The Boy of Tomorrow

Talent, when nurtured, creates a positive impact.  

Samartha is one such student who has the capability of making an impact. A Grade 7 student from Pandit Dindayal Upadhyay English Medium School, Pune, Maharashtra, he was a curious and active student, who loved to participate in competitions.  

Resource Persons (RPs) from Learning Links Foundation’s STEAM Smart intervention, in collaboration with Emerson, had reached out to Samartha 's school to establish laboratories inside the school. The idea behind the intervention is to successfully empower students with new age skills like problem solving, critical thinking, creativity and collaboration and give them many opportunities to tinker with emerging technologies. This allowed Samartha the opportunity to visit the STEAM Lab in school where he discovered his passion for technology. After that, there was no looking back. 

Samartha lives in a low-lying area of the city, which is prone to flooding during the monsoon season. Thanks to the regular sessions with the RPs, Samartha was able to use his critical thinking and creativity to come up with a design and solve this real-life problem.   

He came up with the idea of a floating house, which would float on top of the water when the city floods. He used four angles for balance and waste plastic bottles for buoyancy. He submitted his project to the Inspire Award competition   

The Inspire Award competition is a national-level initiative in India that recognizes and rewards outstanding achievements in science and innovation among school students aged 10 to 15. Through this program, the Department of Science and Technology (DST) aims to foster a culture of creativity and problem-solving among young minds, nurturing the future innovators of India. 

In addition to his work on the floating house, Samartha is an active participant in different types of learning programs. He has explored Scratch, MIT App Inventor, Mandala Art, Lego Mindstorm EV3, Tinker CAD Electronics, and tinkering projects such as a child-following robot and a smart table.  

Samartha's story is an inspiration to us all. It shows that every child has the potential to achieve great things when given the opportunity to learn and grow in a supportive environment.