Intel ISEF 2014 once more proved to be the one-stop spot to see the finest in young people’s innovations. Thousands of students worldwide competed in school-sponsored science fairs, with the winners of these events going on to win the opportunity to attend Intel ISEF in Los Angeles last week. More than 1700 high-school students united to showcase their talents on an international stage, where university professors and other scientists review and judge their work.
Nathan Han, 15, Boston, Massachusetts, received the top honors with the Gordon E. Moore Award and a USD 75,000 prize. His contribution to bio-medical science included developing a machine learning software tool to study mutations of a gene linked to breast and ovarian cancer. Take a look here to see his reaction: https://vimeo.com/95549442
The two winners of the Intel Foundation Young Scientist Awards received USD 50,000 each in scholarship funds for their ground-breaking projects. Here, we saw a particularly outstanding contribution from the EMEA region: Lennart Kleinwort, 15, of Wuerzburg, Germany, developed an app for smartphones and tablets which renders hand-drawn figures into shapes and equations. This previously required more expensive computing tools and was available only for PC’s. Lennart’s reaction can be seen here: https://vimeo.com/95565267
In total, the Intel ISEF 2014 Grand Awards recognised contributions across 19 countries from Europe, Middle East and Africa, with the greatest amount of awards originating from Turkey, Slovakia and Germany. Additionally, Russia and Austria were among the Intel ISEF 2014 Special Awards Winners.
Amongst the winning contributions from the EMEA region were:
- Russia: Human Interface software that translates gestures into a breakdown of behavioural analysis
- Czech Republic: A personal physiological sensor network device that recognises and identifies sensory patterns
- Austria: The development of an advanced Anastomosis Robot Tool (ART) – what does this do
- Denmark: Proposal of a quantification describing the environmental impact of contamination in Lithium-Air Batteries (?)
- Nigeria: Proposal of a sustainable solution to Halitosis - by doing what?
- Germany: Development of a water-measurement system to provide a succinct and accurate analysis of water waves
Bernadette Andrietti, Vice President, Sales and Marketing Group, Director, Europe, Middle East and Africa Marketing, Intel also shared her thoughts on the projects submitted this year:
“The students projects are phenomenal this year the innovation, inspiration and level of detail has been second to none. I am even more impressed to see the number of female and male finalists are levelling out. This is a great sign, especially as we are looking to achieve more equality and equal STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) representation in the workplace.”
Take a look at more highlights and videos here: https://student.societyforscience.org/intel-isef