Bengaluru: Class XI Boy Wins International Science Prize, Gets Awarded 2.9 Cr Worth Cash Prize

On November 4, Samay Godika, a 16-year-old boy from Bengaluru won the Breakthrough Junior Challenge for his project on circadian rhythms. His project has won him an award of $400,000 (over Rs 2.9 crore) as a cash prize, along with $250,000 (over Rs 1.8 crore) as a college scholarship. Samay competed along with other 13 finalists selected from about 8,000 entries, as reported by Firstpost.

Project on circadian rhythms

This competition evaluated the students’ ability to communicate complex scientific ideas in the most engaging, illuminating, and imaginative ways.

Samay’s video was presented in the life science category explained the science of circadian rhythms and told how it affects the effectiveness of medical treatment for Parkinson disease. As some of his family members itself have Parkinson disease, he gained interest in circadian rhythms.

Nikhia Shamsher, who is also a student from the same school, won the “Popular Vote” contest in the same competition. “Popular Vote” on Facebook is a part of the judgement for the competition where votes are captured on the entries by public polls.

Samay has been recognised alongside some of the world’s top scientists on Sunday. “It feels amazing and unbelievable…Participating in and now winning the Breakthrough Junior Challenge is life changing thrilling and such an honour. I am so grateful for this opportunity. I thank my teachers and my little sister Sia, for shaping me,” Samay told Bangalore Mirror.

Breakthrough Junior Challenge:

The Breakthrough Junior Challenge is a global science competition where students between 13 to 18 years participate and research on the basic concepts of life sciences, mathematics and physics. They create and submit videos (up to 3 minutes). The submitted videos are judged on the ground of how the students present complicated ideas of science in the most straightforward and imaginative ways.

The Logical Indian take

With the advance in education in terms of technological reform has made Science more interesting and far more practical for even students to gain interest. There is a fair percentage of child prodigies who are getting graduated, performing surgeries, studying rocket science at a very young age. And here we are Indians where our Indian kids are making us proud in the field of science and invention. Samay deserves a special applause of recognising a problem which has affected his own family and basing his project on the same. It is a virtue of great inventors who recognise a problem around them and work towards solving it. Apart from Samay, his school teachers and family also deserves a special mention for harbouring and encouraging his talent.

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