Georgian student winners of the Millennium Innovations Award will travel to the NASA Johnson Space Center. The “Barney’s Smart Labyrinth” invention team of five — Sophio Chikhladze (Guivy Zaldastanishvili American Academy), Mariam Gamrekelashvili, Giorgi Rigishvili, Aleksandre Kajaia (School AIA-GESS), and Iona Iobidze (Kutaisi School Progress) — was selected to represent the project in the United States. The “Barney’s Smart Labyrinth” project will help scientists to evaluate animals’ spatial vision and memory during laboratory experiments, thus saving researchers time and assuring accuracy of results through an improved mechanized research process.
“By the decision of the Expert Committee of the contest, we revealed three innovative teams, which were awarded different prizes. The first place team will travel to NASA in the USA to participate in the summer program of the Space Center University. In total, more than 400 students took part in the contest; 13 teams made it to the final stage. Every project has the potential for further development and commercialization,” said Millennium Challenge Account — Georgia CEO Magda Magradze.
Prior to selecting the winners, the Experts Committee selected 13 of 30 semi-finalist teams to participate in the finals. Teams from secondary and high schools from all over Georgia participated in the final stage of the competition. Finalists were supported financially by the Millennium Challenge Account, which enabled them to further develop their innovative projects.
Millennium Challenge Account–Georgia has been successfully organizing the Millennium Innovations Award for five years in a row, with the financial support from the U.S. Embassy and in cooperation with the Ministry of Education, Science, Culture, and Sports of Georgia, as well as NASA Space Center. This year, competition also partnered with TBC bank and Silknet.
Millennium Innovations Award encourages innovative ideas and projects in the field of STEM that increase the students’ motivation in these disciplines and promote new achievements. One of the project objectives is to connect the winning students with private sector representatives and successful scientists in order to help them deepen their knowledge and establish meaningful future partnerships.