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The Russian billionaire Yuri Milner, who has bet boldly and sometimes daringly on technology companies such as Facebook, Twitter and Alibaba, and closer on Flipkart and Ola, has the mission to make science a dominant science.
Since 2012, he has hosted the annual Breakthrough Award Ceremony in Silicon Valley and is commonly known as the "Oscars of Science".
Speaking exclusively to ET on the eve of the awards ceremony, Mr. Milner said that while it was encouraging to see an Indian student from Bengaluru win the Junior Challenge this year, they had a lot of work to be done to strengthen awareness of science and outreach initiatives here in India.
Samay Godika, 16, who won the fourth annual Breakthrough Junior Challenge, will receive a $ 400,000 education award for himself, his teacher and his school.
She is currently studying at Koramangala National Public School in Bengaluru. The Godika video, presented in the "life sciences" category, focuses on circadian rhythms, a 24-hour biological process that can influence simple everyday experiences such as school waking or jet lag.
Godika said he would continue his research on the correlation between circadian rhythms and the effectiveness of medical treatments as he prepared to go to university. While talking to ET, he stated that he wanted to pursue the entrepreneurial spirit.
Rana Adhikara, an Indian American, received the New Horizons Prize in Physics, awarded to early career researchers. Rana, currently at the California Institute of Technology, has received $ 100,000 for her research on present and future ground-based gravitational wave detectors.
"We now have nearly 100 winners and a majority of them are spending prize money for nonprofit initiatives. Some have set up separate foundations and have raised funds from other sponsors. Second, the prize is much more recognized by academic institutions. And we are seeing more and more people watching the ceremony live. Last year, for the first time, we went to live in China through our partner, Tencent, while we were expanding our geographic coverage, "said Milner, founder of the investment DST Global, which supports major Internet companies internationally.
This 56-year-old physicist, now an Internet investor, has also offered $ 100 million to Breakthrough Starshot, as well as an ambitious $ 100-million science project to discover if intelligent life exists outside the planet. through Breakthrough Listen.
Among the main Breakthrough, New Horizon and Junior Challenge awards, 100 winners have won $ 220 million over the past seven years. Areas of research include life sciences, mathematics and physics.
Milner told ET, in a Californian phone interview, that the goal of each winner of the Breakthrough Junior Challenge was to encourage more kids to get into science. "We are trying to send a message to the kids to tell them that you can be appreciated by what people want to see as role models. Past winners have become celebrities and have been widely covered by the local press. If you check social media, be it Facebook, Twitter or any other platform, you will not find a single scientist among the 100 to 200 most followed people in the world. That's what we try to change, "he said.
One of the most famous technology investors of Silicon Valley, Milner was named after the first man in space, the Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin. He has joined other technology entrepreneurs in Breakthrough projects to rekindle interest in science and space exploration.
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