finalised everything about the initiative at the Africa-US Presidential Forum event held at Rutgers University, who hosted us in partnership with Nekotech Center of Excellence.

The programme is expected to see collaboration between US academic institutions and prospective African students to pursue courses in the STEM and AI fields through scholarships.

The students will at the end of their studies obtain a STEM Designate 2 year-Masters Degree followed by job opportunities back in Malawi and right here in the US.

The initiative gives us a chance to build our own future by harnessing science and engineering technology at tertiary level which in turn will give us a relevant human resource base to achieve aspirations towards a middle income economy premised on our Malawi Vision 2063 blueprint.