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In short, ISSEA STEM is a competition in which schools from all over Africa come together to celebrate a mutual love for technology. STEM is an acronym for Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics. STEM competitions are made up of several events in each category. Usually consisting of these plus a few other:
BotBall: The main event. Bot ball consists of 2 robots per team operating on a board. The aim of each team is to move small objects like poms, foam cubes and small disks into locations around the board like buckets, defined regions or higher locations. The board is mirrored so 2 teams compete at the same time to get a higher score.
Robot Sumo: This is the second robotics event. Teams program 1 robot to fight the other teams robot TO THE DEATH... or at least until one is knocked off of the table. This event isn't worth any points for the over all STEM competition but is still a staple none the less.
Independent mathematics test: Students compete in a math test. This test is based more on logic based questions and brain benders.
Team based math tests: This is the same as the one above except they have harder questions and more time.
Forensics lab: The teams are given a problem. Someone has been murdered! Well, not really but the teams have to figure out who did it based on the materials in the lab and a check of the crime scene. Samples will be taken and accusations made.
I believe that ISSEA STEM is a great stepping stone for the youth to learn more about technology and whether or not they want to continue with it in their lives. Personaly there are some rough points to grind out but that's more on the school level than the national level.