3,519 Vijayawada students enrol for Inspire-Manak Awards

Students in 10-15 years age group and studying in classes 6-10 are eligible to submit their ideas. Each school can nominate five original ideas through the website before October 15.
Image used for representational purpose only.
Image used for representational purpose only.

VIJAYAWADA: As many as 3,519 projects designed by students of various schools in the district have been enrolled for INSPIRE - MANAK (Million Minds Augmenting National Aspirations and Knowledge)-2021 Awards presented by the Department of Science and Technology (DST) and National Innovation Foundation (NIF), District Science Officer (DSC) M Hussain said. 

Speaking to TNIE, the official said DST has initiated a flagship programme Inspire-Manak which aims at imbibing scientific knowledge and innovative thinking among school children to address societal needs. 
A total of 32,554 students across the State have enrolled their projects for the awards. Among them, 3,519 entries are from Krishna district. A detailed list will be announced by the end of November. 

Out of the 7,947 schools that have enrolled for the awards in the State, 845 are from the district with the majority being government schools. Keeping this in view, the education department officials are exploring all possibilities to encourage children from government schools to win awards for their projects, he said. 

Students in the age 10-15 years age group and studying in classes 6 to 10 are eligible to submit their ideas under the programme. Each school can nominate five best original ideas through the website before October 15. The NIF will scrutinise and select about one lakh experiments out of 10 lakh innovations and award Rs 10,000 to each student to develop the prototypes. 

Such projects will be exhibited at the District-Level Exhibition and Project Competition (DLEPC) and the best ideas will be selected for the State-level exhibition. Further, they will be shortlisted again based on merit and the selected projects will go to the national-level. 

Hussain noted that students from the district were proving to be a tough competition for other districts. A total of 3,929 students had enrolled for the awards in 2019-20. Krishna district stood first in the State with 701 projects being selected. In 2020, 3,316 projects were registered and 401 were selected. 

The DSC said that a student from KRZP High School in Katuru developed a project to reduce water wastage in western toilets. The student developed a mechanism connecting a water pipeline for hand wash systems to save water in households and commercial purposes.

Another student, N Naga Lakshmi of ZP High School in Kalidindi developed a device to identify secret cameras. “I have developed a device to identify secret cameras that can cause inconvenience to women. An alert will be sent to the device whenever there is a secret camera in the vicinity,” Naga Lakshmi explained and added that she was seeking support from the DST and NIF to make further developments to her project.

Eligibility criteria
Students in 10-15 years age group and studying in classes 6-10 are eligible to submit their ideas. Each school can nominate five original ideas through the website before October 15. Out of 10 lakh projects, NIF will select around 1 lakh innovations.

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