Greenwood High Student Wins International Science Contest

Bangalore: Vikhyath Mondreti, a class 10th student of Greenwood High International School, Bangalore was part of the team that won laurels in an innovation challenge hosted by the New York Academy of Sciences under the Junior Academy program recently. The 4-member team consisted of Vikhyath from India and Ravikiran R, Gilvir G, and Henry Z, all from USA. They were mentored by Ruby Roy from the US. There were 91 teams altogether with participation coming in from 51 countries out of which only 3 teams were declared winners. The awards were given out at the GSA Summit 2017 that was held at the Academy’s headquarters in New York City.

Vikhyath’s team won the Biodiversity category in which the participants were required to design a system to efficiently monitor water pollutants in bodies such as lakes. Through the course of 70 days, students formed virtual teams and worked with STEM (Science-Technology-Engineering-Math) professionals serving as expert mentors. Their solution, H2nOde, secured the first place that made use of an innovative drone and sensor-network combination to deal with the crisis. Judges acknowledged their project as being both practical and scalable in a way that can help to check even the largest of the water bodies solely by the power of modern cloud based technologies for the collection of massive chunks of data pertaining to pollutants , in real-time and with full autonomy.

According to the presentation by Vikhyath’s team, polluted water in Africa and India causes 1.4 million deaths each year. The consequences of high levels of pollution are severe and range from epidemics to elimination of entire species.

"We are extremely proud to see Vikhyath and his global team winning the award. It's amazing how this program boosts a scientific bent of mind to deal with crisis at such a young age." said Mr. Srinagesh Mondreti, Vikhyath’s father.

"It's a fantastic learning experience and a great opportunity to meet a number of accomplished leaders in the industry and academia. I want to thank Greenwood High for creating an environment that gives us the freedom to think big.” expressed Vikhyath.

“It is a matter of immense pride that our students have shown exemplary courage and talent yet gain at an international platform. We hope that such initiatives create the next generation of scientific leaders who will be able to work together to solve some of the world’s most pressing problems. We sincerely wish him success for all his endeavors and will continue to extend our help to all our students to realize their dreams.” said Ms. Niru Agarwal, Trustee, Greenwood High International School.