At the end of the day, the competition crowned winners. But it was clear to me, talking to these engineers and scientists of the future, that our world is going to be the ultimate winner here. (The grand prize winner of US $50 000, a trip to the Galapagos, and an internship at CERN was Shree Bose, who discovered a way to improve ovarian cancer treatment. More on the winners here.) Because when these teens read the news, watch movies, or talk to their friends, they find problems to be solved—and believe they can solve them. And, after talking to them, I believe they and their peers around the world can—not just the problems of today but also the problems of tomorrow.
"We forget how much young people can do," said Vint Cerf, Google's Chief Internet Evangelist and widely known as one of the founders of the Internet, as he stood in the middle of the room and looked around at the teenagers. "But in the 18th century, the best mathematics was done by teens." And these teens, he noted, "are concerned with real world social and environmental problems. They care about the world."
Find out about some of the finalists, the problems they solved, and their sources of inspiration in our slideshow.
