Odisha school girl bags award at Google Science Fair

It should be noted that thirteen-year-old Lalita Prasida Sripada Srisai from Odisha won the Community Impact Award at the prestigious Google Science Fair competition in California on Tuesday. She developed a low cost water purifier which uses corn cobs in a very innovative manner. Hence, contaminants like oxides of salts, detergents, suspended particles, coloured dyes, oil, grease and even some heavy metals get adsorbed in their surface. It was sponsored by Scientific American organisation. Earlier, Lalita made it to the final of 20 students after being selected from a pool of thousands of applications from kids in the age group of 13 to 18 from 100 countries. At least three are of Indian origin.

Students and staff at her school celebrated this victory. Speaking to The Hindu, headmaster of DPS Damanjodi, Trinath Prasad Padhi was all praises for achievement of Lalita, who he claimed was also proficient in other extra-curricular activities like song and dance.

The poor living in rural areas of Odisha still don’t have access to pure water and she believes her water purifier if produced in large scale will be of great help to them. “Luckily, I was supported by my mentor to plan the project in detail and encouraged to participate in this year’s Google Science Fair“, she said.