{"id":5031,"date":"2012-05-23T22:25:48","date_gmt":"2012-05-24T02:25:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/1001harf.com\/W3\/?p=5031"},"modified":"2012-05-23T22:25:48","modified_gmt":"2012-05-24T02:25:48","slug":"intel-international-science-engineering-fair","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/1001harf.com\/intel-international-science-engineering-fair\/","title":{"rendered":"Intel International Science & Engineering Fair"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>1,549 of the world\u2019s most talented young scientists and engineers just spent the best week of their lives (so far!) at the Intel International Science & Engineering Fair.\u00a0 Many of them are going home with one of hundreds of awards and scholarships \u2013 more than $3.5 million given away this week, with $1.5 million from Intel alone. The top award of $75,000, named after Intel\u2019s own beloved co-founder, Gordon E. Moore, was presented to 15-year old Jack Thomas Andraka from Crownsville, Maryland for his project developing a novel paper sensor for the detection of pancreatic cancer.\u00a0The Intel Young Scientist Awards of $50,000 went to Nicholas Benjamin Schiefer from Pickering, Ontario, Canada for research in computer science, and to Ari Misha Dyckovsky from Leesburg, Virginia for his work in photon entanglement.\u00a0Wonderful students doing amazing work who more than deserve the attention and the recognition. But the money and the competition and the awards represent only a small fraction of what these students take away with them.<\/p>\n

Many of these students have been the smartest kid they know for most of their lives, so this is the first time they have ever been in a room filled with hundreds of kids as smart as or (gasp!) smarter than they are. It is the first time they have been surrounded by other people just as excited about science and engineering as they are. It may be the first time they have felt \u2018average\u2019 in their entire lives. And for most of them, that feels kinda good.<\/p>\n

One thing I have learned after years of living and working with scientists is that for them the world is truly flat, as Tom Friedman tells us.\u00a0There are no country boundaries \u2013 science connects the world. A physicist in one country knows a network of physicists all around the world.\u00a0And for these 1500 students, this week has formed the kernel of that network. From this single hub, they will return to their homes and connect all of the young scientists they already know, as well as those they will meet in coming years, at their universities and in their careers.\u00a0This is truly a transformative experience.<\/p>\n

And these young scientists are not simply thinking in academic abstracts.\u00a0More than 25% of these finalists already have patents or patents pending on their work.\u00a0Monday morning we hosted a panel of experts in entrepreneurship here:\u00a0a venture capitalist, the head of Intel\u2019s patent law group, the chair of UC Berkeley\u2019s entrepreneurship program, our own Intel Futurist, and Ben Gulak, a former Intel ISEF participant and now young entrepreneur.\u00a0More than 150 of the Intel ISEF Finalists attended the session and peppered the panelists with so many questions that we shifted to a \u2018speed mentoring\u2019 format to give as many of them as possible a chance to interact directly with these experts.\u00a0The energy in the room was electric.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>As I find each year, I am reassured by what I see here:\u00a0students from around the world, excited and eager to work together, not simply learning\u00a0about<\/em>\u00a0science, but\u00a0being<\/em>\u00a0scientists.\u00a0It is our task, we adults, to offer this same opportunity to more students, indeed to all students.\u00a0To have the chance to roll up their sleeves and get their hands dirty doing research into a subject which they choose themselves, and which has genuine importance \u2013 and therefore interest \u2013 to them.\u00a0That is what it takes to engage them as scientists and engineers for the rest of their lives.\u00a0For those who choose other paths, it will at least give them an understanding of the importance and value of science which will inform their decisions as citizens and consumers, their choices about their health and energy consumption, about the challenges that face the human race all around the world.\u00a0We need to change the way we teach science to ensure this kind of understanding and engagement for all students.\u00a0We owe it to them, and we owe it to ourselves.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

1,549 of the world\u2019s most talented young scientists and engineers just spent the best week of their lives (so far!) at the Intel International Science & Engineering Fair.\u00a0 Many of … Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[331],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/1001harf.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5031"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/1001harf.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/1001harf.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1001harf.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1001harf.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5031"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/1001harf.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5031\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/1001harf.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5031"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1001harf.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5031"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1001harf.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5031"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}