Introducing Igor Klymenko, the winner of the $100,000 Chegg.org Global Student Prize 2022
17-year-old Ukrainian prodigy Igor Klymenko has won the $100,000 Chegg.org Global Student Prize 2022 for developing a drone that detects landmines.
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The $100,000 award is to be given to one exceptional student that has made a real impact on learning, the lives of their peers and on society beyond. Igor was selected from over 7,000 nominations and applications from 150 countries around the world, and accepted his award at the Clinton Global Initiative meeting during UN General Assembly week in New York.
Igor is a student from Kyiv, Ukraine. He moved to the countryside at the start of the Russian invasion to finish his final year of high school. Sheltered in the basement of his new home, Igor successfully completed his studies while refining the mine-detecting drone he has been working on for eight years. