4th student leadership conference at KHS

Pune: The Kalmadi Shamarao High School, Ganeshnagar, recently held its fourth ‘Student Leadership Conference’ online. The theme of the conference was ‘Me to We: Igniting the spirit of leadership’. As many as 97 students of classes IX and X from 16 schools across Pune participated in this event.

At the inaugural function, Malati Kalmadi, secretary of Kannada Sangha, shared her views on leadership along with Neha Panchamiya, founder of ResQ NGO for animals, and Siddhant Bhargava, founder of Food Darzee. Keynote speaker, Vivek Sawant, former managing director of Maharashtra Knowledge Corporation Limited shared his thoughts on how choosing the right role model is important for becoming a leader. Thereafter, Manish Freeman conducted a cooperative gaming session in which he emphasised the importance of games in life.

On the second day, Anand Chabukswar, Hina Siddiqui and Sameena Manaswala, in their respective sessions, highlighted the significance of folk narratives and deriving leadership lessons from them. Students also interacted with Raj Raghunathan, professor of Business at University of Texas and an author. In his talk, he focused on ways to be happy and the biggest deterrents to being happy.

On the third day, workshops by Archana Deshmukh and Anand Godse underlined the importance of a collaborative and entrepreneurship at an early age. The valedictory ceremony was presided over by Malati Kalmadi and Sameer Garde, president of CISCO India. It was followed by a question and answer session.

Educator selected for ISS’s design challenge

Vandana Suryawanshi, science facilitator from Vidya Valley School, was among the six chosen from India for the World Design Organization’s ‘Design in Space for Life on Earth Design’ challenge held recently.

The challenge was a two-week virtual workshop for industry leaders, designers and other professionals to apply design thinking to space-based research to develop solutions for life on Earth.

The global challenge had 260 participants, out of which 70 were chosen. They were divided into five groups, with 16 participants along with eminent personalities from the International Space Station’s (ISS) National Laboratory.

The challenge was to choose from the 17 sustainable development goals (SDGs) provided by the ISS and create a theme for the challenge. “Our team had chosen three sustainable development goals and decided to work on energy efficiency. I would like to thank the ISS National Laboratory, World Design Organization and principal Nalini Sengupta who had inspired me to pursue space learning,” said Suryawanshi. Their team focused on the challenge statement, ‘How can space-based research address UN sustainable development goals?”

Each team was given 10 minutes to present the challenge in the final round. The participants will now proceed to the next level, dates for which will be announced soon.