Category: Youth

Dobbs Ferry, New York: Arnav Krishna, a nine-year-old Indian American from Dobbs Ferry, New York, has made it to the ‘Top 4’ on Lifetime’s competition series, “Child Genius: Battle of the Brightest,” while 10-year-old Vivek Abraham, from Bloomington, Illinois, could not make it past the eighth round in a show that tests the intelligence of the country’s smartest kids.

As per the format of the show, two subjects are covered each week, and the brightest young minds are tested in categories such as mathematics, spelling, geography, and current events, among others.

The Feb. 25 episode of the show saw the little geniuses strut their stuff in the tough advanced logic and world history rounds. Arnav, who has now advanced to the semi-finals, scored nine out of ten in both the rounds.

Realizing that the competition will only get more intense from here on, the Indian American child’s mother, Seema Krishan, said, “Frankly, I think, it could be anybody’s game now. It’s going to be very hard and rough, so he will have to keep it together.”

Vivek, who was one of the youngest competitors on season 2 of the show, lost a crucial point for mispronouncing “Versailles” in the history round. He tied with another contestant, Claire, for the last place, and the judges decided his fate after analyzing the answers.

After his loss, a devastated and teary eyed Vivek said, “I really wanted to get to the last round but it’s alright.” His father, Antony Abraham, tried to cheer him up by saying, “We are very proud of what you have achieved.”

Vivek had earlier appeared on “The Meredith Vieira Show” with another “Child Genius” contestant, Sam Farah, where he shared that “he started doing puzzles when he was eight months old,” and he never believed in fairy tales.

Hosted by former NFL wide-receiver and astronaut Leland Melvin, the show will run for two more weeks, after which one of the four remaining whiz kids will win the title of “Child Genius” and a $100,000 college scholarship.

An Indian American New Jersey teen was among four young community leaders honored with a 2015 Nickelodeon Helping and Leading Others award.  Ruchita Zaparde, 18, of Plainsboro, N.J., was awarded the HALO honor during a Nov. 29 concert that aired across Nickelodeon and its sister networks. The concert was part of a celebration of Zaparde and three other youth – Ethan Cruikshank of Virginia, Riley Gantt of California and Joshua Williams of Florida – for their contributions to their communities.

A student at the Princeton Day School in Princeton, N.J., Zaparde was honored for her Sew A Future project, which helps women achieve financial stability by becoming seamstresses.

The Indian American teenager started the project after a family trip to India where she saw the difficulties widows in the country faced.

Through Sew A Future, now in its sixth year, Zaparde locates women in need in India and delivers sewing machines and supplies to them. Fundraising efforts by nearly 1,500 students at 57 schools in 30 states throughout the U.S. have led to more than 200 families receiving sewing machines in India.

“Being a HALO honoree means sharing Sew A Future on a platform larger than I’ve even been a part of before, which is incredible,” Zaparde told myCentralJersey.com in an article published Nov. 22.

Zaparde added in the report that it is extremely important for teens to give back to their community, no matter how big or small the contribution.

“We all get so caught up in our lives that sometimes we forget there are people living in our global community who struggle to get by on a daily basis,” she added in the myCentralJersey.com report.

The Nickelodeon HALO awards is an annual event now in its seventh year that recognizes real-life kids who are making extraordinary contributions in their communities. Winners are awarded a grant for their organization and scholarship funds.

Fans of pop music may well be in for a treat as independent artist Shannon K, daughter of Bollywood singer Kumar Sanu, makes her American debut with Mirror Girl, a pop-rock single which is being released next week by The Orchard, a New York-based music, video and film distribution company.

The company, a top-ranked multi-channel network that works with independent artists and labels to distribute content to hundreds of digital and mobile outlets around the world, releases Mirror Girl ahead of the expected launching of her album containing several new songs next year. Shannon said she does not know as yet which company will release the album in the U.S. next year, and when exactly.

