Onkar Singh Gujral

The first step for him was to apply online for the Intel-sponsored IRIS (Initiative for Research & Innovation in Science) fair in August 2011. Among the applications, 100 well-researched project proposals were selected for entry and evaluation at the Intel ISEF (International Science and Engineering Fair) held between May 13-18 in Pittsburgh, USA. This meant that his innovative science project was among the best in the country and among the top 1,600 worldwide. But Onkar Singh Gujral (15), a class X student of La Martiniere for Boys, Kolkata, wasn’t content with qualifying for the final round. At the David Lawrence Convention Centre in Pittsburgh, he made a strong and persuasive blueprint presentation for which he received a Grand Award and a cheque for $500 (Rs.25,000) on May 18.

Onkar Singh’s award-winning project facilitates the discovery of benign and malignant tumours from biopsies, and detects differentiated neoplasm which has been a challenge to oncologists for several decades. The solution has been applied on brain and breast cancers, hepatocellular carcinomas and skin melanomas with results of 98.42 percent accuracy and 93.91 percent specificity. The processing time is ten seconds within which it easily distinguishes between benign and malignant tumours.

Encouraged to experiment and enquire from a young age by his mother Arvinder Kaur, a teacher at La Martiniere for Girls and businessman father Manmohan Singh Gujral, Onkar was playing computer games at age three. By middle school he had started participating in robotics events in the tech fests of reputed institutions such as Jadavpur University, BESU (Bengal Engineering and Science University) and Heritage University. In the past three years, he has bagged the first prize twice and third prize once with his designs of mind-driven robotic wheel-chairs and architecture frameworks for cancer diagnosis. Last year he won a subject category silver award at the IRIS National Fair held at Mumbai, where he was the only high school student winner.

A cricket buff, Onkar plays “para-cricket” and regularly follows international test matches and tournaments. However, robotics technology and programming are his primary passion which he wants to pursue at the Massachussetts Institute of Technology, Boston — “the world’s foremost institution of technology education”.

“I want to work on artificial intelligence in software architecture development,” says this budding genius who has already travelled some distance on his chosen path.

Baishali Mukherjee (Kolkata)

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