(Riya Singh, Intern Journalist) Patna: Two brothers from Patna, Mirza Rizwan and Mirza Faizan, have been selected for the prestigious national award of the US, ‘The George Washington Honor Medal’, by the Freedoms Foundation.
They have been selected for the award in recognition of their efforts to inculcate innovative skills in school students through their innovation program, christened DiscoverSTEM. The Mirza brothers said they have mentored around 200 students from the USA, Australia, Canada, the UK, Malaysia, India, China, Mexico, and Middle-East among other countries at the DiscoverSTEM Innovation Lab at Dallas, Texas, which has been co-founded by the duo.
Rizwan, who is presently in Bengaluru, has developed few course modules, which are delivered to students in the US by his brother Faizan through DiscoverSTEM. Under this module, children are trained in a step-by-step manner to think like scientists and innovators.
The Freedoms Foundation, in its letter to the Mirza brothers regarding the award, has stated that their efforts to turn students into innovators and to establish a school to help students succeed exemplify the essence of the award.
The letter further reads, “Freedoms Foundation’s National Award Programme has honored exceptional work of committed individuals and organizations from throughout the US… As a 2020 recipient of the ‘George Washington Honor Medal’, your name is added to the list of a historically prestigious group of citizens, whose work and dedication advance the American ideal.”
The award would be conferred to the Mirza brothers in a ceremony in Dallas next year.
The Mirza brothers hail from Samanpura locality in Patna. Rizwan is a management academic and consultant with a research interest in innovation. He is pursuing a Ph.D. in ‘Innovation and corporate sustainability’ and currently working with a technology MNC as chief innovation officer, leading and managing innovation teams and activities for the company worldwide. He evaluates the patentability and commercialization potential of innovations made by students at DiscoverSTEM.
“We are greatly honored by this award for educational development and would like to thank everyone who was a part of the decision to acknowledge our work on innovation, education, and social contribution,” Rizwan said.
Faizan, the younger brother to Rizwan, is an aerospace scientist and the inventor of the Ground Reality Information Processing System (GRIPS), an innovation to prevent runway incursion and detect foreign objects and runways in real-time. He currently lives in Texas.
“More than 200 of our students aged between 10 to 18 years have filed for patents for their innovations after undergoing our innovation modules. We have plans to provide even greater research and innovation opportunities to our students as we have tied up with some leading research labs in the US for joint research partnership,” Faizan said.
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