“I am really very excited about the release of Mirror Girl,” the 14-year-old who recently moved to New York from London and lives with her mother here, said.

While such excitement is natural for a 14-year-old studying in ninth grade, this is not going to be first time that Shannon will experience the thrill. In May 2012 she made her initial debut in London with ‘Roll Back the Years’ which was also released by The Orchard.

Although she had lived in London since age six and had grown up in a musical environment thanks to her father Sanu, her initial musical debut was not planned or calculated but was an impulsive act of sibling affection that launched her on her musical journey.

It so happened, Shannon said, that her younger sister Annabel K returned home in tears from her school one afternoon in London and said that one of her friends at school was in pain due to her parents’ separation. Annabel soon channeled this emotion into a set of lyrics which were put to music by Shannon.

“Anna has this habit of writing diary and she always writes things like in a poem. She penned all her sorrow on paper and I read it and I just started humming the melody of Roll Back. My Dad by chance heard me humming and he was so impressed that his two daughters aged 8 and 11 at that time, wrote and created melody of an original meaningful song! He thought this song should be discovered. The result was the heartfelt single ‘Roll Back the Years’,” Shannon said explaining the background to her first song. Roll Back the Years is a story about broken families and the effect it has on the children.

Shannon admits that although she learned music from Royal College of Music of London, she learnt music from his father who has been her first teacher and has learnt to deliver voice modulation, expressions and emotions from him “His singing is quite rich and soulful and his songs always inspire me to become better. Dad always encourages me and he asks me to make my own style,” Shannon told Desi Talk in an interview.

Asked about her father as a teacher as opposed to a singer, Shannon described Kumar Sanu as “very gentle and kind teacher” but at the same time a very strict one as well. “Our genres are different but he understands English music and always picks good songs for me to learn. If I make mistake, he’s there to correct me. My dad has got experience of singing 20,000 songs in 26 languages. He is a great teacher and master to learn from,” the daughter said of the father, and then added, “I think he should start a music academy here so thousands of people can get benefited from his experience.”

Although Shannon is no stranger to the world of pop, she has never tried a pop-rock which her upcoming Mirror Girl belongs to. A pop rock is commonly defined as a genre that mixes a catchy pop style and light lyrics in its guitar-based rock songs, She said besides setting music she wrote the lyrics for the song as well.

Despite not having tried the style, she obviously has the confidence to deliver that as she has been exposed to a variety of styles and genres, starting from blue s(Roll Back The Years), Pop/Hip-hop(Just Say No to drugs) , Festive (It’s Christmas), Teen Pop(Just Another Boy), for which she was named artiste of the week on BBC U.K. , Ballad/Soul song (Mom), all of which have been released in U.K.

Why move from London to New York if she established somewhat of a presence in London?
“I moved to New York because I think America is musically rich like Bollywood. I want to become a mainstream singer like my dad,” she says.

She admits that she does not sing Bollywood songs as her Hindi and Urdu language skills are bad, but she wants to sing Hindi songs when she learns Urdu properly. Meanwhile, she is concentrating on listening to more of her favorites like Whitney Houston, Mariah Carey, Celine Dion, Barbara Streisand, Adele, Bruno Mars, and Rihanna.

What is her dream – to keep music as a passion or to make a career out of it?
“I want to become a singer and music teacher. I definitely want to pursue a music career. I’m trained in western classical. Although my favorite genres are pop and soul, a popular genre originating in America, I can sing ballad, jazz and reggae. Believe me I want to become a versatile singer.” But then she adds, “I want to become like my dad, which I know is next to impossible for me to achieve. I want to keep my dignity by just singing good songs with good lyrics.”

Last week, the 193 countries of the United Nations General Assembly adopted the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, an ambitious blueprint that encompasses a wide range of development goals for all countries such as “education for sustainable development and sustainable lifestyles, human rights, gender equality, promotion of a culture of peace and non-violence, global citizenship and appreciation of cultural diversity.”

