Young Indians bag top honours at Intel ISEF awards in US

Seventeen young innovators from India bagged five Grand award and six Special awards at the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair (Intel ISEF), held at Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, USA from 10-15 May. The  innovators represented Team India at the Intel ISEF.[caption id=“attachment_2297800” align=“alignleft” width=“380” class=" “]  India team at Intel[/caption] Arsh Shah Dilbagi from DAV Public School, Panipat won several awards  – a first prize of $1000 and $500 from the American Intellectual Property Law Association and Patent and Trademark Office Society respectively. Dilbagi was also awarded an Intel ISEF Third Grand Award of $1000 in the Embedded Systems category, and got another award of $500 from the American Psychological Association for the project, ‘Breath into Speech for the Disabled’. Onkar Singh Gujral from La Martiniere for Boys School in Kolkata got a first prize of $1,000 from the Association for Computing Machinery, and an Intel ISEF second prize of $1,500 in the Systems Software category for his project ‘Image Processing Algorithms towards Optical Detection of 2D Nanomaterials’. An Intel ISEF third prize of $1,000 went to Ravi Pradip from the Dayapuram Residential School in Kerala for his project ‘Plumeria Blooms for Organic Electronics!’ in the Materials Science category. In the Plant Sciences category, Maharaja Agarsain Public School Delhi’s Mansi Aggarwal and Harshit Jindal received the Intel ISEF fourth prize of $500 for their project  ‘Begonia Nepalensis: An Effective Herbal Ointment against Enterobiasis.’ This prize was also awarded to Aditya Bhargava and Komal S from Sharada Vidyanikethana Public School, Mangalore, for their Materials Science project ‘Highly Sensitive Nano-Ferrite for Detection of Carbon Monoxide in Air’. Certificates were given to Aditya Ashish Bhople from Narayana Vidyalayam, Nagpur for his project ‘Autoreader: A Wearable Assistant for the Visually Impaired’ in the Embedded Systems category, as well as Dhirubhai Ambani International School Mumbai’s Abhimanyu Pallavi Sudhir for his project ‘A Generalisation of the Determinant to Rectangular Matrices: Implications in Gauge Theory’ in the Math category. The year 2015 marked 15 years of India’s participation at Intel ISEF, and the largest ever Indian team comprising of 30 young innovators. Of these, 17  innovators showcased 12 innovative projects and ideas at the event, spanning a range of topics from wearable technology to big data analytics to renewable energy. Over 1,700 finalists from over 70 countries, regions and territories, at the world’s largest pre-college science competition, vied for the top slots at Intel ISEF, which featured over $4 million worth in awards, scholarships and honors such as a chance to be present at the Nobel Laureate ceremony or to have a minor planet named after them (courtesy MIT’s Lincoln Laboratory). “Intel believes young people are key to future innovation and that in order to confront the global challenges of tomorrow, we need students from all backgrounds to get involved in science, technology, engineering and math,” said Kumud Srinivasan, Intel India President. “We hope these winners will inspire other young people to pursue their interest in these fields and apply their curiosity, creativity and ingenuity to the common good.”