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Ritik Malhotra at Cognito 2010

Ritik Malhotra, an undergraduate student studying Electrical Engineering & Computer Science at University of California, Berkeley in the United States of America, has been invited as a special guest to Cognito 2010 – The 22nd Annual Projects Fair at The Modern School in Aligani, Lucknow, India.

Ritik is scientifically-driven and has been engrossed in scientific research for the past three years. Through his efforts, Ritik has become a two-time finalist (in 2009 & 2010) at the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF), winning second place both times for his scientific research, once in the category of Electrical and Mechanical Engineering, for engineering a cost-efficient multi-touch screen with hover-detection capabilities, and another in the category of Health & Medical Sciences, for engineering a genetics-based early disease detection mechanism to detect lethal diseases, such as cancer, before their instigation period.

For his excellence in winning second place at the ISEF, MIT awarded Ritik by naming a minor planet after him, named Ritikmal (http://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/sbdb.cgi?sstr=25717+Ritikmal). Furthermore, Ritik was offered a summer-time internship at both Agilent Technologies and Intel Corporation as a high school student, where he conducted research on mass spectrometry and perceptual computing (computing without the traditional mouse and keyboard setup). Ritik was also named an Intel Science Talent Search semifinalist for his research paper on improving the sensitivities of mass spectrometry machines.

Ritik was also highly active in his high school, presiding as the president of both the Speech and Debate team and the Computer Science club. Ritik was nationally ranked fourth in his form of debate, and in the top 100 in the USA’s Computer Science Olympiad. Along with all his activities, Ritik received numerous awards, including the National Merit Scholar, awarding him a scholarship to his university of choice.

At The Modern School’s Cognito, while viewing many of the projects and talking to the students, Ritik duly noted that the students at The Modern School are at a level of intelligence much higher than what he had seen back in the US, and all they need is deeper exposure to in-depth scientific experimentation. He further commented that The Modern School is one of very few schools in India taking a step in the right direction by hosting a projects fair like Cognito (and that too for the 22nd year!) and developing creativity in students’ minds.

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