Bringing Science to every one-Nayi Soch-TED Talks India(Quest national Engineers’ day special)
Professor Manu Prakash, a physicist and inventor, is creating low-cost scientific instruments that kids can use to do real science — including a microscope folded out of paper that costs about 100 rupees to make, and a paper centrifuge that costs even less and works like instruments that cost thousands. “Science is not meant only for an exam or the lab,” he says. “Science is meant to be in your homes, in your kitchens, and in your heart. If we all make science a part of our lives, we can probably change a lot.”
An assistant professor of bioengineering at Stanford University, Manu Prakash is a physicist working at the molecular scale to try and understand no less than how the world really works. As he told BusinessWeek in 2010, he is humbled and inspired by nature’s own solutions to the world’s biggest problems. “I build and design tools to uncover how and why biological systems so often outsmart us. I believe one day we will be able to understand the physical design principles of life on Earth, leading to a new way to look at the world we live in.”
Born in Meerut, India, Prakash earned a BTech in computer science and engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology in Kanpur before moving to the United States. He did his master’s and PhD in applied physics at MIT before founding the Prakash Lab at Stanford.
Prakash’s ultra-low-cost, “print-and-fold” paper microscope won a $100,000 grant from the Gates Foundaton in 2012.
