Imagine winning a $250,000 college scholarship. Add to that a $100,000 laboratory for your school. And a $50,000 bonus for your teacher!
These rewards plus international recognition are achievable for winners of the Breakthrough Junior Challenge, made possible by philanthropist Yuri Milner and his wife Julia Milner as part of their commitment to the Giving Pledge.
What is the Breakthrough Junior Challenge?
Every year, the Breakthrough Junior Challenge sponsors an international competition to inspire students aged 13 to 18 all over the world to think creatively about science. Students create videos that bring a theory or a concept in biology, physics, or mathematics to life.
What kinds of videos have won the Junior Breakthrough Challenge contest?
2021 Breakthrough Junior Challenge Winner 18-year-old Amber Kok of Mauritius posed the question of how two objects with neutral charges could attract each other in her 3-minute video Van der Waal’s and Casimir Forces: Uncovering Attractive Forces Between Neutral Objects. Here is a video of Khan Academy founder Sal Khan and previous winners telling her that she won.
2020 Breakthrough Junior Challenge Winner 17-year-old Maryam Tsegaye of Canada imagined how you could walk through walls in real life in her 3-minute video Quantum Tunneling, explaining the “serious commitment issues” of waves and particles. You can see the video of her getting the surprise news of her award from astronaut Scott Kelly and Khan Academy Founder Sal Khan at her school.
2019 Breakthrough Junior Challenge Winner 17-year-old Jeffrey Chen of the United States won the competition with his 3-minute video on the “ghost particle,” the neutrino, Neutrino Astronomy: A New Frontier. You can watch Jeffrey receiving his award from “Hidden Figures” actress Taraji P. Henson and Breakthrough Prize founder Julia Milner on YouTube.
2017 Breakthrough Junior Challenge Winner 16-year-old Samay Godika won the competition with his three-minute video on Circadian Rhythms. Here is a video of him receiving his award at a gala ceremony at NASA’s Hangar 1 in Mountain View, California.
Take a look at the videos from 2016 co-winners 17-year-old Deanna See of Singapore on Superbugs! And Our Race Against Antibiotic Resistance and 18-year-old Antonelli Massini of Peru on Quantum Entanglement. Or check out the entry from the 2015 winner, 18-year-old Ryan Chester of the United States on The Special Theory of Relativity.
What is the attitude that energizes contestants to create winning entries? Maybe 2016 winner Deanna See of Singapore said it well for all the contestants:
“If you try asking ‘why’ enough times about something you’ve experienced, you’ll probably stumble upon a science concept that explains your question. It’s important to learn about the sciences to understand how the world really works. Going one step further, if we can’t find the right concepts to answer our question, that opens up a new area of science to investigate and find our own explanations for. Learning about science is not just important to understand our present world, but to improve what we know about it too.”
Julia and Yuri Milner offer this prize in partnership with Khan Academy, National Geographic Partners LLC, and Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Breakthrough Science Lab. The Milners are also in partnership with leading technology entrepreneurs Ann Wojcicki, Sergey Brin, Priscilla Chan, and Mark Zuckerberg in funding the Breakthrough Prize, the world’s largest scientific award. Every year, the Breakthrough Foundation honors researchers who have made major contributions to the sciences and mathematics at an internationally televised awards ceremony in Silicon Valley that features famous entertainers and the luminaries of the world of high tech.