3 Indian-Americans among winners of Discovery award

Three Indian-American students, part of a group of 40 finalists in Discovery Channel’s Young Scientist Challenge...

Three Indian-American students, part of a group of 40 finalists in Discovery Channel’s Young Scientist Challenge, were among the winners of special prizes, even though they missed out on the top prize, which went to the event’s youngest competitor.

Gokul Krishnan of Illinois won the “Build It Bigger” Prize, allowing him to join Build It Bigger host Danny Forster on a tour of Manhattan’s skyline.

Prem Thottumkara, also of Illinois, won the “Emerging Networks’ US Space and Rocket Center” Prize, allowing him to attend Space Camp or the Aviation Challenge in Huntsville, Alabama.

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Rohit Kamat of Texas won the “Discovery Commerce” Prize, earning him a $ 1,000 gift card to Discoverystore.com and a 5-DVD gift set of Planet Earth.

Out of an original field of more than 79,000 middle school students across the United States, 11 year-old Erik Gustafson was chosen as America’s Top Young Scientist of the Year by a panel of judges at the 9th annual Discovery Channel Young Scientist Challenge (DCYSC). He is the youngest student in this year’s competition.

“These are tremendously bright and talented students,” said Head Judge Steven Jacobs.

“They undertook experiments in the past few days to address some of the most pressing environmental challenges of our day — from using alternative energies for transportation to mitigating global warming. I hope they continue to pursue their love of science and we look forward to hearing about their successes in the future.”

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The DCYSC is the nation’s premier science contest for students in grades 5-8.