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Indian-American boy is America’s Top Young Scientist
An innovative, eco-friendly battery design has won 14-year-old Sahil Doshi the title of America's Top Young Scientist and the Discovery Education 3M Young Scientist Challenge award for 2014.
St Paul, Minnesota: An innovative, eco-friendly battery design has won 14-year-old Sahil Doshi the title of America’s Top Young Scientist and the Discovery Education 3M Young Scientist Challenge award for 2014.
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He said he was inspired by the 1.2 billion people worldwide who lack access to electricity and problem of the rising levels of toxic air pollution. It made him determined to create an energy storage device that could help lower harmful greenhouse gases while generating electricity for those in need.
The PolluCell that he created converts carbon dioxide into electricity achieves two goals simultaneously. It manages to cut down on carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, thus helping reduce global warming, and at the same time providing people in developing countries with electric power.
Doshi, who is from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, studies in the ninth grade at St Clair High School. He competed with nine other finalists – two of whom were also of Indian descent – in a live competition at the 3M Innovation Center in St Paul.
Jai Kumar from South Riding, Virginia, won the third place for an innovative, window-mounted air filter that prevents harmful pollutants from entering the home. He in the seventh grade at Loudoun County J Michael Lunsford Middle School. Mythri Ambatipudi from San Jose, Calif., a ninth grader at Saint Francis High School, came fifth.
“It has been a remarkable experience to watch these young scientists embrace the passion and innovative spirit of our science community through the summer mentorship program to create amazing solutions to everyday problems,” said Jesse Singh, Senior Vice President of 3M.
Doshi received an award of $25,000 and a student adventure trip to a destination such as Costa Rica. Kumar received $1,000 in addition to an adventure trip, and Ambatipudi, $1,000 and a $500 gift card.
Over the past three months, Doshi and the other finalists worked with a 3M Scientist in a summer mentorship program as they developed their ideas from a theoretical concept into an actual prototype that would help solve a problem in everyday life.
During the final competition on October 14, the finalists showed their innovations to a panel of distinguished judges and they were asked to combine several 3M technologies to find new solutions to a problem and to build a simple machine using science and engineering principles.
Last year, three children from the Indian diaspora were among the finalists: Aishani Sil, a 7th grader from Plano; Texas, Srjay Kasturi, a 7th grader from Reston, Virginia, and Anish Chaluvadi, an 8th grader from Simpsonville, South Carolina.
This story originally appeared on The Indian Diaspora.
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