Schools
Whiz Kids: Innovators From Monta Vista High
Two teams with an entrepreneurial spirit compete at a national level in front of some brilliant minds.
This week’s Whiz Kids of Cupertino are two teams of innovators from who competed in the Conrad Foundation’s 2011 Innovation Summit.
The program challenges high school teams to come up with innovative products in the fields of aerospace exploration, clean energy or cyber security.
They presented their ideas last month at NASA’s Ames Research Center at Moffett Field before a high-caliber team of experts. To name-drop a few the list included Pete Worden, director, NASA Ames Research Center; Vint Cerf, chief Internet evangelist for Google; Edward Lu, former astronaut, former head of Google Advanced Projects; Meagan Campion, STEM education initiatives, Lockheed Martin Corporation; Adam Savage, MythBusters host; Tom Cellucci, director of Public-Private Partnerships Division, U.S. Department of Homeland Security; and Bill Coleman, board of directors, Symantec, Partner Alsop Louie Partners.
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The non-profit Conrad Foundation is named for Charles “Pete” Conrad, commander of Apollo 12, who died in 1999, but left behind a legacy of exploration, innovation and entrepreneurship. Once expelled by a prestigious high school for not being able to read or spell—Conrad was later diagnosed as dyslexic—he went on to earn a Princeton scholarship and a trip to the moon.
It is in this spirit the Innovation Summit was born.
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The two teams, MVNTHS Beta (Monta Vista National Technical Honor Society) and Helios, competed against 27 teams from across the nation—the grand prizes being awarded to two Pennsylvania-based teams and one from North Carolina.
Our Whiz Kids:
Hung-Jen Wu, Belinda Zeng, Aditi Ganppule, Alok Singh on the MVNTHS Beta team. (It's worth noting that Hung-Jen Wu made the presentation on behalf his teammates who were competing in another competition for DECA in Orlando.)
Patrick Xie, Nikhil Mallipeddi, Kadhir Manickam, and Sasikanth Kavuri on the Helios Team.
Watch the commercials for their products here:
Click here to watch the Helios team in action at the competition.
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