Aarush
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Saad Nasser, 11, is a little out of place. In a room full of adults, sitting in the expansive office of Sam Pitroda at the Yojana Bhavan in Delhi, he is uncomfortable with the attention. His delicate fingers fiddle with the Intel IRIS Fair award he is barely able to hold. "How does it feel," somebody asks. He just smiles with his bright curious eyes. He is not grown up enough to answer such complex questions.
But he switches track easily. "What was the project Saad that won you the Intel prize?" asks Pitroda. Nasser is immediately transformed. His eyes light up. "As processors keep getting bigger and bigger, wire delays begin to cause problems. Traditional ISAs hide wire delays in multiple microarchitectural ways, including pipelining etc, which complicates the design and increases power...," he begins with ease and spontaneity that stuns everybody in the room.
IRIS stands for Initiative for Research and Innovation in Science, a research-based science outfit for which the Department of Science and Technology, industry lobby CII and Intel have come together to encourage a young generation of innovators. National winners of Intel IRIS will represent India at the annual Intel International Science and Engineering Fair. So Nasser is all set to make a trip to Los Angeles — the venue of the fair — in May.
Nasser is a child. Yet he is unlike others of his age. When he was 1, he did not play with toys. Instead, he wanted to look inside toy cars and gadgets. At 2, he was neatly unscrewing all his toys and gadgets to satiate his curiosity for what's inside. At 5, he was reading his dad's books on Java programming. At 7, he had finished a book on C++. Last year, he finished Stanford's online courses on databases and cryptography. He is currently doing online courses on statistics, circuits and electronics and computational neurosciences from Udacity, MIT and University of Washington.
Last month, he also won the Intel IRIS Fair award. His project was judged the best submitted by school students across the country. "He is a genius. The course he is doing at MIT is a pretty tough one," says Pitroda, currently adviser to the PM on public information infrastructure and innovations, and chairman of the National Innovation Council.
Science vs Miracles
Today, science can explain most things. For others, there are miracles. Nasser is one of them. He is a child prodigy. A child prodigy is one who by age 10 displays a mastery of a field, far beyond the norm for their age. At 11, Nasser's knowledge of science, programming can stump even seasoned engineers. He relishes the world of circuits and electronics. He can easily comprehend difficult and technical subjects like computational neuroscience that adults find difficult.
Child prodigies have been around for centuries. And the world has seen many of them. There are some who have made exceptional contributions to art, science and music — think of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in the 18th century, Pablo Picasso in the 19th century and Srinivasa Ramanujam in the 20th century. But what makes a prodigy isn't yet easily understood. "We do not know if it is genetic but giftedness does run in families. And there has to be a biological basis," says Ellen Winner, professor, department of psychology, Boston College, who has researched and written books on gifted children.
or Durdana and Pervez Nasser, Saad's parents, it was a slow discovery. Pervez has his own business — he is a financial adviser — and works mostly from home. Durdana is a homemaker. When Nasser was younger, his parents didn't find anything special in their first child — after all, everything about him was new for them. "When he was small, Saad was fascinated by electricity, light. He would always want to open up an aeroplane or a car," Durdana recalls.
Their parents reckoned that perhaps all children do such things. The only thing different at the Nassers' home was that they never had television. "We felt that the first five years are very crucial for a child and we did not want to expose him to TV," says Durdana. But their house was always full of books, and Nasser duly became a voracious reader.
It first occurred to Durdana that her son could be gifted when Nasser — all of 20 months — narrated nine rhymes to her, exactly the way she would sing to him every night. "I was surprised," she recalls. She went on the internet to find out more about this phenomenon. It's then she realized that her son could indeed be a gifted child. She consulted her sister-inlaw in Canada, whose two children — much older than Nasser — too have exceptional talents. Since then, her sister-in-law has become Durdana's sounding board.
Saad Nasser: The Stanford qualified, 11 year old, wonder kid who is pursuing computational neurosciences - Economic Times
But he switches track easily. "What was the project Saad that won you the Intel prize?" asks Pitroda. Nasser is immediately transformed. His eyes light up. "As processors keep getting bigger and bigger, wire delays begin to cause problems. Traditional ISAs hide wire delays in multiple microarchitectural ways, including pipelining etc, which complicates the design and increases power...," he begins with ease and spontaneity that stuns everybody in the room.
IRIS stands for Initiative for Research and Innovation in Science, a research-based science outfit for which the Department of Science and Technology, industry lobby CII and Intel have come together to encourage a young generation of innovators. National winners of Intel IRIS will represent India at the annual Intel International Science and Engineering Fair. So Nasser is all set to make a trip to Los Angeles — the venue of the fair — in May.
Nasser is a child. Yet he is unlike others of his age. When he was 1, he did not play with toys. Instead, he wanted to look inside toy cars and gadgets. At 2, he was neatly unscrewing all his toys and gadgets to satiate his curiosity for what's inside. At 5, he was reading his dad's books on Java programming. At 7, he had finished a book on C++. Last year, he finished Stanford's online courses on databases and cryptography. He is currently doing online courses on statistics, circuits and electronics and computational neurosciences from Udacity, MIT and University of Washington.
Last month, he also won the Intel IRIS Fair award. His project was judged the best submitted by school students across the country. "He is a genius. The course he is doing at MIT is a pretty tough one," says Pitroda, currently adviser to the PM on public information infrastructure and innovations, and chairman of the National Innovation Council.
Science vs Miracles
Today, science can explain most things. For others, there are miracles. Nasser is one of them. He is a child prodigy. A child prodigy is one who by age 10 displays a mastery of a field, far beyond the norm for their age. At 11, Nasser's knowledge of science, programming can stump even seasoned engineers. He relishes the world of circuits and electronics. He can easily comprehend difficult and technical subjects like computational neuroscience that adults find difficult.
Child prodigies have been around for centuries. And the world has seen many of them. There are some who have made exceptional contributions to art, science and music — think of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in the 18th century, Pablo Picasso in the 19th century and Srinivasa Ramanujam in the 20th century. But what makes a prodigy isn't yet easily understood. "We do not know if it is genetic but giftedness does run in families. And there has to be a biological basis," says Ellen Winner, professor, department of psychology, Boston College, who has researched and written books on gifted children.
or Durdana and Pervez Nasser, Saad's parents, it was a slow discovery. Pervez has his own business — he is a financial adviser — and works mostly from home. Durdana is a homemaker. When Nasser was younger, his parents didn't find anything special in their first child — after all, everything about him was new for them. "When he was small, Saad was fascinated by electricity, light. He would always want to open up an aeroplane or a car," Durdana recalls.
Their parents reckoned that perhaps all children do such things. The only thing different at the Nassers' home was that they never had television. "We felt that the first five years are very crucial for a child and we did not want to expose him to TV," says Durdana. But their house was always full of books, and Nasser duly became a voracious reader.
It first occurred to Durdana that her son could be gifted when Nasser — all of 20 months — narrated nine rhymes to her, exactly the way she would sing to him every night. "I was surprised," she recalls. She went on the internet to find out more about this phenomenon. It's then she realized that her son could indeed be a gifted child. She consulted her sister-inlaw in Canada, whose two children — much older than Nasser — too have exceptional talents. Since then, her sister-in-law has become Durdana's sounding board.
Saad Nasser: The Stanford qualified, 11 year old, wonder kid who is pursuing computational neurosciences - Economic Times
