Katherine Eta is fighting for a place at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), United States. She is buoyed by her success in the 2017 Certiport Microsoft Office Specialist World Championship where she won bronze in the Word 2016 category of the competition held in California, USA in August.
The Certiport MOS World Championships tests the proficiency of youths aged 13-22 in the use of Microsoft Office software applications which are used in most work places around the world.
For winning a medal in the competition, the only African to do so, she rose up to the challenge set by Mr Bode Agusto, chairman Readmanna Empowerment Initiative, organisers of the national MOS championship, October last year during the 2016 MOS awards ceremony to reward any medalist on the world stage with N1 million.
Agusto kept to that promise recently at the City Hall Lagos Island, when he presented the 16-year old former pupil of Childville School, Lagos, with N750,000 and her ICT teacher, Mrs Reykia Adebayo, N250,000.
Zenith Bank Plc, which sponsored the Nigerian contingent to the international competition, also matched the prize for both Katherine and her teacher.
In all, Katherine won N1,500,000 in Nigeria and $1,500 as scholarship fund in the United States.
Last year, Katherine also represented Nigeria on the world stage but placed 10th in PowerPoint 2013 category.
Speaking of her success, Katherine said: “I feel great and privileged to represent Nigeria and make the country, myself, parents and school proud. I am actually happy that I was able to come third in the world. I got a lot of self motivation seeing other people from other countries becoming world champions; it moved me to want to be like them. ”
Zenith Bank Managing Director, Mr Peter Amangbo, who was represented by Mrs Wunmi Ogunniyi, General Manager, said Katherine’s exploit would encourage other young Nigerians to excel in the competition.
He announced that to expand participation in the competition, the bank would sponsor six pupils who win in the Word Excel and PowerPoint categories from next year.
“I am confident of the achievements of the participating children which will further encourage her to break more records and establish more frontiers. Zenith Bank is committed to sponsoring an expanded Nigerian competition involving more schools, as well as supporting the Nigerian contingent to the 2018 Microsoft World championship,” he said.
Katherine is the second African to win a medal in the competition. The first, Bunmi Agusto, also a Nigerian, is coincidentally the daughter of Mrs Edna Agusto, CEO of Readmanna, came second in Word 2007 category in 2014.
In her speech, Mrs Agusto thanked Zenith Bank for expanding the competition.
She said 882 pupils from 20 secondary schools in Lagos, Ogun, Rivers, Kwar and Abuja participated in the national competition. Of the 161 shortlisted for the finals, 112 were certified as MOS in Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint.
Runners up in the three categories were also honoured at the event. Among them were two of Katherine’s brother – David, who won the Excel 2016 category and Daniel, who was the second runner up in the PowerPoint 2016 category.