SRINAGAR: Two students from Delhi Public School (DPS) Srinagar were awarded this year out of a total of 1125 INSPIRE awards given at the national level, an official statement said.

DPS Srinagar students bag INSPIRE Award

According to the statement, the students namely Anna Amin (Class 9th) & Nishit Kaul (Class 6th) have received a cash prize of Rs 10000 besides getting mentoring support from Department of Science & Technology, Government of India.

‘Innovation in Science Pursuit for Inspired Research’ commonly called INSPIRE is one of the flagship programmes of the Department of Science & Technology (DST), Government of India.

The INSPIRE Awards – MANAK (Million Minds Augmenting National Aspirations and Knowledge), being executed by DST with National Innovation Foundation – India (NIF), an autonomous body of DST, aims to motivate students in studying in classes 6 to 10.

Under this scheme, schools nominate five best original ideas/innovations and a national jury then judges these innovations for originality, uniqueness of the idea, viability and creativity.

Nishit has made a prototype of an automatic irrigation system based on IoT sensors which continuously monitor humidity and other parameters of soil and intelligently irrigate it to maintain optimum water level.

Anna Amina has project is to convert acoustic energy produced by machinery in factories to electrical energy. The project describes the conversion of acoustic energy by introducing novel environment-friendly energy converters: piezoelectric materials. This project considers the piezoelectric effect for the conversion and then uses a piezoelectric transformer to boost the output obtained due to a direct piezoelectric effect.

Anna, while thanking her mentor, Shezan Fayaz, said, “I worked tirelessly for it & we searched every single garage in our area for the material used in the project.” She also thanked her school and said, “My school was generous enough to facilitate & encourage me. My school let me use physics land & other laboratories. My guides at school, Saleem Sir & Gurpreet maam also supported me in this project.”

Nishit gave credit to his parents and school robotics lab. “During a pandemic, when everyone was under lockdown, the school conducted online robotic & IoT workshops for children which inspired me to do something in agriculture”, he said.

He mentioned his teacher Shafat for the guidance he provided in this project.

Commenting on the success of the students, Ehsaan Qudusi, CTO said: “Our sincerest congratulations to the students. At the school, we have worked hard to incubate an atmosphere of scientific and progressive thinking. The INSPIRE fellowships bear our efforts out.”

Congratulating the students, Vijay Dhar, Chairman DPS Srinagar said: “The success of the students is a testimony to our efforts to transform and nurture the talent of students into socially relevant milestones. We are so proud of their success and hope that it is just the start of a tradition of scientific excellence.”

1 COMMENT

  1. Dear admin, this is in response to the news item carried by your paper on 20th of Jan 2021 titled ‘2 DPS students bag INSPIRE Award this year.’ It further reads and I quote, “Two students from Delhi Public School (DPS) Srinagar were awarded this year out of a total of 1125 INSPIRE awards given at the national level.” It gives perception that the 2 students have emerged winners.

    From year 2010, every year thousands of students apply for INSPIRE Science Exhibition and submit their synopsis of novel ideas and sometimes hundreds and sometimes the number is in thousands that get sanction from DST to work on their novel ideas to be converted into working prototype. For this purpose all selected students get sum of rupees ten thousand through DBT (earlier it was five thousand) to change idea into prototype. In the process that follows, students are mentored by the teachers of their respective schools. The sanction of amount gives the students wings to fly. The ideas get converted from paper to prototype to be displayed and competed for various level exhibitions. In all these years, tremendous increase in curiosity of students have been observed to pursue the same. Be it students from government schools or from private schools, it is a matter of pride that the young generation is thinking critically about the local needs and their solutions in most innovative and novel ways.

    Regarding the news that was carried, the correct information is as:

    • 2 Students from DPS Sgr are among 1125 from JK who have been selected by INSPIRE Manak Science Exhibition 2021-22.

    • 1125 students are only from J&K. and not whole India.

    • The so called prize of rupees 10000 is meant for developing the prototype of the idea for which synopsis has been submitted. The amount includes the carriage charges to the venue of exhibition.

    • Mere selection of idea, sanction of amount and developing prototype doesn’t guarantee that the idea can be selected for next level of exhibition.

    • Selection for developing prototype gives student a chance to work on his/her idea but it does not guarantee that the idea could be novel, innovative, achievable, marketable, usable etc. It is only after District Level Exhibition, State Level Exhibition and National Level Exhibition that one can truly hope for good results.

    • The end product can be patented, and it could prove tremendously profitable to the student.

    For complete information please read the following:

    About INSPIRE Awards-MANAK

    ‘Innovation in Science Pursuit for Inspired Research’ (INSPIRE) scheme is one of the flagship programmes of Department of Science & Technology (DST), Government of India. The INSPIRE Awards – MANAK (Million Minds Augmenting National Aspirations and Knowledge), being executed by DST with National Innovation Foundation – India (NIF), an autonomous body of DST, aims to motivate students in the age group of 10-15 years and studying in classes 6 to 10. The objective of the scheme is to target one million original ideas/innovations rooted in science and societal applications to foster a culture of creativity and innovative thinking among school children. Under this scheme, schools can nominate 5 best original ideas/innovations of students through this website till 30 September 2020.

    This scheme is being operationalised as per the following steps:

    1. Awareness and capacity building of District, State and School level functionaries across the country through regional workshops, audio-visual tools and literature.

    2. Organising internal idea competitions in schools and nominations of two to three best original ideas, in any Indian language, by the respective Principal/Headmaster online through E-MIAS (E-Management of INSPIRE Awards MANAK Scheme) portal. The schools should register themselves on E-MIAS portal.

    3. Shortlisting of top 1,00,000 (one lakh) ideas, with potential to address societal needs through Science & Technology by NIF.

    4. Disbursement of INSPIRE Award of INR 10,000 into the bank accounts of short-listed students through Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) scheme.

    5. Organisation of District Level Exhibition and Project Competition (DLEPC) by District/State authorities and shortlisting of 10,000 best ideas/innovations for State Level Exhibition and Project Competitions (SLEPC).

    6. Organisation of State Level Exhibition & Project Competition (SLEPC) for further shortlisting of top 1,000 ideas/innovations for the National Level Exhibition and Project Competition (NLEPC). At this stage, NIF will provide mentoring support to students for development of prototypes, in coordination with reputed academic and technology institutions of the country.

    7. Selection of ideas/innovations will be based on novelty, social applicability, environment friendliness, user friendliness and comparative advantage over the existing similar technologies.

    8. Showcasing 1,000 best ideas/innovations at the National Level Exhibition & Project Competition (NLEPC) and shortlisting of top 60 innovations for national awards and future direction.

    9. Consideration of top 60 ideas/innovations by NIF for product/process development and their linkage with other schemes of NIF/DST and their display at the Annual Festival of Innovation & Entrepreneurship (FINE)

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