It’s not every day that we hear of 14-year-olds making the news. However, this 14-year-old is in the news for all the right reasons: Advay Ramesh, a tenth grader at National Public School, Gopalapuram, received the Google Science Fair Community Impact Award 2016 for the Asia Pacific region a few months ago.
Google Science Fair is an online science competition open to 13 to 18-year-old students worldwide. Students are expected to formulate a hypothesis, perform an experiment and come up with a result and a solution. The fair throws up a variety of innovative ideas every year, from youngsters who want to solve global problems.
Every year, between India and Sri Lanka alone, there are around 900 cases of fishermen inadvertently crossing the International Maritime Boundary and landing in trouble on either side. They face everything from arrest to prison time.
Advay conceived and created an app called ‘FishErmen Lifeline Terminal’ (FELT). This android app uses GPS to help fishermen track their path and position while they are at sea.
On what gave him the idea, he says, “I was on the ISRO website reading up about the Indian Regional Navigation Satellite System. At the same time, newspapers were full of reports of fishermen, especially from the Rameshwaram area, venturing into Sri Lankan waters and getting arrested. This seemed like a big problem and I wanted to do something about it.”
The FELT system alerts fishermen when they are near the International Maritime Boundary, ensuring that they do not cross over. Apart from this, this app can track the path on which fishing boats have travelled, and creates catchment records, so that the fishermen know the best fishing spots to return to.
These records are also useful for researchers who could use the data to study the marine environment. And in case of imminent dangers like storms, cyclones or tsunamis, it will broadcast alert signals to other fishing boats out at sea.
Once the idea was in place, Advay taught himself JAVA script, and with some help from his father (a software engineer), designed his project. As part of his groundwork, he spoke to fishermen on Marina Beach to figure out the challenges they face. He continued his research at Rameshwaram, where he saw the fishermen at work.
Vidya Rajshekar, Advay’s mother, has much to be proud of. She is quite excited about the impending award ceremony to be held on September 27 at the Google headquarters in Mountain View, California, which Advay will be attending.
She says, “We wanted him to focus on something outside of regular studies. Advay always showed an interest in GPS whenever we travelled, especially by train. He was always playing with the maps, figuring out our location and destination. We are happy that he was able to relate to the fishermen’s problems, and that he was able to come up with a solution. The award is important, but more than that, we are glad that something he has worked on is helping other people.”
The Community Impact Award comes with a $10,000 funding and a year-long mentorship program at Scientific American .
“I am hoping that the mentors will help me fine-tune this project. I eventually want to build a hand-held device that will have all the features of this app and much more,” he says.
While reading and football are Advay’s hobbies, his ambition is to “pursue technology and make things that help the community”. Former President APJ Abdul Kalam is his role model and a source of inspiration.
Advay seems pretty nonchalant about all the publicity and attention; all of this was completely unexpected, but it feels great.
“It has been a great opportunity and a perfect start to all that I want to do,” he says.
