Chennai: 14-Year-Old Boy Bags Google Community Impact Award

The brilliance and innovativeness of young minds is often left unexplored, but when given the chance to flourish, it astounds even the best of us. Advay Ramesh, a 14-year-old student from Chennai is one such boy. He has won the Google Community Impact Award from Asia. The prestigious award honours the best of students’ projects across 107 countries, selecting projects that will bring about a practical difference in the student’s community.

Ramesh, a student of Class 10, National Public School, Chennai, has won $1,000 worth of funding, along with a year-long mentorship from the Scientific American. He is also one of the 20 finalists who will be competing for a $50,000 scholarship from Google. The project that won Ramesh the award is titled FishErmen Lifeline Terminal, or FELT. It is designed to be a hand-held terminal that makes use of the Standard Positioning Services, an open service provided by the Indian Regional Navigation Satellite System.

Having read about the hardships faced by fishermen in Tamil Nadu, who often remain at sea for days together, some even getting arrested for accidentally crossing the International Maritime Boundary line, Ramesh was struck by inspiration for his project. The end result will be provision of location-based information to fishermen to enhance their safety at work. “Winning the Google Community Impact Award means a lot to me, it would help me learn more and develop my idea further,” Ramesh said in a statement.

The Logical Indian would like to congratulate Advay Ramesh for the award he rightfully deserves. We also wish him the best for a bright future, and are sure with minds like these at work, better times await us.