Imagine an alarm that goes off on detecting the presence of a person on the other side of a door. Well, Class IX boy Sayan Sain did just that.
The Pailan World School student was the only one from Bengal to receive the Dr APJ Abdul Kalam IGNITE Award from President Pranab Mukherjee this month. On Saturday, he received The Balrampur Chini Mills Award for Outstanding Talent (innovator) at The Telegraph School Awards for Excellence 2016 presented by IIHM.
The idea of the alarm was born from an incident at home. Sayan was getting ready for school in a hurry when he opened a door and his father, Asoke Taru Sain, who was standing right behind, was injured.
As he pondered over the accident, the 15-year-old boy came up with the idea of a sensory device that can be installed near a door. He shared the concept on the National Innovation Foundation-India website this April and made it to a list of 33 budding innovators who were conferred the prestigious award. "It was an opportunity of a lifetime to demonstrate the device in front of the President," Sayan beamed.
An aspiring doctor, Sayan wants to do research in medical science and come up with affordable medicines and treatment for critical diseases such as cancer. "I want to cure critically ill patients without putting financial burden on them."
The first person Sayan shares his ideas - be it a a passenger safety bus with magnetic plates, an adjustable digital staircase for senior citizens or a device that can turn off a bus engine if it detects the person at the wheel has been drinking or is ill - is his father, an IT professional. "My teachers have always been helpful, clearing doubts about the application of various scientific principles."
Like many a scientist, Sayan has an ear for music. He plays several instruments such as violin, guitar, synthesizer and recorder, a kind of flute popular in the US, and is a die-hard fan of Arijit Singh.
When he is not tinkering with scientific devices, Sayan loves reading John F. Kinney's Diary of a Wimpy Kid series and painting still life.
