Srishti Asthana, the 15-year-old student has made the nation proud by acquiring a coveted spot at the finals of the Google Science Fair, 2013. She is the only participant from India to have made it to the finals.
A Class XI student from Millenium School, Mohali (Punjab), she presented a project on Solar Light Assisted nanoZnO photo catalytic mineralisation, which is a green technique for the degradation of detergents and was chosen from amongst several participants from 120 countries.
The inspiration for this project began when Srishti went on a field trip to Ludhiana and was disturbed by the dire state of industry disposal waste.
The 15 finalists will be taken to the Google Mountain View headquarters, USA, on September 23, and are to present their projects to an international panel of esteemed scientists for the final round of judging. The grand prize winner will receive a 10-day trip to the Galapagos Islands with National Geographic Expeditions, $50,000 in scholarship funding and more.
The Google Science Fair is an online science competition sponsored by Google, Lego, CERN, National Geographic and Scientific American and started in January 2011. The competition is open to 13-18 year old students around the globe, who formulate a hypothesis, perform an experiment, and present their results.
While the official judges will decide the 2013 Grand Prize Winner in August, everyone can participate in this year’s competition by voting for the Inspired Idea Award.