Great minds from around the world came together to exchange ideas on how to solve issues threatening our planet - among them, were six students from Guam, representing the island in Singapore.

Six brilliant young minds, all from Guam Department of Education high schools, are on their way to represent Team Guam for the 2023 First Global Challenge. The international FGC event bringing together over 190 countries to discuss ideas on how to address global issues, utilizing their passion for robotics.

The Team Guam student innovators designing their robot to compete in this year’s game theme, “Hydrogen Horizons,” tasking it to produce hydrogen molecules to store, transport, and convert energy. Alicia Bacani is the team’s co-captain and main researcher, and said, “Our robot represents electrolysis–which is, again, the process of separating both hydrogen and oxygen atoms and taking those hydrogen atoms and creating them into the renewable energy source that we use today–and considering the fact that Guam does have an abundance of water all around us, with it being an island and there’s water, seas, beaches everywhere–we can use that to our advantage and have an unlimited amount of pink hydrogen energy that we can use with nuclear power plants again that can easily be recycled because 90% of it is recyclable and the waste could be used for carbon capture–which was last year’s own, so it would correlate and just work together and benefit Guam’s economy.”

It’s research on pink hydrogen and its potential uses for a more sustainable and energy-efficient future that Bacani and her teammates will share during FGC’s new energy experience,

The group will present these ideas to possible critical stakeholders who could aid future developments for the island. And just ahead of their trip to Southeast Asia, the team sharing their ideas with Lieutenant Governor Josh Tenorio, even suggesting the implementation of nuclear energy curriculum in Guam’s colleges.

“The nuclear energy field is very well-known all across the world," Bacani explained, "but in Guam, it’s not very well known–so, if we implement a curriculum in either UOG or GCC, then that would benefit Guam just in general with that little amount of education that we can have.”

Education that she hopes can lead to major advances, saying, “We really do hope that our tourism industry evolves as is and the education system on Guam as well because, if more people know about Guam, then there’s more investment going into it– honestly, what I want for Guam is, for one of the colleges to be an Ivy League or considered an Ivy League, so then, we have more people coming and going and the tourism industry won’t be the only industry that supports Guam.”

And a message this young girl has for other women interested in pursuing STEM. “If you guys think that you guys can’t do something–do it. You never know unless try," she encouraged.