ISRO inaugurates ‘Yuvika 2019’: The Young Scientist Programme

ISRO Chairman Dr K. Sivan inaugurated ISRO’s Young Scientist Programme called ‘Yuvika 2019’ at Satish Dhawan Space Centre (SDSC) SHAR, Sriharikota in Andhra Pradesh.

Key Highlights

• About: The YUVIKA (or ‘YUva VIgyani KAryakram’) 2019, is a two week (14 days) summer vacation residential training programme, which will be conducted by ISRO from 13 May to 26 May 2019. It was launched by ISRO in tune with the Centre governments vision of “Jai Vigyan, Jai Anusandhan”. This is the first time it is being held.
• Aim: to get young school children interested in emerging areas of space science, space technology and various space applications by imparting basic knowledge about it. It also seek to inculpate scientific temper in students.
• Participants: 3 students from each Indian State (29) and Union Territories (7 UTs) are participating (about 108 students) and will get trained by ISRO Scientists. During programme, participants will also visit Satish Dhawan Space Centre (SDSC), Shriharikota which is spaceport of India.
• Selection Procedure: The students are selected based on their performance in the 8th Standard (covering CBSE, ICSE and State syllabus), which includes both academic and extracurricular activities.
• Two Week Course Curriculum: During programme students will be provided course material which has already been pre-loaded on Tablets. It includes science topics like Rocket engineering, Environment science, Astronomy, Space applications, Renewable Energy, and also soft skill improvement modules like leadership, team work, communication, etc.
• Training Centres/Units: It will be conducted across 4 centres of ISRO, Department of Space (DOS)-
  1. Space Applications Centre (SAC), Ahmedabad
  2. North Eastern Space Applications Centre (NESAC), Shillong
  3. Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre (VSSC), Thiruvananthapuram
  4. U R Rao Satellite Centre (URSC), Bengaluru
• Significance: Students will get to personally visit launch pad and integration facilities at SDSC, SHAR to understand space port operations. They will also visit ISRO laboratories and interact with and share experience with eminent ISRO scientists.

Way Forward

• It is expected that programmes like YUVIKA might produce good number of scientist in coming years and would lead to national intergartion and national building.
• Since YUVIKA 2019 received more responses than expected thus ISRO is considering of conducting this programme every year.

Month: Current Affairs - May, 2019