Dubai's Indian student wins Dh250,000 for top performance

A Dubai teen now has hopes for a brighter future after winning a whopping Dh250,000 for being a top performer during a summer programme he participated in. Instead of splurging the reward money on video games or branded clothes, the 16-year-old will fund his higher education.
 
Advaith Sai Maddipatla said the prize money will not only take the burden off from his parents, but, will also allow him to be able to go to a university of his "dreams".
 
Maddipatla, a student at the GEMS Modern Academy, was one of the winners of the Sheikh Saud Summer Scientific Prize from the Ras Al Khaimah government.
The summer programme took place at the American University of Ras Al Khaimah (RAK), which is a GEMS UniConnect partner and invited 20 students to participate.
 
He was one of the top three students who earned top scores in Calculus and Physics during the programme, earning him Dh250,000.
 
"I was really happy after getting that award because it will cover two years of tuition fees at my university. I can now share the responsibility with my family," Maddipatla told Khaleej Times, who hopes to attend Carnegie Mellon University because of their specialised artificial intelligence department.
 
"It was all up to my family before to pay for my studies, but now I can help them. For the third and fourth year of my university, I can get an internship to cover the remaining tuition fees. It will reduce the burden on my family."
 
During the programme, Maddipatla and the other students got the opportunity to work under professors from well-known universities in the US.
 
He worked under a professor from the University of California, Los Angles, (UCLA) on a project that would help detect brain lesions in the brain and reduce human errors.
 
"The number of errors done by human beings are extremely high, but the project we did will reduce those errors significantly. It was a course where we carried out practical implementations of what we learned. We were also given problems from MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) to get a feel of how it would be to study at a university like that," he said.
 
"Working under a professor has boosted my chances to get admissions into a nice university. The experience was really unparalleled. Usually, only undergraduates in their third or fourth year get the chance to work under a professor, so, being there as a high school student was amazing," the student added.
 
Kierstan Connors, the associate director of college and career counseling worldwide at GEMS Education, said in a statement: "We are delighted that the summer programme at American University Ras Al Khaimah has proven to be such a success. As part of GEMS Education's UniConnect initiative, which aims to provide scholarships to students seeking admission to universities around the world, this intense summer programme gave some of our most gifted students the unique opportunity to enhance their resumes for university admission and competitiveness - and earn college credit for STEM courses while in high school.
The added prize money is a huge bonus, and will make all the difference to the students' education at GEMS Education and beyond."
 
sarwat@khaleejtimes.com

• Dubai