logo
City student wins bronze medal in SOF Olympiad

City student wins bronze medal in SOF Olympiad

Hans India28-05-2025
Hyderabad: One student from Hyderabad has secured top rank in the Science Olympiad Foundation (SOF) exams for 2024-25. Ridhwan Daram, a sixth-grade student from The Future Kid's School, secured the third rank in the International Computer Science Olympiad, receiving a bronze medal and a merit certificate.
This year's SOF Olympiad saw participation from millions of students across 70 countries, including over 2,55,500 students from Hyderabad. Notable schools from Hyderabad, Chirec International School, Unicent International School, Samashti International School were among the participants.
SOF organised a felicitation ceremony at Dr. Ambedkar International Centre, Delhi to recognize the International olympiad winners and teachers of academic year 2024-25. A total of 750 students and teachers attended the ceremony. The occasion was graced by Chief Guest, Justice JK Maheshwari, Judge, Supreme Court of India.
During the event, the top three SOF worldwide rank winners from classes First to Twelve that participated in eight Olympiad exams were recognised. The 74 international rank-1 winners received Rs 50,000 in addition to an international gold medal and a merit certificate, while the 74 international rank-2 winners received Rs 25,000 as well as an international silver medal and a merit certificate, and 74 international rank-3 holders was given Rs 10,000, a bronze medal, and a merit certificate.
Addressing the students, teachers and parents at the ceremony, Judge JK Maheshwari said that it is our primary responsibility to empower today's generation with knowledge as well as values. 'Along with education, they also need to be given values, so that they can become nation builders. Those who carry the light of education within themselves can never remain in darkness for long,' he said.
Orange background

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Related Articles

From Silicon Valley To Quantum Valley: Karnataka Bets Big On $20 Billion Tech Future, Reveals Minister NS Boseraju
From Silicon Valley To Quantum Valley: Karnataka Bets Big On $20 Billion Tech Future, Reveals Minister NS Boseraju

India.com

timean hour ago

  • India.com

From Silicon Valley To Quantum Valley: Karnataka Bets Big On $20 Billion Tech Future, Reveals Minister NS Boseraju

