BTU takes top spot in Women in Engineering contest
BOLGATANGA Technical University (BTU) has emerged winner of the 2026 Women in Engineering (WinE) Ghana competition involving 19 technical universities, held at the Ho Technical University (HTU) in the Volta Region.
It was the fifth edition of the competition, which seeks to promote engineering among female students of technical universities while encouraging innovation and entrepreneurship development in the country.
At the close of the two-day event yesterday, the National Chairperson of WinE Ghana, Ms Naki Tetteh-Anowei, told journalists that the competition provided an innovative platform for female engineering students to develop technological solutions to some of the development challenges confronting the country.
She said BTU emerged as the overall winner after presenting an innovative bridge prototype fitted with a sieve designed to collect and sieve rainwater for use, alongside other prototype ideas aimed at addressing societal needs.
Ms Tetteh-Anowei said participating universities were given topics to work on, while mentoring and professional development sessions were organised with experienced engineers who engaged the students on the importance of innovation in tackling development challenges.
She said the programme also featured panel discussions on issues likely to affect the students after completing their programmes, the relevance of innovation and how they could identify and address problems confronting society.
According to her, WinE Ghana was a deliberate effort to encourage more women to pursue careers in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM), areas in which female participation had historically been low.
Ms Tetteh-Anowei stressed that the initiative was not intended to exclude men from the profession.
“Men are major allies. We are not pushing them away; we are only encouraging more women to come into the profession and coexist and work together for growth,” she said.
She commended BTU for winning the competition for the first time and said the prototype ideas developed by the students would be further developed to address emerging development challenges facing the country.
The WinE Ghana Executive Lead for Mentoring, Coaching and Education, Ms Alberta Amankwa, said the initiative formed part of efforts to strengthen the technical skills, confidence, creativity and collaboration of female engineering students and sustain their interest in a profession dominated by men.
She said the initiative had also created opportunities for students to commercialise their innovations and make them relevant to society.
The University for Development Studies (UDS), Tamale, placed second, while the University of Mines and Technology (UMaT), Tarkwa, placed third.
The three institutions received various awards to motivate them.
FROM SAMUEL AGBEWODE, HO
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