UNESCO Director-General Irina Bokova responded to the recent announcement of the 2030 Agenda in a written message emphasizing the importance of global citizenship. “We must educate a generation of global citizens — versed in human rights, culturally literate, skilled for intercultural dialogue, compassionate and committed to building a better world for all,” she said. “Global citizenship education is an ethical imperative that must be integrated across curricula and taken on board by students, teachers, school administrators and universities.”

The challenges faced by the international community in providing a high-quality education for all youth, however, are substantial — and collaboration is needed. “In preparation for the next development agenda, the Global Business Coalition for Education … wants to be able to continue to work with the private sector that we see as fundamental to engaging in what government, civil society, and NGOs, and nonprofits can offer,” said Sarah Brown, the coalition’s executive chair. Brown was the co-host at Educating for Citizenship in a Global World, an event held last week at Asia Society in New York.

“The private sector are able to bring really profound thinking around the opportunity to scale things up, where you’ve got pilots that are working, the opportunity to look for things that are sustainable, to actually be able to expand different programs.”

Brown joined a gathering of global education leaders including UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador Professor Nasser David Khalili, PwC Charitable Foundation President Shannon Schuyler, World Bank Senior Director of Education Claudia Costin, and Benesse Holdings President Masaki Yamasaki. Following opening remarks from Brown and UNESCO Executive Office of Education Sector Director Svein Østtveit, the attendees participated in a roundtable dialogue centered on the following question: “What needs to happen to successfully educate all students for citizenship and employment in the global era?”

Gowri Ishwaran, CEO of The Global Education and Leadership Foundation, highlighted the importance of building shared values through citizenship education. “How are [are children] going to negotiate and navigate conflict? How are they going to reconcile differences? How are they going to look at equality? How will they think about empathy? These are the things that are missing in our curriculum around the world,” she said.

Schuyler described the importance of developing skills in the classroom for a 21st-century workforce. “[70 percent of CEOs] now are saying that the skills that students have when they come to work are not the skills that they need to succeed, and that’s up from 54 percent just about a year ago,” she said. “Those skills are around problem solving, innovation, leveraging technology in a different way, because that’s not what they’re taught in schools … Education hasn’t necessarily embraced all of those huge mega-trends that are out there, whether it’s technology … or demographic shifts … or climate change.”

Roundtable participants also discussed the role of technology in providing a 21st-century education. “Technology can be a great enabler of education and learning, and I think has become a critical success factor for a quality education.” said Thérèse Rein, founder of Ingeus, an international employment and business psychology services company. “For those on the right side of the digital divide, it enables a broad-ranging, self-directed education in global citizenship.”

Costin addressed the role of education in the context of migrant and refugee children. “They are seen as a menace for many people,” she said. “But couldn’t they be seen as an opportunity to help the children of the countries that receive them as a way to understand what are different cultures, and how we can live in an integrated society?”

The conversation examined the success of Asia, where several countries’ education systems have emerged as world leaders in educational excellence. “Shanghai ranked number one [in the world] in reading, mathematics, and science on the PISA in both 2009 and 2013, which shocked the world,” said Yu Lizhong, Chancellor of NYU Shanghai. “It is necessary to enhance cooperation in education between West and East, and to learn from each other.”

Following the roundtable, Asia Society CEO and President Josette Sheeran introduced the Asia Society Center for Global Education, a platform that will be launched in 2016 and will commission research and convene task forces to address critical challenges in global education.

Brown concluded the program by reminding participants that “the most marginalized children” should remain at the focal point of global education efforts moving forward.

“I’m mindful that we’re all part of a generation that thought we were going to make a better world and we’d better hurry up because we want to pass on something better to our children.”

