A Curepe teenag­er with a pas­sion for sci­ence is now in Bar­ba­dos at a high­ly re­spect­ed youth sci­ence pro­gramme, cour­tesy the state-owned Na­tion­al Gas Com­pa­ny of Trinidad and To­ba­go (NGC). Yavniel Yatali, of Nor­ton Street, Curepe, was se­lect­ed as the NGC 2012 SPISE (Stu­dent Pro­gramme for In­no­va­tion in Sci­ence and En­gi­neer­ing) schol­ar. SPISE is a one-month en­rich­ment res­i­den­tial pro­gramme for gift­ed Caribbean high school stu­dents be­tween the ages of 15 and 17 who are con­sid­er­ing stud­ies lead­ing to a ca­reer in sci­ence and en­gi­neer­ing.

NGC's sup­port for Yatali fol­lowed an in­vi­ta­tion from the Caribbean Sci­ence Foun­da­tion (CSF), or­gan­is­er of the SPISE ini­tia­tive. CSF is based at the Cave Hill Cam­pus in Bar­ba­dos. Ac­cord­ing to CSF, the aim of SPISE is to "help ad­dress the low num­bers of Caribbean stu­dents pur­su­ing ad­vanced de­grees in sci­ence and en­gi­neer­ing." CSF's long-term ob­jec­tive is to help di­ver­si­ty the economies of the Caribbean by stim­u­lat­ing more tech­nol­o­gy-based en­tre­pre­neur­ship with­in the re­gion.

As an em­ploy­er of choice for many top sci­ence grad­u­ates in Trinidad and To­ba­go, NGC has em­braced the SPISE pro­gramme as a wor­thy ini­tia­tive. The pro­gramme be­gan on Au­gust 6 at the Cave Hill Cam­pus and con­tin­ues un­til Sep­tem­ber 1.