Kaushik Kunal Singh, a Grade 10 IG Inventurer, has won the Grand Award at the IRIS (Initiative for Research & Innovation in Science) National Science Fair held at New Delhi in November 2017 which saw over 100 students from schools across 17 states in India participating. His project was shortlisted for the IRIS national competition, along with 70 other projects, selected from across the country, after initial rounds of judging over 1000 submissions. He also won the top honours at the Indian Science and Engineering Fair (INSEF) National Competition held in Bangalore in January 2018.
Kaushik Kunal’s passion for applying science to solve practical problems paid off when he won the Grand Award at IRIS National Science Fair for his project entitled ‘The Plant Doctor: An Artificial Intelligence based Collaborative Platform for Plant Disease Diagnosis and Tracking for Farmers’. Kaushik invested months of research into Artificial Intelligence and farming to come up with the Plant Doctor. He will now represent India at the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair (Intel ISEF) to be held in May 2018 in Pittsburgh, USA. Kaushik is looking forward to continuing his work with mentors to expand his solution to alleviate the plight of rural farmers who lose significant crops to diseases without access to agricultural expertise.
In another event, Kaushik won the first place (Gold) at the Indian Science and Engineering Fair (INSEF) national level competition held in Bengaluru in January 2018. He competed against top 20 gold medalists from 8 regional fairs held across the country. Earlier in November 2017, Kaushik was also selected a winner from over 200 submissions in the regional fair. Participants for the regionals had been shortlisted after being judged by industry experts and academia. Kaushik has also qualified for the affiliated Genius Olympiad to be held in New York in June 2018.
Gousia Banu, our senior school Computer Science faculty says, “His dedication and passion for the subject is what made him work beyond the curriculum. His ability to solve complex problems and his very inquisitive mind has helped him reach where he is today. I really appreciate the way he balances his studies and his preparation for the competitions he participates in. He is truly an inspiration for others.”
Kaushik, on winning at the IRIS and INSEF says, “I am elated to have my project, ‘The Plant Doctor’ recognized as a step towards alleviating the plight of farmers who suffer crop failures due to plant diseases. Many of us living in cities take the availability of food for granted. However, we are mostly unaware of the hardships farmers face to provide food for us and the impending food crisis as a result of a rapidly growing population. I hope winning this prize can spread awareness about my project and truly benefit the lives of farmers across the world. Of course, none of this would have been possible without the constant support and encouragement from the school and my teachers who have guided me every step of the way.”
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