[UPDATE] Grade 9 Student Wins First-Place Mathematics Award in Broadcom MASTERS Competition

Oct. 31, 2014:

Earlier this week, Rajiv Movva, grade 9, was announced as a first-place mathematics award winner in the Broadcom MASTERS competition, the finals of which took place in Washington, D.C. Movva’s project, which focused on discovering a natural method for treating type 2 diabetes, earned him a $3,500 prize, to be put toward a summer STEM experience of his choice, and an Apple iPad. “It was really an amazing experience to meet all the other finalists and compete with them,” Movva said. The prizes from the contest were not the only rewards received by the finalists. “All finalists also had a minor planet that was discovered by the MIT Lincoln Laboratory named after them, and they also announced that finalists’ teachers would get their own minor planet as well!”

Another big highlight was meeting President Barack Obama at the White House. “Obviously, meeting the President was a once-in-a-lifetime experience that we were all very excited to have,” Movva reminisced. “That being said, Broadcom MASTERS finals week as a whole was an experience too great to be justly described by words.”

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Oct. 21, 2014:

Freshman Rajiv Movva was recently named a finalist in the Broadcom MASTERS competition and will be headed to Washington D.C. on Oct. 24 for the national stage of the competition, where . “I look forward to meeting and competing with the other students who share similar interests as me!” Movva said. The national winners will be announced on Tues., Oct. 28.

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Five Harker students – the most from any school in California – are among the 300 national semifinalists in the 2014 Broadcom MASTERS program, a science and engineering competition for middle school students sponsored by the Broadcom Foundation and the Society for Science & the Public. Michael Kwan, Rajiv Movva, Anooshree Sengupta and Shaya Zarkesh, all grade 9, and Kaushik Shivakumar, grade 8, completed and submitted their projects during the 2013-14 school year; their projects were chosen from more than 6,000 nominees nationwide.

On Sept. 17, the 30 national finalists will be named. Finalists will be eligible to travel to Washington, D.C., for the final competition; the winner will receive a $25,000 prize from the Samueli Foundation.