Rishabh Singh and (below) Saumya Swaroop

Two Patna-based teenagers have taken it upon themselves to help students from the city get through the prestigious Ivy League universities in the US.

Rishabh Singh, 18, and Saumya Swaroop, 19, have formed an organisation, The Synergy Foundation, with the objective of helping students from Patna get through the prestigious universities.

Ivy League universities comprise eight institutes — Princeton University, Brown University, Harvard University, Dartmouth University, Yale University, Columbia University and University of Pennsylvania. The foundation would help selected students pursue their passion and get in touch with experts in their respective field of interest.

Rishabh, a DAV BSEB passout, is studying computer science and economics at Brown University, while Saumya, who passed out of the same school in 2011, has taken up operations research and financial engineering at Princeton.

On the basis of online applications, comprising a questionnaire and a section where students were asked to write on their interests, 15 Patna students from classes IX to XII were selected for the Synergy Fellowship Class of 2014.

Altogether 1,104 students from Patna had applied for the fellowship. The selection process was conducted in July.

“Through the summit, we intend to cultivate a community of learners, creators, inventors and activists, through our advisory, executives and academic panels. We believe the way to a brighter future is not just by effecting change, it is by creating a lasting system and agents of change,” Rishabh said.

Saumya said: “The Synergy Foundation is a fellowship for school students only. Our objective is to help students of Patna achieve their dreams. We will organise interactive sessions between experts and the students. These would help them face interviews when they apply for universities abroad.”

The journey to spot talent will begin from Patna and will continue to five other cities — Bangalore, Mumbai, Boston, New York and Providence in the US.

Sayash Kapoor, a Class X student, who is one of the 15 students to have been selected from Patna, said: “It will give us a lot of exposure and a chance to interact with the greats of a field in which we want to pursue our careers. All this is free of cost. The fellowship will help us in an all-round development — from academics to extra-curricular activities.”