Posted on 07/10/2002 10:13:51 AM PDT by swarthyguy
Muhammad Alis home town seems an unlikely setting for the 2002 Intel International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF) but the sleepy town of Louisville, Kentucky, is where 1,238 high school students from 40 countries congregated in May to compete for more than $3 million in awards and scholarships in the worlds largest pre-college science fair.
At breakfast on the day of the final judging, the Indian kids are wide-eyed and ebullient. Says Akshat Singhal, here with the document management software he developed: "Before coming here, whod have imagined that wed meet people of our age from Costa Rica?"
What is surprising and heartening is that three of the eight Indian participants are not from the metros. Akshat is from Jaipur, Madhav Pathak from Jabalpur and Vaibhav Gupta from Rourkela. They have come through a multi-stage process that began with over 14,000 contenders. And metro or non-metro, they have all followed their obsessions with little or no help from their schools.
"My aim was not the ISEF award," says Madhav. "My work will be lifelong." His uncle is nearly blind and has to use Braille to read. The boy noticed a fundamental problem with Braille that seems to have gone without comment
A look at the projects reveals a steady string of Indian names, even if they are US citizens.
for 175 years! A blind person reads Braille from left to right, just as we do. But he has to write from right to left. So Madhav went ahead and designed a Braille stylus which allows the user to both read and write from left to right.
Shraddha Teli and Srushti Shah from Mumbai were inspired to research natural dyes when they heard a German scientist arguing that Indian fabrics, which used eco-unfriendly azo dyes, should be banned. They have developed a kit which contains natural dyes like anato, turmeric and indigo, mordants like copper sulphate and alum, and shade cards. Using the kit, a poor Indian villager can actually start a small eco-friendly dyeing business. They claim that several Indian and multinational firms have shown interest in their technology.
Similarly, when, on holiday in Orissa, Anupama Bhadoria and Chetna Dudeja from Delhi saw the Mahanadi choking on non-biodegradable polybags, they decided to do something about it: they mixed recycled paper with peepal leaves to create bags several times sturdier than normal paper bags. When Vaibhav saw villagers storing grain in bamboo baskets smeared with cowdung to keep pests away, he wondered why cowdung should not be used more widely as a pesticide. One year and Rs 50,000 of his fathers money later, he has developed a natural pesticide far more effective against leaf blight disease, E coli and fungus than inorganic pesticides. "All of us started with a problem," says Rahul Shah from Mumbai, who has developed a coding system that converts each character in a text message into three colour pixels. "We wanted to solve that problem. Then we developed a hypothesis, we researched it, followed the usual scientific process."
The scientific process and scientific thinking, more than science, is what this fair is all about and what Intel is obsessed with. "We need a more technologically-aware, science-thinking populace," says Intel Fellow Kevin Kahn. "There are so many complex issues at stakewhether its genetically modified food or the environment or cloningand if these issues are voted on in terms of unbridled emotion, we are not going to progress as a civilisation. The best of the projects here arent constrained by someone elses idea of what the answer is."
From nerdy 14-year-olds who look about 10 to strapping would-be Brad Pitts and English-challenged Chinese girls, the Louisville Convention Center teems with kids of all shapes, sizes and colours. From nano-construction with self-assembling DNA-PNA complexes to geological analysis of a previously unmapped region of Venus, from surface-induced coherence in atomic fluorescence decay rates to infrared lie detection, the ideas, the intelligence on view is eye-popping. "The best kids have us veterans in thrall: the sophistication of their ideas!" marvels Intel Fellow Eugene Meieran. "You want to give them their PhDs there and then and say: come on, to work!" On a more serious note, he adds: "Todays papers are full of the new Star Wars movie, the Spiderman movie, what sports stars are doing. These are the kids wholl shape the future, and its irritating to me that they never get the recognition they richly deserve."
Compared with the US students booths, the Indian presentations are strictly no-frills. Yet they attract visitors who listen attentively to the virtues of cowdung as pesticide and a new natural dyeing process, and even click pictures of the stalls. The US schooling system lays far greater emphasis than the Indian format on project-based learning, so the American kids are accustomed to presenting their projects to others. The project-based system has other very important pluses also. Says Timothy Saponas, president, Intel Foundation: "Project-based education arouses interest, creates passion. And when they come to a science fair like this, if their education system is not project-based, projects are homegrown, so students can spend less time on them. In many Asian countries, projects happen outside class time."
Akshat agrees. "We had a very limited perspective. Till now, science was related in our minds to cramming and getting good grades. But now you realise that science is about research. In countries like the US, they are actually trying to do original research at school level!" Akshat is clearly one of the most ambitious and articulate of the Indian students here. At the fair, he has been making friends with kids from all over the world, especially Indian-Americans.
And Indian-American kids are all over the place. They are clearly the largest ethnic group after white Caucasians representing American schools at the fair. Take a glance at the list of the projects on display here and names like Kapil Amarnath, Neha Mehta and Debarshi Mustafi leap off the page. They are all born and bred in the US and they are the next generation of Americans.
The award ceremony is a cross between prom night, with the kids dressed up in their best, and an inter-school baseball game, with all the US states carrying their own flags and whistles. The winners names are announced and a stunningly large number of them are Indian. Kavita Shukla from Maryland, Sukhjeet Singh Batth from California, Parmita Dalal from Kansas, Kunil Raval from Michigan, Vaishali Grover from Florida, Mark Mazumdar from Arkansas.... Among the 328 awards announced before the climactic three top awards, 49 are won by children of Indian origin. And then, all three of the top prizesthe Young Scientist Awardsall go to Indian-American kids: Nina Vasan from West Virginia, Alexander Mittal from Connecticut and Naveen Neil Sinha from New Mexico.
Compared to this, the children from India do not do so well. Shraddha and Srushti win two prizes and an honorable mention, and Akshat gets a special award. I find them a bit despondent after the ceremony. Says Shraddha: "I knew we wouldnt do well. We Indians arent confident enough." "We lost," grumbles Akshat. Then Rahul brings a spot of cheer: "Lets say we didnt win. And were all going to try again next year, right?"
But the image I carry back with me is a distant glimpse one morning of 14-year-old Madhav sitting at his stall. A boy from Jabalpur, so very far from home, he looks vulnerable yet happy. Theres wonder in his eyes but confidence too. His face lights up when he sees me, and I am sure mine does too, at that moment.
This is one reason I am not opposed to LEGAL immigration. People like this can certainly do nothing but improve the mix here.
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