We asked ISEF’s People’s Choice Award Winners what their thoughts were on winning.

Here’s what they said!:

“Wow. Winning this award was quite shocking. I didn’t believe we would even have a chance at winning first place, primarily because of the fact that Matt and I go to a private school consisting of about 300 high school students that we could ask to vote. It’s completely amazing how much support we received, and astonishing to see that many people saw our project to be a new and innovative idea that is both cool and inspiring.

Though the People’s Choice Award only awards prizes to the top three projects, every project that was on the poll is a project that strongly fits the criteria of Inspired By Education’s People’s Choice Award: a creative and innovative project and solution that has the potential to positively change the world. For that, everyone should be congratulated once again.” Akash Krishnan

Don’t stay up too many endless nights, Akash! We couldn’t agree more that the world would be at a loss if there were no bright, young scientists out there.

“Thank you to everyone who voted for us. We are honored to be the People’s Choice Award winners and will use our laptops to run as servers, allowing for faster results in our future work. In addition, I would like to encourage all students to work on science research projects as they have helped me gain knowledge and life experience.” Matthew Fernandez

Our sentiments exactly- we, too, want to encourage all students to work on science research projects!

What do you plan on doing with your prize?
“I am planning to donate the cash value of the prize I have earned, about $300, to my non-profit organization Spell Success. I founded this study group almost two years ago to inspire young students to learn vocabulary, public speaking, and spelling skills. This summer, I am organizing the first annual Spell Success summer camp and spelling bee, and I will be using the People’s Choice Award to give scholarships and prizes to the winners of the bee.

It is an honor for me to receive this award, and I know I could not have achieved it without my teachers, students in Spell Success and their parents, and friends. Some of my friends and teachers even told me they were typing until their hands were sore! I was extremely touched to know so many people support me. I hope my participation in these awards will inspire others to learn science and to participate in competitions like Intel ISEF. ISEF was a life-changing experience for me.” Amy Chyao

Best of luck with your non-profit, Amy! It is great that you’re reusing your prize money for such a noble cause.

“I am so honored to win 3rd place in the People’s Choice Awards. Thanks so much to everybody who voted for me! In this year’s phase of my project, Polyethylene Oxide significantly improved the reclamation of damaged land by reducing water erosion by 94%! I am confident that this can be applied to our environment to protect and preserve land. I am really excited to receive an iPod Touch. The iPod I have now is extremely dysfunctional because my younger sister accidently dropped it in the toilet. It still plays music, but the lack of a screen and the damaged wiring hasn’t been fun to deal with. Let’s just say that I am ecstatic to receive a new iPod Touch. Thanks for your votes!” Majdolene Khweis

Majdolene, the potential implications of your project are astounding and can go a long way to helping society. Hope you enjoy your newly functional iPod Touch!

Another huge CONGRATULATIONS and a very big THANKS to the 1st, 2nd and 3rd place winners for sharing their thoughts with us on Inspired By Education!!

Tags: Intel ISEF, Intel ISEF People's Choice Awards, People's Choice, People's Choice Awards

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 9th, 2010 at 4:10 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.