Science is a big part of modern life, but it doesn’t always get much attention from popular culture. More people should have an interest in science, especially young people who could be inspired to pursue science careers. These are some of the ideas behind the Junior Breakthrough Challenge. Founded by Julia and Yuri Milner, the challenge is run by the Breakthrough Prize Foundation.
Julia and Yuri Milner created this competition as a part of their Giving Pledge program to lend support to science and help the communication of scientific ideas. To communicate these ideas to students, other students are often the best people for the job. This makes them the perfect people to fulfill many of these goals.
The Breakthrough Junior Challenge is a competition that helps to communicate scientific ideas to young people and inspire them to go into the sciences as careers. The challenge is open globally to all students who are between the ages of 13 and 18.
To participate in the challenge, students make a science video and submit it to the contest to win a large college scholarship. The videos, with a maximum length of 1 minute and 30 seconds, must bring to life a scientific concept. This can be any scientific idea or concept that is in physics, life sciences, or mathematics.
As a part of their Giving Pledge, Julia and Yuri Milner founded the Breakthrough Junior Challenge to inspire young people and to help them and their schools. The challenge is to both bring awareness to science and to give students inspiration for going into science careers.
The videos that are submitted are very helpful in getting complicated scientific concepts that are communicated in a way that is engaging and creative so that more people are familiar with these important concepts.
1. Previous Winners Of The Breakthrough Junior Challenge
As a global challenge, the competition is open to students around the world. Previous winners have entered creative videos that have been highly engaging to other students. Amber Kwok of Mauritius was the 2021 winner. Maryam Tsegaye of Canada was the 2020 winner. Jeffery Chen from the USA was the 2019 winner.
Samay Godika of India was the 2018 winner. All of these contestants won by using a lot of creativity to create engaging scientific videos. Each video is judged by the video’s creativity, difficulty, how engaging it is, and how well it illuminates the audience about its subject. Every submission should be original and be created with a high degree of creativity.
2. Breakthrough Junior Challenge Prizes
Three prizes are awarded by the Breakthrough Junior Challenge. The prize is awarded at the ceremony for the Breakthrough Prize, which is supported by the foundations of several major technology entrepreneurs. These people include Mark Zuckerberg, Sergey Brin, Priscilla Chan, Julia and Yuri Milner.
The one student winner gets a college scholarship for $250,000. There is also a prize for that student’s teacher of $50,000, while the school that the student attends also gets a science lab prize worth $100,000. There is a June 25th, 2022, deadline for entering the challenge.
3. Inspiring The World Through The Giving Pledge
Inspiring the next generation is an important part of what drives this competition. That’s why Julia and Yuri Milner are fulfilling their Giving Pledge mission by helping to expose others to scientific concepts and to inspire young people.
The scientific focus of the Breakthrough Junior Challenge helps to get kids more interested in the big questions and to discover the sciences for themselves. The challenge is run to focus on big questions of science and to introduce the public to them. It is also run to raise the profile of scientists as well as give them more prestige.