Two stu­dents have been award­ed schol­ar­ships val­ued at TT$35,000 each for their aca­d­e­m­ic achieve­ment, pur­suit of STREAM-re­lat­ed stud­ies, and par­tic­i­pa­tion in the Shell NX­plor­ers Pro­gramme.

The re­cip­i­ents are Fari­ba Bhag­gan, who is pur­su­ing un­der­grad­u­ate stud­ies in Com­put­er Sci­ence, and Mya Ab­bott, who is pur­su­ing un­der­grad­u­ate stud­ies in Agri-Food Safe­ty and Qual­i­ty As­sur­ance.

Shell Trinidad and To­ba­go Lim­it­ed, in part­ner­ship with the Na­tion­al In­sti­tute of High­er Ed­u­ca­tion, Re­search, Sci­ence and Tech­nol­o­gy (NI­HERST), re­cent­ly pre­sent­ed the stu­dents with the 2025 Shell NX­plor­ers En­er­gy & In­no­va­tion Aca­d­e­m­ic Schol­ar­ships at a han­dover cer­e­mo­ny.

The NX­plor­ers Pro­gramme is im­ple­ment­ed in 18 coun­tries, and seeks to equip young peo­ple with prob­lem-solv­ing tools and en­cour­age so­lu­tions to chal­lenges linked to the Food-Wa­ter-En­er­gy nexus.

The schol­ar­ship, launched in 2023, sup­ports tu­ition and ed­u­ca­tion­al ex­pens­es for stu­dents at lo­cal or re­gion­al ter­tiary in­sti­tu­tions in STREAM dis­ci­plines.

Through the NI­HERST-Shell part­ner­ship, re­cip­i­ents al­so ac­cess men­tor­ship and ca­pac­i­ty-build­ing op­por­tu­ni­ties.

NI­HERST act­ing pres­i­dent, Julie David, con­grat­u­lat­ed the schol­ar­ship re­cip­i­ents.

She not­ed that Fari­ba’s pur­suit of Com­put­er Sci­ence sup­ports dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion, while Mya’s stud­ies in Agri-Food Safe­ty con­tribute to stronger food sys­tems and pub­lic health. The NI­HERST pres­i­dent said “the awards rep­re­sent con­fi­dence in the po­ten­tial of youth and af­firm that their ideas and voic­es mat­ter.”

Coun­try Chair & Eng­lish Caribbean and Cor­po­rate Re­la­tions Head for Shell Trinidad and To­ba­go Lim­it­ed, Can­dice Clarke-Sal­loum, said the schol­ar­ships “re­flect Shell’s be­lief in young peo­ple’s po­ten­tial and its com­mit­ment to sup­port­ing their de­vel­op­ment along­side fam­i­lies and men­tors.”