"It's not that China or India is cheaper. We need to be positioned
there because we want to have ideas bubbling up from different places."
- Thinking out of the box is hobby for them
http://news.webindia123.com/news/showdetails.asp?id=83842&cat=Business
New Delhi | May 26, 2005 6:40:04 PM IST
Banana fibre construction material, wheelchairs that climb stairs
and mobile phones that control home appliances - these are the innovations
that brought several Indian teenagers international recognition.
E. Vindhya, R. Vyjayanti, Raghavendra G., Kunal Gaurav and Arpith
Siromoney were the four teenagers felicitated for their inventions
by Science and Technology Minister Kapil Sibal Thursday at a function
organised here by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) and
the government.
As they prepared to explain the working of their inventions to the
high-profile gathering that included - apart from Sibal - Pawan
Munjal, chairman of the CII National Committee on Technology and
Innovation and Science and Technology Secretary V.S. Ramamurthy,
the foursome betrayed no sign of nervousness.
Ever thought of switching on your bathroom geyser just as you step
out of your workplace? Raghavendra has made it possible.
This 18-year old from SBOA School and Junior College at Chennai
developed what is called a global range electronic appliance controller
that allows one to operate up to three household appliances from
wherever one is in the world with a mobile phone.
The system needs just a cellular phone, a light-dependant resistor,
a sensor switch, wires and cells.
"While one appliance can be activated or de-activated with
three successive missed calls from any cell phone, another is operated
through SMS. The third appliance is activated by three missed calls
from one particular number," Raghavendra said.
Raghavendra, who spent less than Rs.500 on the entire system - if
one excludes the cost of the mobile phone - is now looking to increase
the number of appliances that can be simultaneously operated by
the system.
Fourteen-year-old Vyjayanthi looked like any other girl her age
until she started explaining geometric correlations and complex
equations - as nimbly as one would narrate the story of a blockbuster
movie - to Ramamurthy.
This Class 9 student of Takshashila Public School at Secunderabad
developed a geometric equation that can improve "auto-focussing"
in cameras and also be of great help to the engineering fraternity.
Arpith Siromoney, 16, was moved one day when he was out on the beach
with a wheelchair-bound family friend. Determined to make her life
more independent and easier, this student of Sishya School at Chennai
developed a wheelchair design based on caterpillar treads instead
of regular wheels.
"Over the past two-three years I have made sure that the user
of the wheelchair is comfortably placed on it even when it is climbing
stairs or passing over uneven surfaces. It is a concept that is
used in battle tanks," Siromoney said.
While most people his age thought of bananas only as a fruit, 17-year-old
Kunal Gaurav was on his way to making banana tree waste a primary
input for a wide range of products - from biodegradable construction
material to jeans to heavy metal filter.
Gaurav, a Class 11 student of B.R. DAV Public School at Begusarai
in Bihar, developed a simple but unique machine to extract plantain
fibre that is now already being commercially produced in Hajipur.
The four teenagers represented India at the International Exhibition
for Young Inventors held in Malaysia last week, where youngsters
from 37 other countries had participated.
The Japanese Institute of Invention and Innovation adjudged Vyjayanthi's
the "most outstanding individual invention" at the exhibition.
- 40 Indian-Americans among Intel ISEF Grand
winners
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/1118245.cms
SUNDAY, MAY 22, 2005 11:17:19 PM
HOUSTON: India’s Malvika Vinod Tiwari and 40 Indian-American
teenage students are among the winners of ‘Grand Awards’
in various scientific disciplines at the Intel International Science
and Engineering Fair (Intel ISEF), the world’s most prestigious
pre-college competition, in the US.
Tiwari of St Mary’s Convent High School in Kanpur, Uttar Pradesh,
won her grand award in the engineering category for her project
‘Foot Operated Vehicle Device for the Physically Challenged’.
Forty Indian-American students were also among the winners of grand
awards that were presented to the finalists of the 2005 Intel International
Science and Engineering fair at Phoenix, Arizona recently.
The overall Grand Awards of $50,000 scholarship each were won by
Ameen Abdulrasool of Chicago, Ill; Gabrielle Alyce Gianelli of Orlando;
and Stephen Schultz of Nordrhein-Westfahlen, Germany for projects
on a navigational system for the blind, possible discovery of an
ancient coastline on Mars and a lower-cost technology to analyse
compounds used to protect against diseases, respectively.
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