World
Indian-Americans kids showcase their inventions at White House Science Fair
Washington: Several Indian-Americans are among over 100 students from across the country who would showcase their inventions, and innovative science projects at the fifth White House Science Fair hosted by President Barack Obama Monday.
Celebrating their extraordinary science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) achievements, this year’s exhibits, all built, made, and designed by kids, range from patented inventions to award-winning rockets and robots.
Here are the inventions, discoveries, and science projects of five Indian-American students as outlined by the White House Trisha Prabhu, 14 Naperville, Illinois:
Trisha learned about research showing that the human brain’s decision-making region is not fully developed until age 25 and got inspired to help teens rethink how they treat others.
She developed a computer programme called “Rethink” that alerts users when an outgoing message contains language that is potentially abusive and hurtful.
Preliminary analysis showed that adolescents who use the “Rethink” system are 93 percent less likely to send abusive messages than those who are not warned about the consequences of their actions prior to sending a message.
Trisha earned a spot in the 2014 Google Science Fair to showcase her innovative project.
Sahil Doshi, 14, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania:
Inspired by the global energy crisis and the lack of electricity around the world, Pittsburgh ninth-grader Sahil Doshi designed an innovative carbon-dioxide powered battery called PolluCell.
Comprised of multiple electrochemical cells wired in parallel circuits, PolluCell harnesses the power of carbon dioxide and waste materials to generate electricity, reducing the environmental effects of pollution.
The battery earned him $25,000 and the title of America’s Top Young Scientist at the 2014 Discovery Education 3M Young Scientist Challenge.
Nikhil Behari, 14, Sewickley, Pennsylvania
After hearing about major data breaches at retail chains, Nikhil Behari got inspired to create a security system that is easy to use, versatile and effective in protecting online data.
Nikhil wondered if the manner in which people type could be used as a means of secondary authentication for safer passwords.
He connected sensors to a microprocessor he had programmed to detect keystroke pressure, and used a separate program to measure action and pause time as users type.
By analyzing data from these devices, Nikhil discovered that keystroke-based authentication is a potentially powerful technique for distinguishing and authenticating individuals.
Nikhil won a second place award in Technology at the 2014 Broadcom MASTERS national finals.
Ruchi Pandya, 18, San Jose, California
Combining nanotechnology, biology and electrochemistry, Ruchi Pandya’s research requires small biological samples – only a single drop of blood – to test for specific cardiac biomarkers.
She developed a one-square centimetre carbon nanofiber electrode-based biosensor that has the potential to improve cardiac health diagnostics for patients around the world.
Ruchi takes her passion for STEM education beyond the lab by mentoring 9th and 10th grade students on research and engineering as a teaching assistant for her school’s STEM-research class.
She has competed at the California State Science Fair every year, and has won 18 category and special awards for scientific research.
After graduation, Ruchi intends to major in materials science and engineering, and hopes to pursue a career as a technology entrepreneur.
Anvita Gupta, 17, Scottsdale, Arizona:
Anvita Gupta used machine learning to “teach” a computer to identify potential new drugs for cancer, tuberculosis, and Ebola.
She combined artificial intelligence techniques, 3D visualization and biomimicry to systematically discover which drugs might inhibit the interactions of intrinsically disordered proteins with other proteins.
These proteins make up 70 percent of all cancer proteins and are mutated in tuberculosis and Ebola.
She’s also an advocate for getting more girls in science fields – starting an after-school computer science group to teach middle school girls programming and app development. Forty girls enrolled the first year.
Anvita’s research earned her Third Place Medal of Distinction for Global Good at the 2015 Intel Science Talent Search.
Shanghai’s rich middle class is leading a wave of online dissent over the strict and prolonged lockdowns imposed in various parts of the country. Chinese internet censorship is struggling as patience is wearing thin in many urban centers, coming up with creative forms of online protests.
Social Media Posts Revealing Lockdown Tension in Shanghai
Drawn-out lockdowns are nothing new in China as authorities insist with the nation’s zero-Covid policy since the start of the pandemic. Currently over This time around, however, metropolitan areas like Shanghai are increasingly difficult to keep quiet, given that its more than 25 million residents have seen weeks of total isolation along with food shortages and many other service interruptions.
Dozens of towns and reportedly over 300 million Chinese citizens have been affected by lockdowns of different severity. As expected, urban netizens have been most outspoken over their difficulties by finding creative ways to get around state censorship and bans placed on topics, news comments and spontaneous campaigns.
Shanghai residents have been using mobile proxies and hijacking seemingly unrelated hashtags to talk about healthcare issues, delivery failures and the overall severity of their situation. The “positive energy” that the Chinese government wants to transmit during the recent prolonged series of lockdowns does not come naturally to those counting food supplies and online censors are working hard to filter words, trending topics and undesired social media sharing.
WeChat groups and message threads are under constant monitoring. Posts questioning the zero-Covid approach have been quickly deleted, including by leading Chinese health experts like Dr. Zhong Nanshan. Video footage is soon censored and protests and investigations are quickly made to disappear.
Where this has not worked, officials have exposed banners with warnings and outright threats like “watch your own mouth or face punishment”, while drones have been patrolling the city skies. Yet, if anything, this has led to further tensions and unspoken confrontation with Shanghai’s educated and affluent middle class.
Creative Online Solutions Harnessing Civic Energy
Announcements by Chinese social media that they would be publishing the IP addresses of users who “spread rumors” have not helped either. Tech industry research has shown that much of Asia’s tech-savvy population has a habit of using mobile proxies and other privacy tools, quickly finding workarounds to browse the internet freely and talk to the world about the hottest topics.
The sheer volume of forbidden posts is already a challenge for the very censorship system, experts explain. Unable to track all trending hashtags, state workers overlook topics that speak about the US, Ukraine or other popular news. Linking human rights elsewhere to their situation, Chinese online dissidents establish their informal channels and “hijack” the conversation to share personal or publicly relevant information about the Covid suppression in their town.
Sarcastic and satirical posts still dominate. Others hope to evade the censors by replacing words from famous poems or the national anthem. One thing is certain – social media, when harnessed with the right creativity, has proven its ability to mount pressure on the government in even some of the most strictly controlled tech environments like China.
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