Three teenagers of Indian origin from around the world, won prizes for the projects they entered in the prestigious Google Science Fair.
Kiara Nirghin, 16, from Johannesburg, South Africa, won the Grand Prize for her project “Fighting Drought with Fruit.”
Thirteen year old Anushka Naiknaware won the LEGO Education Builders Award for her solution to making wounds heal quickly.
India’s Advay Ramesh, 14, built a handheld device that could help fishermen in his area be more safe out at sea, with early warning of approaching danger.
A 20-year drought in South Africa drove Nirghin to find a solution. She developed a biodegradable, low-cost way to conserve water using fruits like orange peels and avocados. Existing materials that can hold hundreds of times their weight in water while stored in teh soil,, are typically mad-made, and fill with harmful chemicals, apart from being too expensive for local farmers. Through her research, Nirghin created a way to turn orange peel into soil-ready water storage with help from the avocado, according to the description available on the Google Science Fair website. She hopes this low-cost material can reduce juice manufacturing waste while helping local farmers save both money and their crops.
Portland, Oregon’s Naiknaware enjoys chemistry and is inspired by famed scientist Marie Curie. Her project, Smart Wound Care for the Future, seeks to find a solution for a commonly overlooked medical problem – chronic wound care. Because dressings have to be regularly changed on wounds, patients take longer to heal, and patients remain vulnerable to new infections while recovering. Naiknaware wanted to create a sensor and she did create one that is cheap and biocompatible, and allows physicians to analyze a wound without having to open up the dressing.
The Community Impact Award won by India’s Ramesh, stemmed from his observations in his neighborhood of Rameswaram in Tamil Nadu. Fishermen there have to spend long periods of time at sea and sometimes inadvertently cross the International Maritime Boundary leading to arrests by Sri Lankan forces. He concluded a location-based information device would give these fishermen valuable help. He developedthe “FishErmen Lifeline Terminal” or FELT to enhance their safety and productivity, the Google website says. The device uses Standard Position Services or SPS, an open service provided by the Indian Regional Navigation Satellite System.
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