$$News and Reports$$

Mar. 31, 2021

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Inbar Kedem, a pupil at the Jusidman Science Center for Youth, won first place in the recent Young Scientists & Developers Competition 2021.

Inbar (pictured above) combines his studies at the Nofi Habsor High School with scientific training in the Meitar Program, an academic program for excellence in the fields of engineering and technology, taught at the Jusidman Science Center for Youth in collaboration with Atidim. His research in the identification and quantitative estimation of Macrobrachium rosenbergii giant freshwater prawns at the larval stage of their development in growth containers, according to the analysis of photographs with the aid of AI, won him first place in the competition. His research was supervised by Prof. Amir Sagi of BGU's Department of Life Sciences and Prof. Yitzhak Yitzhaki, a member of BGU's Electro-Optics and Photonics Unit in the School of Computing and Electrical Engineering.


An honorable mention was given to Anjam Abu Rafa for her research on transposable elements in genetic change in wheat. Anjam (pictured above), who lives in Lakiya in the Negev, studies at the Elahad High School for Excellence in Science and in the Alfa Program in the Jusidman Science Center for Youth. Her research was carried out in the lab of Prof. Khalil Kashkush a member of BGU's Department of Life Sciences.

The Young Scientists & Developers Competition is part of the EU's research and development program and is designed to encourage and promote cooperation between young scientists in Europe and in Israel and during the Intel-ISEF international competition in the United States. In Israel, the competition is initiated by the Bloomfield Science Museum in Jerusalem. Approximately 70 youths from across the country compete.​ 

Competition winners get to represent the State of Israel in international competitions, including the World Competition for Young Scientists and Developers, Intel ISEF Society for Science & the Public, and the European Union Contest for Young Scientists (EUCYS). They also win academic scholarships for studying at Israeli institutions.  ​