Children from Government Schools Showcase Technology-based Innovative Solutions at Science Talent Contest vSolve 2017

This year the competition witnessed participation from about 180 students across 36 Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) and government schools from Maval & Mulashi Tehsil. The participants particularly impressed the judges with the level of innovation with which the project prototypes were modeled, which included vacuum cleaners made out of material such as PET bottles, DC motor, pipes etc.; and assemblies of portable light sources with the help of easily available material like aluminum cans, battery, LED etc.

The exhibition was formally inaugurated by Prof. L. S. Sashidhara, Chair of Biology, Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, Pune (IISER). Mr. Ravi Pandit, Chairman, Co-founder and CEO, KPIT, along with Mr. Vivek Ponkshe, Deputy Secretary (Education), Jnana Prabodhini preside the event. Mr. Pandit interacted extensively with the students to learn about their projects, before handing over the prizes to the winners.

In his speech, Prof. Sashidhara expressed gratitude and was delighted to know about KPIT's activity based learning initiative. He also conveyed willingness to partner in the coming future for such projects. Also on this occasion, Chhote Scientists activity book, volume 2, was unveiled.

Speaking on the occasion, Mr. Pandit said: "Everyone who participated in the competition is a winner to me. I am impressed by the incredible thought process put into the projects, and congratulate them for coming up with innovations that can potentially change the way we use resources on our disposal to solve day-to-day problems."

Mr. Ponkshe, in his speech, encouraged children to cultivate out-of-box thinking. He expressed his desire to the volunteers, teachers and relevant stakeholders present, to consider expanding this initiative in benefitting a much larger passel of children.

The vSolve competition is held as annual event around the National Science Day. It is a part of KPIT's larger initiative called Chhote Scientists, which is a community and social initiative to bridge the gap between text book knowledge and real life application of scientific principles. Chhote Scientists fosters young minds to approach the science subject innovatively through emphasis on learning of basic concepts using 'easy-to-make' & 'fun-to-learn' educational toys. Launched in 2012, the program has benefited over 10,500 students across 100 government schools in rural Pune, Mumbai, Jalna and Bangalore. Over 3000 employee volunteers from KPIT and team members of Jnan Probodhini have contributed to it by imparting experiment-based classroom training sessions for children studying in 8th and 9th standards.

To expand the reach of the Chhote Scientists program, last year KPIT and Jnana Prabodhini also developed and launched a mobile app. The app enables people, who are looking to contribute to the program as volunteer teachers, to collaborate with KPIT and Jnan Probodhini, get mentored on the curriculum, and schedule classes in the beneficiary schools.