Karnataka contributes 35-40 per cent to the country's IT exports, with Bengaluru's share being significant. The state also accounts for more than 40 per cent of electronics and R&D exports. These were some key points highlighted by Karnataka CM Siddaramaiah in the presence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The CM further said that the government has formulated projects worth more than Rs 1.35 lakh crore, allocating resources to develop Bengaluru as a model city. Stating these facts, Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah appealed to Prime Minister Narendra Modi on August 10 to give precedence to Karnataka in terms of allocation of funds. At the heart of the Congress government's push for more funds is the all-round development of not only Bengaluru but also other key cities as well. NS Boseraju, Minister for Minor Irrigation, Science & Technology, Government of Karnataka, spoke with Zee News exclusively and shared insights on crucial projects. Excerpts: On Karnataka's $20 Bn Quantum Advantage-Driven Economy Plan Karnataka's Quantum Vision 2035 is built on five pillars: talent development, research excellence, infrastructure creation, industry support, and global partnerships. The state aims to create a $20 billion quantum economy by 2035, generating 10,000+ high-skilled jobs and nurturing over 100 startups. Flagship initiatives include India's first Quantum City, a cluster integrating research labs, startups, manufacturing units, and training centres and a Quantum Hardware Manufacturing Zone to produce components like cryogenic systems and photonic chips. The Quantum Research Park at IISc anchors cutting-edge R&D, while the government funds 150 Ph.D. fellowships annually and introduces quantum curricula in 20+ colleges. This ecosystem will translate quantum science into applications for healthcare, defence, finance, and governance. On Time For Silicon Valleys Outside Bengaluru We are actively working to create 'Innovation Corridors' in cities like Mysuru, Hubballi-Dharwad, and Mangaluru, offering plug-and-play infrastructure, R&D grants, and tax incentives to attract tech companies. These hubs will be connected to Bengaluru's ecosystem but will focus on specialised domains - from agri-tech to marine robotics so that the state's innovation leadership is truly decentralised. On Quantum Task Force The Quantum Task Force is a high-level governance body bringing together officials from Science & Technology, Higher Education, IT/BT, Industries, and Planning, along with leading scientists and industry figures. Meeting regularly, it converts vision into coordinated action, overseeing infrastructure rollout, setting research priorities, enabling industry-academia alignment, and cutting through bureaucratic delays. By including international experts, it ensures Karnataka benchmarks against the best and remains globally competitive. On Q-City's Role In India's Quantum Landscape Q-City is envisioned as India's first fully integrated quantum innovation hub, inspired by global tech clusters but grounded in Karnataka's strengths. On its 50-acre campus, it will house advanced labs, fabrication units, training centres, incubators, and corporate R&D offices. It will function as a live testbed for applications in sectors like secure communications, quantum sensing, and simulation for industries. By co-locating academia, startups, and manufacturing, Q-City aims to compress the innovation cycle from research to product, making India a serious player in the global quantum economy. On Key Challenges In Way Of Quantum Technology Adoption One major challenge is that quantum technology is still nascent; building quantum computers and a skilled workforce is complex and resource-intensive. We face a global shortage of quantum experts and the need for expensive infrastructure. To tackle this, Karnataka is securing robust funding and human capital development. We're channelling substantial funds into quantum R&D in fact, 25% of our State Research Foundation grants will be dedicated to quantum, providing a stable pipeline for ambitious projects. Another challenge is the high-tech infrastructure. So we're supporting new labs and even a hardware manufacturing zone with fast-track approvals and a single-window system for all quantum projects. By removing red tape, funding innovation, and training talent, we're proactively turning challenges into opportunities and ensuring Karnataka's quantum mission stays on track. On Science City's Role In Fostering Scientific Temper The envisioned 'Science City' is more than an exhibition complex. It is a pedagogical space aimed at deepening Karnataka's public engagement with frontier science. Within this hub, interactive exhibits on quantum phenomena (entanglement, superposition) and AI applications will demystify these fields for students and citizens alike. Mobile science vans and regional science centres, will carry these narratives to underserved districts, bridging the knowledge gap between urban innovation and rural aspiration. Workshops, quantum coding camps, and AI bootcamps will be held in local languages to ensure inclusivity. On Providing Telescopes To Schools The decision is designed not just to distribute telescopes but to embed astronomy into practical learning. Teachers will undergo structured training through specialised modules to operate and integrate telescopes into lesson plans. These modules will focus on observational astronomy, basic astrophysics, and interactive projects for students. This will bridge textbook concepts with real-time observation, making science tangible for students. On STREAM Labs STREAM Labs-Science, Technology, Robotics, Engineering, Arts, and Mathematics-will be hubs of experiential learning. These labs are being set up in schools to help students move beyond rote learning into problem-solving, innovation, and creative thinking. Each lab will have modular equipment for experiments, robotics kits, 3D printing tools, and digital resources. The labs will also focus on coding, AI basics, and design thinking, ensuring students are future-ready. By integrating arts into STEM, STREAM Labs will nurture holistic thinkers-scientists who can imagine and artists who can engineer.

How artificial intelligence is tackling mathematical problem-solving
How artificial intelligence is tackling mathematical problem-solving

