Three bright young students from Cork have ended up on TIME's list of the 25 Most Influential teens in the world
Last month, Ciara Judge, Sophia Healy-Thow and Émer Hickey from Kinsale Community School headed to the Google Science Fair in California and came back with the grand prize, not a bad day's work for the three Cork teens.
Ciara (16), Émer and Sophie (17) discovered Diazotroph, a bacteria that pulls nitrogen from the atmosphere into soil and helps crops like wheat and barley to improve their yield, which could help to combat world hunger. According to TIME, they already have plans to commercialise their discovery, but before that they had to take home the award, and then woke up this morning to the news that they were on the that very magazine's list of the most influential teens in the world, alongside Nobel Prize winner Malala Yousafzai.
Speaking to The Journal, Émer said "It was a complete surprise...the people that were on the list were people we’d know from seeing them on TV and movies!". She also added that it shows that teens can make a valuable contribution to society and the world, which should help to combat a lot of the negativity about the youth of today.
According to The Journal, they're going to be busy for the next while however as they have a few prizes and trips coming their way, as well as a whole raft of interviews and, of course, school work to do. The trio will head off at some stage on a 10-day expedition to the Galapagos Islands as well as going to the Virgin Galactic Spaceport in Mexico. There's also a bit of prize money for them to split (around $50,000/€39,000) in the form of a Google scholarship, while a further $10,000 (€7,800) will go towards computers and science equipment for their school.
Via The Journal, Breaking News and Time. Main pic via YouTube.
