Young Pakistani Innovators to Attend Intel Fair in LA
From left to right: Fatima Sohail, Habibullah, Mehwish Ghafoor and Ambreen Bibi
GA_googleFillSlot("Dawn_ROS_Banner"); Karachi : A batch of young Pakistani scientists is to participate in Intel’s International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF) which will be held in Los Angeles from May 8 -13, 2011.
After a careful selection made at district level and later followed at provincial and national levels, the finalists will be competing for nearly US $4 million in various categories in the world’s largest fair of innovations.
The confident candidates of the Intel competition explained their inventions to the media in a Karachi hotel on Friday.
Earlier Naveed Siraj, the Country Manager of Intel Pakistan explained Intel’s aim to promote science, technology and education worldwide and particularly in Pakistan.
Talking about ISEF, Siraj said that Intel is committed to promote analytical, logical and critical thinking among the students. The finalists will take part in ISEF where more than 500 students from 70 countries will present their inventions in categories such as health, medicine, computers, environment and other disciplines of physical and chemical sciences.
Local thought-Global approach
Habibullah, an O-Levels student from Lahore invented an organic battery, which produces electricity through sewerage water and also produces clean water through one scientific concept.
Habibullah told Dawn.com that his inventions could be useful to overcome electricity shortage and sewage problem in the country by upgrading the idea to an industrial scale.
Fatima Sohail from Karachi, currently in Class 9, has devised a vertical air generator, which effectively produces electricity by hot air.
Speaking to Dawn.com, Fatima said that in a trip to Africa, she once saw a vertical windmill. This idea inspired Fatima to invent something relevant and according to Pakistani demands.
Pointing out her prototype in the meeting, Fatima said that “we know hot air is lighter than cold air and moves upwards”. By using the same concept, she made a simple device consisting of an air column and a large plastic bottle.
Ambreen Bibi and Mehwish Ghafoor, both FSc medical students from Lahore, collectively invented a mechanism to degrade pollutants by using Nano-composites.
For the project they even visited the National Centre for Physics in Islamabad where experts helped them devise Cerium Oxide-Manganese Oxide Nano-composite which is used to degrade organic pollutants.
