Houston NSF Children Showcase their Talent at the 2017 Academic Super-Bowl
Children receiving awards from Swapan Dhairyawan
HOUSTON: Houston got talent. Lots of it. It is on full display at the North South Foundation (NSF) Regional Academic Contests held at the Lone Star College – University Park campus on April 8th and 9th 2017. More than 350 children from grades K to 12, from all over Houston and nearby, participated in multiple competitions such as Spelling Bee, Vocabulary Bee, Geography Bee, Math Bee, Science Bee, Brain Bee, Essay Writing, and Public Speaking over the two days. This year’s attendance is close to 25% more than that of last year.
NSF children proudly displaying their hard-earned trophies (with Falguni Gandhi, President, ICC and Parul Fernandez)
The Math Bee was very popular and record number of students attended and tackled very difficult problems. The Junior and Senior Spelling Bees that grab the limelight every year, famously popularized by the Scripps National Spelling Bee, students spelled words well beyond their respective competing grades. The Geography Bee tested the child’s understanding of the world with questions even the adult audience could not grasp the answer. The same level of very stiff competition was seen in all other bees. Interestingly, despite the high stakes, the mood among the kids and parents at the Houston Regional was festive rather than pensive.
Children receiving awards from Mahesh Wadhwa
NSF believes every child is a winner and presented participation medals and certificates. The top three students in each category were presented with trophies and other students with a medal in a well-organized award ceremony. The 2017 NSF-Houston Regional Competition first(1), second(2), third(3) place winners are as follows; ESSAY WRITING: Junior-Sanskriti Manoharan(1), Tanush Paradeshi(2), Ramya Srinivasan(3); Intermediate-Vaishnavi Bhat, Amber Kaul; SCIENCE BEE: Junior-Kunal Pikle, Akhil Tirumalaseti, Ish Mehta; Intermediate-Anant Asthana, Abhiram Jyosyula, Aum Jhaveri; Senior-Naveen Mukkatt, SaiPrasada Manikonda, Sanjay Nagaraj; SPELLING BEE: Junior-Shomili Ghosh, Aditya Puppala, Krishna Harish; Senior-Pranav Chemudupaty, Keerthana Krishnan, Shyla Jogi; VOCABULARY BEE: Junior-Anik Banerji, Chinmay Rajesh, Krishna Harish; Intermediate-Shakti Anand, Pranav Chemudupaty, Shyla Jogi; GEOGRAPHY BEE: Junior-Nikhil Chowdhary; Senior-Anuraag Deepak, Vedul Palavajjhala, Abhinav Vadassery; MATH BEE: Level 1-Revanth Raparla, Ronak Hiwale, Anirudh Guddeti; Level 2-Sreedathan Menon; Anant Asthana; Eesha Nair; Level 3-Naveen Mukkatt, Hursh Jha, Sreeja Thipireddy; PUBLIC SPEAKING: Junior-Rajveer Kindra, Abhay Iyer, Jay Chakraborti; Senior-Divya Nagaraj, Siddhant Puranik, Gurleen Kindra; BRAIN BEE: Intermediate-Vignesh Anand, Shakti Anand. Many of these children are going to be our future leaders and will make Houston proud in years to come.
A group of volunteers
Similar regional competitions are being held at more than 90 US Regional Chapters. Please visit http://tiny.cc/regionalwinners for a full list of winners from all Regional Chapters. More than 1,200 top scorers from all the regional competitions will be invited to the 2017 NSF National Finals, which will be held in University of Houston, August 12th and 13th this year. Houston will be hosting these talented young children and their families who come from all over country. This will be the one of the significant academic competitions conducted in Houston with such a high number of student and parent participation. Many of the NSF children won laurels in the National mainstream contests such as Scrips Spelling Bee, Raytheon MATHCOUNTS, National Geographic Bee and many more. For all these children, the NSF Finals is the stepping-stone to excellence. Eighteen such academic competitions will be conducted with all the suspense and excitement.
NSF is a non-profit volunteer-run organization. Close to one hundred volunteers came together to make Houston Regionals a grand success. The National event requires an estimated 400 volunteers. In this connection, NSF Houston team urges volunteer help from Houstonians. If anyone is interested in volunteering please send an email to nsfhouston@gmail.com. Major National contests will be telecast live by capturing the excitement (www.yupptv.com – use promotional code NSF2017 for discount).
NSF Houston Chapter would like to gratefully acknowledge the following sponsors and supporters from the Houston community for helping run a successful competition: BiryaniPot (www.biryanipotusa.com), Deals of America (www.dealsofamerica.com), Northwestern Mutual (www.northwesternmutual.com), Affordable Pet Clinic, Mirch Masala, Test Masters, India Culture Center, SunPro, Best in Class Education, Radio Hungama, Andhra Mirchi Radio, Sanatan Hindu Radio, Telugu Cultural Association, and Lone Star College – University Park.
If anyone interested in participating in future Houston Regional competitions and/or would like to volunteer or know more about NSF, please send an email to nsfhouston@gmail.com.