Eight young talents from Odisha are set to represent India at the prestigious ISF Global Unicorns Startup Festival in Dallas, USA, on May 29 and 30. 

Nominated through a six-month-long talent hunt conducted by the Young Tinker Foundation, these budding scientists will present innovation-driven projects built using new knowledge and technological skills.

Among the selected are Chiranjibi and Digbijay, Class 10 students from Soro in Balasore, who have created YTSAT 2.0, a device that helps farmers determine the most profitable crops for their land using data on soil, water, and air, collected via a helium balloon.

Digbijay Sahoo shared about his creation and said, “My project is an Agricultural Nano Satellite, which is designed to specifically assist farmers with farming. This satellite if flown over a piece of land can gather information about the quality of the soil, nutrient content and other concerning factors which can be obtained through an app.”

Kaushik Kar from Soro and Sridhar Jena from Berhampur have jointly developed a portable machine capable of producing ethanol from dry organic waste such as vegetable peels, leaves, and stems.

Kaushik Kar, another young scientist said, “Every morning I used to see that people had thrown wet waste of their homes on the road. But when I visited to Balasore once, I saw that there was an ethanol plant. However, I realised that the ethanol plant was based on a huge piece of land and required a lot of labour which inspired me to design this mini ethanol plant. 

From Berhampur, P. Aditya Das and Soumya Saurabh have invented ‘Masala GPT’, a device that prepares customised spice blends for cooking. 

Meanwhile, Sai Satyam Pradhan from Nimapada has designed a project named ‘Sovadi’, which is a solar-powered car model that generates electricity through panels installed on the vehicle.

P. Aditya Das shared insight about his innovation, "The spice mixes that are used in Odia and Indian households have a very distinctive taste and flavour compared to the ones sold in markets. Our invention, Masala GPT, can give instructions to the machine, which can create the spice mixes."

Representing Bhubaneswar, Jagyan Mishra will present ‘EDEN’ which is a line of clothing and hand-built tools, showcasing the utility of his creations at the Dallas exhibition.

The talent hunt campaign by Young Tinker Foundation had covered 150 schools and involved around 30,000 students. These eight were identified for their exceptional ingenuity.

Anil Pradhan, Founder & CEO, Young Tinker, said, “This is an entrepreneurial programme that gives a platform to children to share their creations based on the problems which they witnessed in their daily lives. They created the solutions to those problems and won the competition to earn the chance of visiting Dallas.”

With this global platform, the world will witness Odia students’ talent, as they carry the pride of Odisha to the international stage, he added.