Inventing Tomorrow 2018

Join brilliant young minds from diverse cultural and economic backgrounds as they work with resourcefulness and imagination to develop practical solutions to their local eco challenges – and prepare projects for the largest convening of high school scientists in the world. The future is brighter than you think. — NM

 “The competition is beside the point in Laura Nix’s inspiring film because she’s interested in showcasing a specific type of high school entrant: those who see an environmental threat in their backyard and are driven to fix it with science.

Sixteen-year-old activist Sahithi, who lives in a region of India beset by pollution-caused lake fires, develops an app to make water testing crowd-sourceable. Spirited Bangka Island, Indonesia, students Intan and Nuha want to offset the corrosive effects of legal and illegal tin mining in their city by creating a filter for dredgers to use. Jared, a descendant of Hawaiians who survived tsunamis, works on how to track the spread of arsenic into cities from a pond where it had been dumped for decades. Meanwhile, three Monterrey, Mexico, kids, disturbed by their industrialized city’s terrible air quality, develop a photocatalytic paint that would halt the spread of pollutants the way trees curb global warming.

Rooting for these appealing, thinking-globally/acting-locally adolescents is easy as they fret over and fine-tune their presentations. But by the end, as you dry your eyes, it’s their futures you want them to win – as scientists, optimists and change agents – not just a science fair prize.” — Robert Abele, LA Times