The Hindu Business Line : Non-metro school students win Intel science innovation awards

This time round, six of the eight students who represented India in the Intel Science Talent Discovery Fair in Atlanta are from small towns and lesser known schools. Besides a majority of them are girls. Their innovations won them seven awards in categories ranging from electrical and mechanical engineering to environment management.

Sample these

Ms Riddhi Dasani and Ms Pooja Dholakiya, in Class 9, of Late Shree S. G. Dholakiya Memo High School, Rajkot have developed an eco-friendly marker pen in which the ink is made of vegetables. The kids discovered nine colours that they could derive from different coloured vegetables and crushed each into a mixture and converted it into a solution that could be used in marker pens. “Try out my turmeric pen,” said Ms Riddhi, while explaining that turmeric gave her yellow, chilly gave red, the carrot saffron, and the rose pink.

Ms Swathi Soman, from Class 12, of Bhavan’s B P Vidyamandir School, Nagpur found a solution to control the pernicious aquatic weed, water hyacinth. “This infects two lakh hectares of water surface causing problems in 98 out of the 246 districts in India,” she said and explained that she found the an efficient method to integrate Fusarium pallidoroseum with Cashew Nut Shell Liquid, a by-product of the cashew industry, and turn it into an effective bio-control agent against the weed.

Ms Divya Venkataraman and Ms Neha Kulkarni of Modern English School, Mumbai, discovered that papaya leaves can help control mosquitoes and hence decrease the incidence of malaria and dengue fever. Mr Ambud Sharma from Sunbeam School, Bhagwanpur, Varanasi has developed a low-cost cooling device for desk-top computers.

Just back from the fair, many of them hope to work on the projects and be able to patent their discoveries. “Some of the discoveries have been patented in the past. We are also working with CII to see if some of these ideas can be channelised into industry,” said Mr Rahul Bedi, Director Corporate Affairs of Intel Technologies India Pvt Ltd.

The students were felicitated by Union Minister of Science and Technology, Mr Kapil Sibal, on Thursday. The science talent hunt is now called IRIS — the Initiative for Research and Innovation in Science — which is a merger of Intel’s ‘Intel Science Talent Discovery Fair’, Department of Science and Technology’s ‘Steer the Big Idea’ and CII .

Objective

The primary objective of IRIS is to promote and nurture science and scientific research amongst the young Indian innovators in secondary and higher secondary schools. This is done by recognising and rewarding outstanding research-based projects.

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