So, wow.
Maybe I can try helping to answer some questions, though I am not in any way a representative of FIRST Global or any affiliates, I'm not an official and I'd only listen to me at your discretion.
That being said, I have a network of 6-7 friends in Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania. I've known them for a little over a year through our participation in the New York Academy of Sciences programs (
http://thejunioracademy.org/). After meeting them for the first time in July, we had a chance to speak about the HUGE STEM gap, especially in Tanzania, between the haves and have-nots (for lack of better term at 10 pm.)
Long story short, I helped coordinate some outreach efforts between my team and the group. Overtime I got a bunch of messages from the group asking all about our robot, and FIRST and the build season. Noticing how they were so keen, I resolved to bring FRC to them, and we were working on plans for starting a pre-rookie team until about just under a month ago. They said that they were now starting this thing called FIRST Global competition, and they wanted to focus on that, and would resume work on bringing an FRC team after July.
Having never heard of this before I researched it for a long while, and came to find nothing. I tried asking him what they did and it seemed to be just a mix of FTC with a humanitarian aspect (as some pointed out). I guessed it was just a small region specific competition, but I was wrong.
After learning about this here today, it all makes sense. They have a period to build (not sure about bag and tag type day), and according to one member of the Tanzanian team, they only come to DC if they "qualify", and I think they said something about an interview but I'm not too sure. They are getting shipped a robot kit and are going through much of the same design process as other FIRST competitions. They were also assigned a mentor whom they had not previously known, but the mentor seems to be extremely qualified.
I don't believe it's as much of a stepping stone after FRC as some are thinking. I think FIRST might have wanted to create this as an opportunity to be able to bring the organization to various countries. In all honesty, trying to start a pre-rookie Tanzanian FRC team is probably one of the hardest things I've done, aw there was a STEEP learning curve for the students on the receiving end. This seems to be less of a competition that needs that thing, and an easy way to get into various countries with no FIRST exposure a starting point to eventually bring FRC to.
So far my friends love it, and will not stop talking about it!
If you have any casual questions about what kids think of it, please dm or respond to me. I'll pass it along to the team I know. Though I would definitely rely on FIRST before sourcing anything too serious out of me.
I'm so excited to see what this program brings, specially for international STEM students!