Odisha student wins at Google Science Fair

Thirteen-year old Lalita Prasida Sripada Srisai of Class 9 from DPS Damanjodi in Koraput district of Odisha has given us a reason to be proud. She has won the ‘Community Impact Award’ at the prestigious Google Science Fair in California on 22 September.

Lalita has developed a low-cost bio-absorbent based water purifier uses waste corn cobs as its key ingredient. The corn cob is the least utilized part of the plant maize. She discovered that the farmers who grew corn would skim the kernels for consumption and toss the unwanted corn cobs on the side of the road. Even the animals wouldn’t eat these dried up leftovers. A memorable encounter with a tribal farmer, Lalita got the idea to repurpose these abandoned, dehydrated corn cobs as part of a water filtration system. Corn cobs having high mechanical strength and porosity, it is a suitable absorbent. Contaminants like oxides of salts, detergent, suspended particles, coloured dyes, oil and grease gets absorbed on the surface of the corn cobs. The project entry on the Google Science Fair site shares all details of her project and how successful she has been with the results.

Lalita has won the award in the 13-15 years age group. All winners of the fifth annual Google Science Fair were announced live from the Google Headquarters in Mountain View, California. Lalita received 10,000 US dollars as prize money and will be further supported by the organisation for a year to build on her project. Mr. Trinath Prasad Padhi, Principal of DPS Damanjodi praised her for her achievement and claimed that Lalita was proficient in other extra-curricular activities like singing and dancing. “We have planned up a major function on the campus to honour Lalita, when she returns back”, he said. Mr. Padhi said the water purifier developed by Lalita if produced in large scale would be a great help for the poor living in rural areas of south Odisha, who till date do not have access to clean drinking water.

Meritnation congratulates Lalita for her great efforts and wish her all the best for her future endeavours. 🙂