A Filipino was chosen as one of the 15 finalists in the sixth annual Breakthrough Junior Challenge where students from around the world created short videos about big ideas in life sciences, physics, mathematics, and the new category, the Covid-19.
Seventeen-year-old Jeff Winxin Collado represented the country in the challenge in which he was the top scorer of among the videos relating to Covid-19 and pandemic science for his video on zoonotic spillovers.
Collado will join Ramez Rizk of Eygpt, who was the top scorer in the popular vote contest with his video on string theory. Rizk and Collado will receive automatic entry into the final round of judging.
All videos can be viewed at breakthroughjuniorchallenge.org.
The Breakthrough Junior Challenge, founded by Yuri and Julia Milner, is a global science video competition, aiming to develop and demonstrate young people’s knowledge of science and scientific principles, generate excitement in these fields, support STEM career choices, and engage the imagination and interest of the public in key concepts of fundamental science.
The winner of the Breakthrough Junior Challenge will be awarded a $250,000 college scholarship. The science teacher who inspired the winning student will receive $50,000.
The winner’s school will also receive a state-of-the-art science lab valued at $100,000. The winner will receive the prize at the annual Breakthrough Prize ceremony, alongside new Breakthrough Prize laureates representing some of the most acclaimed scientists in the world. Due to the pandemic, the ceremony has been postponed to March 2021.
Since its launch, the Breakthrough Junior Challenge has reached 202 countries and the 2020 installment attracted more than 5,600 applicants.
The contest is designed to inspire creative thinking about fundamental concepts in the life sciences, physics, and mathematics. The field was narrowed down to 30 semifinalists, which represented the top submissions after two rounds of judging – a mandatory peer review and an evaluation panel of judges.
For the sixth year, students aged 13 to 18 were invited to create original videos (up to three minutes in length) that illustrated a concept or theory in the life sciences, physics, or mathematics.
For this year’s challenge, participants had the option of entering a special submission section focused on the science of pandemics. By establishing this new category, contest organizers gave students the option of exploring a number of the themes that ring especially relevant today, including epidemiology, virology, modeling a disease outbreak, the mathematics of exponential growth, immunology, biostatistics, and pandemics such as Covid-19.
All videos were evaluated based on the students’ ability to communicate complex scientific ideas in the most engaging, illuminating, and imaginative ways.
Breakthrough Junior Challenge is a global initiative to develop and demonstrate young people’s knowledge of science and scientific principles, generate excitement in these fields, support STEM career choices, and engage the imagination and interest of the public-at-large in key concepts of fundamental science. — Thomas Foye
April 26, 2024
