A young Indian-origin girl living in the United States has won a prestigious award for designing a fire-detection device that is faster than traditional smoke detectors. Shanya Gill, a 12-year-old from San Jose, California, was awarded $25,000 (Rs 21 lakh) for her invention in the Thermo Fisher Scientific Junior Innovators Challenge competition. This competition saw the participation of 65,000 middle school students.
Shanya’s inspiration for creating the device came after a fire destroyed a restaurant near her house in the summer of 2022. Her mother’s increasing caution about fire safety prompted her to think about finding a more efficient way to detect fires. She discovered that thermal cameras can detect heat loss in homes during the winter months, which led her to wonder if they could also detect house fires faster than smoke detectors.
To bring her idea to life, Shanya connected an affordable thermal camera to a compact computer. She then programmed the system to differentiate between human presence and heat sources. Warm objects moving horizontally were identified as people, while hot objects that remained stationary, such as an active gas burner, were identified as heat sources. The system was programmed to send a text message if it detected a heat source without any human presence for a continuous 10-minute period.
Shanya’s fire-detection system proved to be highly accurate, detecting human presence 98% of the time and heat sources 97% of the time. Her innovative solution earned her the top prize in the Thermo Fisher Scientific ASCEND Award.
This recognition highlights Shanya’s exceptional talent and creativity at such a young age. Her invention has the potential to revolutionize the field of fire safety and improve the efficiency of fire detection systems.
