A 17-year-old Kyiv resident has won the Chegg.Org Global Student Prize – an award given to an exceptional student for “making a real impact on learning, the lives of their peers and society as a whole”. This was announced by the head of the public trade union “Osvitoria” Zoya Litvin on Facebook.
Igor Klymenko, a physics and mathematics student at the National Technical University of Ukraine “Igor Sikorsky Kyiv Polytechnic Institute”, was announced on September 20 in New York as the winner of the golden statuette.
He received $100,000 for his Quadcopter Mines Detector invention, which aims to solve the global landmine problem. The device works by quickly finding explosive objects both on and below the land surface, minimizing human involvement and risk in the search.
“Igor’s invention will help save civilian and military lives. I know that Igor will bring about positive changes at the global level, and his victory once again shows the world that Ukraine is a state of free, smart, undefeated people who remain engines of development even during the war,” Litvin said.
Igor first dreamed of building such a robot in 2014, after Russia’s first invasion of Ukraine. In the past two years he has been working on the first prototype and presented it at numerous innovative exhibitions.
“Igor wants to implement his device and start mass production. He therefore plans to use the funds to attract investors, develop the finished product as quickly as possible, and help his home country on the road to victory and further recovery,” notes the Global Student Prize.
Igor is not only an extremely talented student, but also diligent and persistent. He spent thousands of hours in laboratories and participated in dozens of competitions, where he and Ukraine were repeatedly awarded. In the spring of 2022, during the occupation of his village by the Russian army, Igor hid in the basement with eight others. He kept asking himself, “What can I do for my country?”
The Global Student Prize was established by Chegg.org in partnership with the Varkey Foundation. The award was established to recognize students around the world who have taken great strides to change the world for the better. The prize is regarded as the “sister prize” of the Global Teacher Prize.
The latter has been organized in Ukraine by the public trade union “Osvitoria” since 2017. This year she is collecting stories of brave teachers and education heroes that the whole country will learn more about at the national Telethon for Teachers’ Day on October 2nd.
