SRIKAKULAM: Circumstances prevented Sivvam Kiran Kumar from chasing his dream of becoming a scientist, much to the benefit of several students of an aided school here! Forced to take up teaching due to certain family and financial issues, Kumar is now all set to realise his dream through his students.
A senior Physics faculty member in GMR Varalakshmi DAV Public School at Rajam, the teacher has been igniting young minds, sparking inquisitiveness, nurturing the students’ scientific temperament, and guiding them to innovate and evolve.
His drive has been reaping benefits with at least 18 science projects of the school winning national, state and district honours, besides being the centre of attraction in many an exhibition. Kumar is also a ‘pathfinder’ in the INSPIRE Awards -- MANAK, one of the flagship programmes of the Central Department of Science & Technology, aimed at motivating students studying in classes 6 to 10.
Besides motivating students to take up innovative science projects, Kumar said he is also supporting them financially. The innovations from GMR Varalakshmi’s physics lab have been beneficial to society. Class 10 student Gorle Pranathi’s ‘Fire Detection and Ranging’ project was selected for the INSPIRE Awards -- Manak, 2020-21. The model helps in issuing alerts in case of a blaze. Earlier, another project, ‘Save Women - Save India,’ was selected for the INSPIRE Awards 2015-16, held at IIT-Delhi. The school’s ‘Smart Indian through Digitization,’ project was included in the 2018-19 edition of INSPIRE.
The ‘Save Women - Save India’ project caught the fancy of all, especially women, since it could capture and recognise the gestures of women in crisis with the help of a software used in CCTV cameras, and alert the police control room.
Kumar and students’ 10 projects were selected for state-level participation in INSPIRE, Avesika Experimental Science and Jawaharlal Nehru Science exhibitions. ‘Parliament Protection,’ ‘Fiber Optic Communication,’ ‘Automatic Railway Gate,’ ‘Flood Detector’ and ‘Conservation of Energy’ were among his important projects.
“I completed my MSc in Physics with an aim to become a scientist. However, I joined as a physics teacher in a private school in 1998 due to some family and financial issues. We have so many students with scientific aptitude and temperament,” he said.