A 15-year-old Indian American teen has been selected by the White House for the prestigious Champions of Change award for empowering the community by imparting Internet coding through her non-profit organization. Swetha Prabakaran, whose parents immigrated from Tamil Nadu’s Tirunelveli in 1998, is a junior at Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology. She hopes to continue inspiring young women to transform their future and the world.

Born in Indianapolis, Ind., Prabakaran is among 11 young women selected by the White House as “Champions of Change.” She is the founder and CEO of Everybody Code Now!, a non-profit body working to empower the next generation of youth to become engineers, scientists and entrepreneurs.

“Under Swetha’s direction, Everybody Code Now! has taught hundreds of students how to code and has raised thousands of dollars for STEM activities in schools,” the White House said.

“Her mentorship programs have transformed shy, young girls into confident students, community leaders and budding technologists,” the White House said in a statement.

In addition to her passion for science and computers, Prabakaran is an avid Bharatanatyam dancer; she did her Bharatanatyam arangetram — the debut on-stage performance of a classical art student after undertaking years of training — in Tirunelveli Aug. 2.

Her father, Prabakaran Murugaiah, is the founder and CEO of techfetch.com. He lives in Ashburn, Va., a suburb in Washington D.C.

Lydia Sebastian, a 12-year-old Indian-origin girl in the United Kingdom has achieved the highest possible score of 162 on a Mensa IQ test, outwitting physicists Albert Einstein and Stephen Hawking. Lydia Sebastian from Essex has joined the one per cent of all entrants to attain the highest mark in the Cattell III B paper supervised by Mensa, the society for people with high IQs.

Lydia completed the paper with minutes to spare at the sitting at Birkbeck College, London during her school holidays. “At first, I was really nervous, but once I started it was much easier than I expected it to be and then, I relaxed,” said Lydia. She said the paper challenged her language skills, including analogies and definitions, and her sense of logic, The Guardian reported.

Lydia’s father, Arun Sebastian, a radiologist at Colchester general hospital, said his daughter “had looked at the websites for the IQ tests herself and had shown an interest in them. She has read all seven of the Harry Potter books in the series three times. Lydia has been playing the violin since she was four. She starting talking at the age of just six months, her parents said.

Lydia joins Nicole Barr, a 12-year-old from Harlow, Essex, as well as Aahil Jouher, a 10-year-old from Blackburn, in achieving perfect Mensa scores this year. Cattell III B has 150 questions, often assessing comprehension through passages of texts, while the maximum score that can be achieved is 161 for adults, and 162 for under-18s. Both Hawking and Einstein are thought to have an IQ of 160.

Mensa is believed to be the largest and oldest high IQ society in the world. Membership is open to anyone who can demonstrate an IQ in the top two per cent of the population, measured by a recognised or approved IQ testing process.

Talented young singers from across America follow in the footsteps of music legends when they took center-stage in front of a packed stadium at the 2015 US Open. A dozen vocalists, all aged 14 and under, perform patriotic songs prior to the night sessions of this year’s tournament. The line-up features talent from throughout the New York and New Jersey metropolitan area, as well as from Michigan, Florida and Georgia.

Earlier this summer, the performers were selected via a nationwide online audition, through which a record number of more than 300 hopefuls auditioned. Performances were then reviewed by a panel of judges from the music and entertainment industries.

These children join the group of music industry leaders who have performed at the event, ranging from Rob Thomas and Aretha Franklin to Diana Ross and Earth, Wind & Fire. This year’s Opening Night Ceremony featured special musical performances from Josh Groban and Vanessa Williams. For the first time in 2015, the audition age was extended to children 14 years of age or younger. Previously, the casting call was only open to those 12 and under.
Performing at his second consecutive US Open are Christian Bautista of Jersey City, N.J. The remaining 11 performers making their Arthur Ashe Stadium debuts in front of anticipated capacity crowds.

Additional highlights include twins Kavina and Kaya Amin, from Roslyn Heights, N.Y., who are performing together during the second week of the tournament, and local Queens resident Madison Zamor, who sang “America the Beautiful,” on September 2, in honor of 100 years of tennis being played in Queens.

