“There’s a first time for everything.” Especially for Indian women who over the years have been successfully shattering the glass ceiling in various fields. From Anshula Kant (World Bank’s first female CFO) to Avani Chaturvedi (the first woman solo pilot to fly MiG-21), women can literally do it all.
Speaking of which, a 16-year-old from Amritsar recently topped the International Space Olympiad (ISO) 2020. Hissaa, a Class X student of DAV Public School, scored 78.75 marks obtained collectively in the preliminary, intermediate and final test and came first in the senior category of ISO, reports The Tribune. The bright girl has now received an invitation from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).
Hissaa will be flying to the John F Kennedy Space Centre in the US after getting the rare offer due to her exemplary score. What’s astonishing is that she is not only the first Indian student to secure this position, but also the one to achieve it with her own hard work and dedication. The talented girl has never attended any coaching class.
In fact, she credited her father Savrajinder Pal Singh, an engineer, and her mother Kamalpreet Kaur, an English teacher in a government school, for her achievement. She said, “Having an engineering background, my father taught me the nuances of science and my mother made sure that I get the best of knowledge in astronomy.”
Sharing her experience she was quoted saying,
“I got myself registered in September 2019, but due to Covid-19 restrictions, the first-round examination was pushed to January, followed by the second phase being conducted in June and the final in August. I am eagerly waiting for the situation to get favourable so that I could visit my dream destination, the NASA centre.”
Ecstatic about her success, she further added,
“It was a dream come true when I got the official confirmation. I aim to be an astrophysicist. I competed with students from Singapore and Switzerland, besides different parts of India, and bagged the first place.”
Kudos to the brilliant student. We wish her all the success for her future.