This Bengaluru boy's solution for the frothing Bellandur lake has won him an international award

While frothing lakes in Bellandur have become a regular thing for us, this boy from the city took it seriously. Given the environmental concerns that the lakes in Bengaluru have given rise to, this innovation by the school-goer is bringing hope...only if the authorities co-operated. Vikhyath Mondreti, a class 10 student, along with other students from the  transnational team won in the Biodiversity category  innovation challenge hosted by the New York Academy of Sciences as part of their Junior Academic Program.

The team topped among all other 90 groups across 51 nations for their solution H2nOde. Speaking to the Deccan Chronicle, Vikhyath said, "The persistent problem that we have been facing with the lakes in the city left me thinking which led to this project. The miserable condition when read along with lack of proper monitoring and my interest to work with the STEM (Science Technology Engineering Mathematics) model paved way to such a project."

Vikhyath observed that lack of data collection using the latest technology is the reason behind such a state of affair in the city. The youngsters' innovation uses a drone and sensor network combination as a practical and scalable solution to monitor even large water bodies by collecting data from cloud-based technologies. Vikhyath further said that data from Kaikondrahalli and Varthur lakes was collected during the experiment.

Vikhyath, during his study, also observed that the situation is the same in the United States too. He said, "Nearly 46% of the water bodies at the US are unfit for aquatic life and swimming. Even then, our lakes catching fire of toxic froth was news for the attendees of the event."

The prodigy is looking forward to completing his higher education in data science from the US after completing the International Baccalaureate (IB) from the city. He is now planning to hold talks with the Karnataka government and persuade them to see how practical the idea is. 
 

• karnataka
• south