Mysuru: Two city students have won the top prize in the Infosys Science Foundation Nutrition Challenge-2018 conducted by the New York Academy of Sciences (NYAS).

With over 3,000 students from around the country expressing interest, this challenge was to use STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) to effectively combat malnutrition among expectant mothers and children under the age of five.

Prithve Shekar and Sandeep Rao, Class 12 students of Excel Public School, Mysuru, part of the winning team, collaborated with 3 other students from Chennai and Bengaluru.

The solution designed by the team centres around the effective distribution of a nutrient pod that enhances the nutritional value of food. The Infosys prize enables them to visit Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) at Sriharikota to witness the launch of a rocket. They will also get a membership to the Junior Academy of the NYAS. In addition, each member of the winning team also received an education scholarship of Rs. 5 lakh.

Sandeep and Prithve are members of Junior Academy since 2016 and were chosen as Pepsico Nutrition Challenge Finalists in 2017, recognised for creating a novel non-invasive, affordable test to detect malnutrition. As Challenge 2030 finalists, they were awarded an all expense paid trip to New York to present their work at NYAS’ Bicentennial celebrations in the presence of Nobel Laureates, Blavatnik scholars & leaders in business and science streams in May 2017.

Prithve Shekar represented India at CERN (the European Organisation for Nuclear Research) in Switzerland in July 2018 at a two-week summer programme. He was among other students who represented 30 different countries and got an opportunity to tour CERN’s research labs, attend lectures by Nobel Laureates, and build particle detectors. He received an all expense paid trip to Geneva for this programme. Times Spark recognised him as one of India’s best students in English and awarded a cash prize of Rs.1 lakh.

He was a finalist in the 2016 Pepsico Junior Academy Challenge and won an all expense paid trip to New York City to attend the first Global Stem Alliance Summit. He was one of a 3-member team spanning India, US and the UK that presented research at the event that focused on food waste reduction and also created a material comprised of titanium dioxide nanoparticles in a chitosan matrix that can be applied to any food.

Prithve has been accepted at Rice University, Houston, Texas with full scholarship for his undergraduate studies in the US on completion of his Class 12 Board examinations this year.

Prithve is the son of Gokulam residents Kiran and Roopa.

Sandeep Rao was invited to participate in the Launch X summer programme at MIT, Boston, USA on business and entrepreneurship with full scholarship in June 2018. He was instrumental in co-founding a Start-Up with three others called Koppen.

International Boost Innovation Challenge -2017, a global challenge by Swedish companies MYoroface and Fiber Optic Valley Sandeep helped revamp IQoro – a neuromuscular device to help alleviate symptoms of dysphagia. He created a digitised version of the product, rebranded and remarketed it. His solution was selected as the winner among several thousands of submissions across the world and awarded a cash prize of Euros 2500, as well as being featured in an interview in their website.

He is the first International Griptape grant recipient for 2017. Griptape, a US based company awarded him USD 500 to pursue his research project and found a company to help match doctors and patients on a convenient digital platform. Sandeep also got a perfect score on IEO, earning him World Rank 1 in International English Olympiad.

Sandeep is the son of Ashok and Deepika Rao of  Kuvempunagar.