Qatar participant shines at INSO

Aditya Vivek of MES Indian School (Mesis), Abu Hamour branch, won a bronze medal in the first International Nuclear Science Olympiad (INSO) competition, organised from Aug 1-7 by the Department of Science and Technology, supported by the International Atomic Energy Agency, in New Clark City, Pampanga, Philippines.Aditya was part of a team representing Qatar and selected and trained by nuclear scientists and instructors at the Ministry of Education and Higher Education. There were more than 60 participants with 27 team leaders and 14 observers from 14 countries.The aim of INSO is to increase awareness of the peaceful applications of Nuclear Science and Technology (NST).It also intends to enhance the interest in NST among secondary school students. The contenders went through theoretical and practical exams in two separate days.The contestants and students also visited the Philippine Nuclear Research Institute where they toured the Philippine Research Reactor-1 Subcritical Assembly for Training, Education, and Research, the first and only nuclear reactor training facility in the Philippines and the PhilGamma Irradiation Facility. The students also visited the Bataan Nuclear Power Plant, the country’s only power plant constructed in the 1970s but never operated.Aditya had recently won a diamond award and honourable mention in the recently concluded International Science & Physics Olympiad in Russia and a silver in International Astronomy and Astrophysics online competition. Mesis principal Pramila Kannan, management and teachers congratulated him.