The Hindu

time13 hours ago

  • The Hindu

How artificial intelligence is tackling mathematical problem-solving

The International Mathematical Olympiad (IMO) is arguably the leading mathematical problem-solving competition. Every year, high school students from around the world attempt six problems over the span of three hours. Students whose scores cross a threshold, roughly corresponding to solving five of the six problems, obtain Gold medals, with Silver and Bronze medals for those crossing other thresholds. The problems do not require advanced mathematical knowledge, but instead test for mathematical creativity. They are always new, and it is ensured that no similar problems are online or in the literature. The AI gold medallist IMO 2025 had some unusual participants. Even before the Olympiad closed, OpenAI, the maker of ChatGPT, announced that an experimental reasoning model of theirs had answered the Olympiad at the Gold medal level, following the same time limits as the human participants. Remarkably, this was not a model specifically trained or designed for the IMO, but a general-purpose reasoning model with reasoning powers good enough for an IMO Gold. The OpenAI announcement raised some issues. Many felt that announcing an AI result while the IMO had not concluded overshadowed the achievements of the human participants. Also, the Gold medal score was graded and given by former IMO medalists hired by OpenAI, and some disputed whether the grading was correct. However, a couple of days later, another announcement came. Google-DeepMind attempted the IMO officially, with an advanced version of Gemini Deep Think. Three days after the Olympiad, with the permission of the IMO organisers, they announced that they had obtained a score at the level of a Gold medal. The IMO president Prof. Gregor Dolinar stated, 'We can confirm that Google DeepMind has reached the much-desired milestone, earning 35 out of a possible 42 points — a gold medal score. Their solutions were astonishing in many respects. IMO graders found them to be clear, precise and most of them easy to follow.' Stages of development Even as it became a popular sensation, ChatGPT was infamous both for hallucinations (making up facts) and for simple arithmetic mistakes. Both these would make solving even modest mathematical problems mostly impossible. The first advance that greatly reduced these errors, which came a few months after the launch of ChatGPT, was the use of so-called agents. Specifically, models were now able to use web searches to gather accurate information, and Python interpreters to run programs to perform calculations and check reasoning using numerical experiments. These made the models dramatically more accurate, and good enough to solve moderately hard mathematical problems. However, as a single error in a mathematical solution makes the solution invalid, these were not yet accurate enough to reach IMO (or research) level. Greater accuracy can be obtained by pairing language models with formal proof systems such as the Lean prover — a computer software that can understand and check proofs. Indeed, for IMO 2024 such a system from Google-DeepMind called AlphaProof obtained a silver medal score (but it ran for two days). Finally, a breakthrough came with the so-called reasoning models, such as o3 from OpenAI and Google-DeepMind's Gemini-2.5-pro. These models are perhaps better described as internal monologue models. Before answering a complex question, they generate a monologue considering approaches, carrying them out, revisiting their proposed solutions, sometimes dithering and starting all over again, before finally giving a solution with which they are satisfied. It were such models, with some additional advances, that got Olympiad Gold medal scores. Analogical reasoning and combining ingredients from different sources gives language models some originality, but probably not enough for hard and novel problems. However, verification either through the internal consistency of reasoning models or, better still, checking by the Lean prover, allows training by trying a large number of things and seeing what works, in the same way that AI systems became chess champions starting with just the rules. Such reinforcement learning has allowed recent models to go beyond training data by creating their own synthetic data. The implications Olympiad problems, for both humans and AIs, are not ends in themselves but tests of mathematical problem-solving ability. There are other aspects of research besides problem-solving. Growing anecdotal experiences suggest that AI systems have excellent capabilities in many of these too, such as suggesting approaches and related problems. However, the crucial difference between problem-solving and research/development is scale. Research involves working for months or years without errors creeping in, and without wandering off in fruitless directions. As mentioned earlier, coupling models with the Lean prover can prevent errors. Indications are that it is only a matter of time before this is successful. In the meantime, these models can act as powerful collaborators with human researchers, greatly accelerating research and development in all areas involving mathematics. The era of the super-scientist is here. Siddhartha Gadgil is a professor in the Department of Mathematics, IISc

Interactive science gallery to open in Tiuchy's Planetarium soon
Interactive science gallery to open in Tiuchy's Planetarium soon

New Indian Express

time13 hours ago

  • New Indian Express

Interactive science gallery to open in Tiuchy's Planetarium soon

TIRUCHY: Visitors to the Anna Science Centre Planetarium in the city can soon get a hands-on experience of how Newton's laws work, watch centrifugal force in action, calculate the age of trees, and more, as the Fun Science Gallery on campus featuring nearly 20 interactive exhibits is set to open within weeks. Developed at a cost of Rs 30 lakh by the state government through the higher education department, the Fun Science Gallery that will replace the Environment Science Gallery on campus is designed to turn abstract concepts into memorable, hands-on experiences, said officials. Exhibit highlights include elliptical path models showing how objects bounce between two focal points, growth ring displays revealing how to read a tree's age and past climate patterns. 'When a child spins a vortex tube and sees the water whirl, that's a lesson they'll never forget,' said an official from the TN Science and Technology Centre. 'This is about turning science from textbook theory into something they can see, touch and experiment with.' The new gallery will operate alongside the Miniature Nuclear Power Gallery, which showcases nuclear energy and related technologies. The planetarium, one of Tiruchy's older public attractions inaugurated in 1999, currently houses the main planetarium, a three-dimensional projection theatre. Currently attracting 500 to 1,000 students each week, the centre expects the interactive exhibits to boost footfall, especially from school students. The entry fee remains at Rs 45 for adults and Rs 25 for children. Officials say the change from a 'static' Environment Science Gallery is part of Tamil Nadu's push to make science education more engaging.

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into a world of global content with local flavor? Download Daily8 app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store