Making India Proud at Global Science Fair

Intel Foundation donated $60,000 towards Women's Education and Empowerment

Making India Proud at Global Science Fair

ALBUQUERQUE (NEW MEXICO U.S.): When 17-year-old Rishin Behl was fidgeting with his laser beam apparatus a few months ago, he would not have quite known how far the beam was going to take him. On Friday, however, he saw his little experiment graduate into a $1,000 prize-winning project at the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF) 2007.

He was among the prize winners in the Earth and Planetary Sciences category of the ISEF, which concluded here on Friday.

"The laser beam reflected on my window glass when an aircraft was passing by. I suddenly noticed the glass shaking. That gave me an idea," says the chirpy teenager. His project, "A novel design for magnetic levitating seismograph," is a product of his spirit of enquiry that questioned the inability of seismographers to detect the tsunami.

From a playful experiment to a prize-winning project, it has been a lot of hard work, reading, experimenting and thinking for this Kendriya Vidyalaya student from Mumbai. All the same, the excited youth is already thinking of ways to improve his design and later, patent it.

Tanay David Delima and Nikhil Khosla, students of Dhirubhai Ambani International School, Mumbai, were also proud winners in the team category for their project on "Brake light warning system to prevent vehicular tailgating accidents." They won $ 500.

The three students from Maharashtra were among winners from across the globe, who took back, besides a lot of money, internships and opportunities to attend other international fairs, an experience that will last forever.

The Intel Foundation Young Scientist Awards, which included a scholarship of $ 50,000, went to Dayan Li from Maryland, Philip Vidal Streich from Wisconsin and Dmitry Vaintrob from Oregon.

Agilent Technologies was the presenting sponsor for the fair, which was administered by Science Service, a non-profit organisation in Washington DC. Intel was the title sponsor.

Making India Proud at Global Science Fair

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