Some 593 brilliant but needy students of the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) have received laptops to support their education.

The project dubbed ‘Support One Needy Student with One Laptop’ (SONSOL) solicits the support of all stakeholders to provide one laptop to such students.

The laptops valued at ¢2.96 million were donated by distinguished personalities, corporate organisations, philanthropists and Alumni of the University.

These include Vodafone Ghana, Stanbic Bank, ABSA Bank, SIC, Jospong Group (Zoomlion), Tobinco Group of Companies and CBG.

Others are Standard Chartered, Ing. Nana Poku Agyemang, Director of Urban Roads, Kumasi, Lawyer Agyei Baffour, Andysarp Furniture and Multinec Enterprise.

The beneficiaries were selected from 4,375 applicants.

For freshers, their WASSCE aggregate was not to exceed 18 and for continuing students, they should have attained a CWA of at least 55.00.

In addition, all students who were already benefiting from any scholarship or bursary above ¢2,000 were not eligible for the award.

Vice-Chancellor, Prof. Rita Akosua Dickson appealed for more support.

“When we published the call for students to apply to be considered for the laptops, we had an overwhelming number and we only have a limited number of laptops to give out,” she noted.

“Considering the number of laptops we have received and the number of students needing genuine help after the stringent, water-tight screening, we can only appeal for more laptops even beyond today’s ceremony,” she said.

Speaking on behalf of the beneficiaries, Henrietta Agyei-Yeboah thanked donors and promised the laptops “will be put to good use to achieve the main aim behind the initiative.”