Three Indian students have made it to the finals of the prestigious annual Breakthrough Junior Challenge, a global science competition for teenagers to share their passion for mathematics and science.
The three Indian students– Samay Godika, 16 and Nikhiya Shamsher, 16, from Bangalore and Kavya Negi, 18 from Delhi– are among 15 finalists of more than 12,000 original registrants from around the world who submitted engaging and imaginative videos to demonstrate difficult scientific concepts and theories in the physical or life sciences.
The winner will be announced on November 4 in Silicon Valley and get a USD 250,000 college scholarship. The science teacher who inspired the winning student will get USD 50,000. The winner’s school will also receive a state-of-the-art science lab worth USD 100,000.
The 15 finalist videos were chosen by a selection committee, including Salman Khan, CEO, Founder, Khan Academy; author and educator Lucy Hawking; Mae Jemison, science literacy expert, former astronaut, and principal, 100 Year Starship; retired NASA astronaut Scott Kelly; Nima Arkani-Hamed, professor of physics, Institute for Advanced Study and Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics Laureate; and Rachel Crane, space and science correspondent.
Nikhiya Shamsher’s 4-Dimensional Space Time and Gravity
Nikhiya was the top scorer in the popular vote contest with more than 25,000 likes, shares and positive reactions for her video on spacetime and gravity posted on the Breakthrough Facebook page. Nikhiya will receive automatic entry into the final round of judging. Her project is about 4-Dimensional Space Time and Gravity. I would love to pursue theoretical physics, simply because it reveals many secrets of the universe. And of course, an important component of theoretical physics is math. I believe math is the language by which the universe speaks to itself, she said.
Nikhiya describes herself as an inventor and an innovator. She has a patent pending on a point of care, home-based salivary diagnostic test for chronic smokers to detect the risk of oral cancer. “I conducted my study at IISC, Bangalore and my diagnostic test has an accuracy of 96 per cent. It’s a simple product that a person can use at home and one test costs less than 50 cents, said Nikhiya, who is also the founderpreneur of an e-commerce website, 100 per cent of the profits of which are used to set up and fund Math and Science Laboratories in schools and colleges that don’t have any.
Kavya Negi’s Hawking Radiation
Kavya from Delhi believes that her video about Hawking Radiation might stand a chance to win because it showcase in depth dive to the concept. Hawking Radiation is a very feeble emission of particles near the event horizon of a black hole caused when virtual particles (created near the event horizon) escape, she said.
Aspiring to be physics researcher as well as a science communicator, Kavya believes that scientists should be celebrated just as much as musicians, actors or sportsmen.
My vision is to see a scientific utopia which starts with scientific communication, she said.
Samay Godika’s Circadian Rhythm
Samay, a class 11 student, in his project has explored various aspects of Circadian Rhythm. “I first heard about Circadian Rhythm when it was in the news as the 2017 Nobel Prize winning topic in Medicine. I zeroed in on this topic as it seemed to impact many facets of daily lives, including things like my asthma, the difficulty I face getting up early in the morning, etc, he said.
Samay wants to pursue a formal programme in neuroscience. “Our brain seems to be the most complex system in this world and the least understood. I am interested in building a solid foundation in this area. In parallel, I would also like to pursue a programme that allows me to formally learn Data Sciences. This skill will equip me to model complex problems. A combination of neuroscience and data science skills could enable me to devise solutions for some of the most debilitating diseases faced by mankind,” Samay said.