Google is back with its annual Science Fair, with the fifth consecutive year of the program opening the door for submission today. The event is run in partnership with Lego Education, National Geographic, Scientific American and Virgin Galactic. It invites any students between 13 and 18 from anywhere in the world to enter submissions online to compete for prizes in a number of categories, ranging from $100,000 in scholarships and grants to once-in-a-lifetime trips of remote destinations, or a first-hand look at Virgin Galactic’s new spacecraft.
The Science Fair has produced some incredibly impressive winners in years past, including a flashlight that requires only the ambient heat from a user’s palm gripping the handle to power its beam, as well as wearable tech that can provide real-time effective healthcare response to serious problems associated with an aging population and the onset of Alzheimer’s. This isn’t the kind of science fair where you see a lot of clay volcanoes or scale models of how waves are formed, in other words.
Instead, Google’s Science Fair has the potential to actually solve more problems than you or I could ever hope to even assist with in our lifetime. This year there are new categories, too, meaning more potential for world-changing award winners. A live event on September 21, 2015, will see the final winners announced, after regional finalists are declared on July 2, and 20 ultimate finalists named on August 20.