Here’s a closer look at the 2015 US Open Casting Call performers: Kavina Amin, 13, Roslyn Heights, NY; Kaya Amin, 13, Roslyn Heights, NY; Christian Bautista, 13, Jersey City, NJ; Caleb Carroll, 13, West Bloomfield, MI; Angelica Hale, 8, Johns Creek, GA; Brandon Hernandez, 11, Yonkers, NY; Jake Miller, 9, Warrenton, VA; Victoria Rose Mozitis, 14, Northfield, NJ; Sadie Pine, 9, New York, NY

Shourav Dasari, who correctly spelled the word ‘Psocoptera,’ meaning an order of insects including booklice, clinched the National Champion title and took home a cash prize of $10,000 during the 2015 National MetLife South Asian Spelling Bee finals in New Brunswick , New Jersey on August 14th.

The 12-year-old kid from Spring, Texas, beat 23 other finalists at the championship, organized by Touchdown Media Inc. and sponsored by MetLife. The event was broadcast live on Sony Entertainment Television. Jairam Hathwar from Painted Post New York was the National 1st runners-up while Siyona Mishra of Florida and Smrithi Upadyayula of Texas were National 2nd runners-up.

Sony Entertainment Television was the exclusive rights holder and broadcast the event in over 119 countries. “On behalf of MetLife, I’m pleased to congratulate Shourav, Jairam, Siyona and Smrithi, and all the contestants who took part in this year’s competition on a job well done,” said Laurel Daring, assistant vice-president, diverse markets, MetLife Premier Client Group.

“In cities across the country, our financial professionals are part of the fabric of their local South Asian communities, and this event provides a wonderful opportunity for all of us to give back.”

Special guest at the finals was Gokul Venkatachalam, the 2014 MetLife South Asian Spelling Bee National Champion and 2014 Scripps National Co-champion, who helped co-host a portion of the event.

The event was open to children up to 14 years of age and was held in 12 regional centers across the United States, including New Jersey, DC Metro area, Dallas, Houston, Chicago, Seattle, New York, Boston, Los Angeles, Bay Area and the newly added center Charlotte.

The contest was conducted in written and oral format at the regional levels which served as the elimination as well as selection process for the finalists. After registering their children online, parents brought them to the designated center and a 25-word written test was administered. Children had to spell 15 or more words correctly to qualify for the afternoon oral round and from there the top three were awarded prize money and the top two qualified for the finals.

“We are extremely happy with Shourav’s win at the Bee as it goes to show that todays South Asian kids are all-rounders and highly dedicated to their craft. We produced a special secton called “Meet the Spellers where the viewers had an opportunity to get to know some of the spellers including Shourav better,” said Tim Tan, Managing Director, Kawan Food, makers of the world’s most popular Roti Paratha Brand in the world— Kawan Paratha.

“Nail-Biting contests year after year and I personally was unable to get up during the bee! It’s amazing to see the pool of talent from our community and am happy for Shourav’s win and excited to get to know him and some of the other spellers better in the “Meet the Speller” series airing shortly on Sony,” said Jaideep Janakiram, head of North America, Sony Entertainment Television-Asia.

Children up to 14 years of age were eligible to participate and the contest saw spellers of even 6 years of age compete and make it past a few rounds. Registration for 2016 will open in October this year. For more information visit www.SouthAsianSpellingBee.com.

Dozens of youth chemists flooded Philadelphia June 22 for the annual “You Be the Chemist: National Challenge,” and three Indian Americans finished in the top four. Aum Upadhyay, an eighth grader from Washington; Raghav Ramanujam, a sixth grader from California; and Rafay Ashary, an eighth grader from Texas, finished first, second and third runners-up to 10-year-old champion Daniel Liu, of Ohio.

