Bhubaneswar, Oct. 25: Two students of Kalinga Institute of Social Sciences (KISS) have won the national-level APJ Abdul Kalam IGNITE 2016 Awards.

Dhanurjaya Dehury, a Class-VIII student, was awarded for his innovation "Pedal-Operated Vegetable-Cutting Machine" and Sebati Kutruka, of the same class, bagged the award for her project "Machine to Dig out Sweet Potato".

The duo are among 30 winners selected for their innovations from among 59,400 projects received by the National Innovation Foundation-India, an autonomous body of the department of science and technology. The foundation declared the annual awards on October 15, on former President Kalam's birth anniversary. The occasion is also celebrated as the Children's Creativity and Innovation Day.

Both Dhanurjaya and Sebati will leave for New Delhi on November 5 and receive their awards from President Pranab Mukherjee at Rashtrapati Bhavan on November 7. KISS director P.K. Das and headmaster Sushanta Kumar Swain will accompany them.

Both students belong to tribal families. While Dhanurjaya hails from Koida in Sundargarh district, Sebati is from Bissam Cuttack in Rayagada and both have been in KISS for the past five years.

"I have seen people at my village putting in a lot of physical effort to dig out sweet potatoes, yam and other tubers that are commonly consumed in those parts. Often it results in a lot of drudgery, especially for the women. This is why I tried to make a machine to solve this problem," said 12-year-old Sebati.

Expressing happiness over the success of KISS students, institute founder Achyuta Samanta said tribal students were second to none if provided with proper care and quality education. "These two students have proved their mettle at the national level - which is a great achievement not only for KISS, but for the all tribal communities," he said.

In another development, KISS has signed an MoU with Ahmedabad-based Adani Foundation to set up a branch of the institute in the tribal-populated district of Mayurbhanj. Samanta inked the pact with Adani Foundation chairperson Priti Adani.

The foundation will finance the institute's infrastructure facilities. KISS has bought land in Baripada to set up the institute.

According to the MoU, Adani Foundation will provide one-time infrastructure assistance for the institute, which will start operating from the next academic year. It will provide the underprivileged tribal students of Mayurbhanj quality education, said sources.

The authorities also said land had been purchased in many tribal-populated districts, including Koraput, Kalahandi, Balangir, Sundargarh and Keonjhar, to set up KISS branches. Ten branches of KISS will start functioning in those districts, said Samanta, adding that each branch would have 1,200 students.