2 Indian students participate in global space leadership program

Tuesday, 13 April 2010, 22:13 IST   |    1 Comments
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2 Indian students participate in global space leadership program
Bangalore: Sarin Maliyakal and Chaarvi Modi are students from Pune who got selected for a worldwide program that saw 160 students from across the globe to participate in a NASA-supported leadership challenge. While over 200 students from India and hundreds across the world competed for a place in the 'Honeywell Leadership Challenge Program', Maliyakal from Delhi Public School and Chaarvi from Fergusson College were the only two students to get selected from India, reports Arundhati Ranade of Pune Mirror. During their one week stay in March at the Huntsville Space and Rocket Centre in Alabama, the students were involved in activities such as making rockets, experiencing weightlessness in a space capsule and interacting with future world leader. "The program was designed especially for those who are at the verge of choosing their career. It aims to broaden their outlook," says Chaarvi. "This year, they had an impressive headcount of 160 students from 20 American states and 50 countries including India, Hungary, China, UK, Malaysia, Italy, Norway and Ireland." Sharing his excitement, Maliyakal said, "We did a lot of experiments and exercises there as a team. The most exciting was to design a rocket which actually launched. We even made a virtual set for launch of Atlantis." During the program, ten teams of 16 participants each were formed in random order, and each team was given a mentor, a NASA employee. The students also got an opportunity to interact with Robert Hoot Gibson, who was part of several space missions.

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