The 11-round challenge, which grows increasingly more difficult each step of the way, pitted the nation’s top young chemists against each other, with the three Indian Americans being narrowly ousted by Liu, the youngest competitor of the competition and youngest champion ever.

The “You Be the Chemist” Challenge started with nearly 40,000 competitors participating on the local and state levels throughout the previous school year. The top 36 students qualified to compete for the national competition, as 350 friends and family of the contestants cheered on the youth.

For finishing in their respective positions, Upadhyay, Ramanujam and Ashary were awarded $5,000, $2,500 and $1,000, respectively, in scholarships to put towards future educational use. The top four students also received graphing calculators, medals, chemistry kits and gift certificates to the Discovery Channel store.

The  Discovery Education 3M Young Scientist Challenge , one of the nation’s premier science competitions for grades 5-8, recently announced that five Indian American youths were among the top ten finalists.

The Indian American youth are Raghav Ganesh of Joaquin Miller Middle School in San Jose, Calif.; Amulya Garimella of Dorseyville Middle School in Pittsburgh, Pa.; Iris Gupta of Robert Frost Middle School in North Potomac, Maryland; Krishna Reddy of Kirby World Academy in Wichita Falls, Texas; and Sanjana Shah of John F. Kennedy Middle School in Cupertino, Calif.

Gupta believes too many people suffer from allergies, and by testing to find the correct amount of nanoparticles optimal for blocking allergens, her invention aims to give them some much needed relief.

To help those with Autistic Spectrum Disorder and their caregivers, Ganesh’s invention predicts and prevents autistic meltdowns. Monitoring physiological and environmental factors that can cause and trigger stress, his wireless and wearable machine alerts the wearer and caregiver when any stressors rise above a certain threshold.

With the goal of preventing distractions while trying to concentrate, Garimella invented a distraction monitoring system that alerts the user of a distraction by measuring EEG brainwaves. When users get distracted, they will receive an alert reminding them to concentrate and get back to work.

While a breathalyzer for alcohol consumption exists, Reddy felt that there was need for a device that could detect more. Unhappy with the inability for a breathalyzer to detect other substances, Reddy created a pupillary reflex computer program and apparatus that measures pupil dilation.

After realizing the impact of heaving rainfalls in unprepared areas, Shah created a program to detect where cities may need more drains and where they may need to increase current drain pipe sizes. By using pipe network analysis modeled after city drain pipe maps, Shah can simulate heavy rainfall to see where possible flooding may occur.

Varun Mangalick, an Indian American senior at Mounds View High School in Arden Hills, Minn., claimed his second consecutive Gold Medal at the International Biology Olympiad in Aarhaus, Denmark, on July 19.

The Olympiad, which was held from July 12 to July 19, featured the top biology students representing countries throughout the world. The top four students in each country advanced to the IBO.

Mangalick and his three teammates, Grace Chen of Bridgewater-Raritan Regional High School, Bridgewater, N.J.; Yilun Du of Pullman High School, Pullman, Wash.; and Boyang “Peter” Dun of Canterbury School, Fort Wayne, Ind., earned their spots on the United States team by scoring top marks at the national finals at Purdue University in June (I-W, June 29, 2015).

All four U.S. students performed well at the Olympiad, each taking home a Gold Medal.

Mangalick, who finished 19th overall and earned a Gold Medal in the 2014 Olympiad, earned his second consecutive Gold this year and finished seventh overall with a total score (adding up scores of the theoretical and practical exams) of 333.79.

Dun topped the U.S., finishing second overall with a score of 343.02; Chen finished 15th at 323.23; and Du came in 23rd, scoring 317.24. Mangalick has been a member of his school’s varsity math team, Science Olympiad Team and Minnesota All State Math Team. His other interests include photography, creative writing, Bollywood, hip hop dance, and making strangely large sculptures out of twist-ties. In April, he was named a U.S. Presidential Scholar.