Five Indian students are among the winners at the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair, the world's largest pre-college science competition in which an Indian-American girl also received a $50,000 scholarship by taking top honours.
These students excelled among a record-setting, worldwide pool of 1,482 competitors from 47 countries, regions and territories, setting the bar for future scientific research in three disciplines. The students who earned laurels for India include Hamsa Padmanabhan (16) of Kendriya Vidayalaya in Pune, Maharashtra. Hamsa got the second award of $1,500 for Physics of simple prototype for static magnetic levitation.
Apurva Mishra (16) from Dayanand Anglo Vedic public School in Bhubaneswar, Orissa, got third award of the $1,000 in the field of Engineering for Glabenator: An advanced alternative and augmentative communication device.
Swathi Soman (14) Christ Nagar Senior Secondary School, Trivandrum, Kerala, received third award of $1,000 in Environmental Sciences for Management of Aphid Pest of Cow Pea by a Bio-Pesticide Fusarium pallidoroseum.
Two Delhi students who made the country proud with their team project and won the fourth award of $500 are Varun Mittal (15) and Kanishka Tiwary (16). Their winning project was Effect of Chinaberry fruit extract oil on Feeding, Growth and Fecundity of Plutella Xylostella.
The awards were presented on Friday by Agilent Technologies at the 57th Intel ISEF 2006.
Indian-American student Madhavi Pulakat Gavini (16) was among three top young scientists who received the $50,000 Intel Foundation Young Scientist Scholarship on Friday by taking top honours at the competition. Besides Madhavi, 37 more Indian-American students and an Indian-Canadian won top awards at the Intel ISEF Fair.
Madhavi discovered a novel method to destroy a common and deadly infectious bacterium -- pseudomonas aeruginosa -- that causes secondary infections that often lead to death of patients with compromised immune systems, such as those with cancer, AIDS and serious burns.
Every year, thousands of students participate in regional-affiliated fairs to earn the opportunity to compete at Intel ISEF. They present their projects in one of 14 scientific disciplines: Behavioral and Social Science, Biochemistry, Botany, Chemistry, Computer Science, Earth Science, Engineering, Environmental Science, Mathematics, Medicine and Health, Microbiology, Physics, Space Science and Zoology.
More than 585 students received scholarships and prizes at this year's Intel ISEF. The top-scoring student in each project category receives a $5,000 scholarship and a high-performance computer from the Intel Foundation. These students' schools and their affiliated fairs' directors also receive $1,000 to benefit science and math education and to encourage more student involvement in science.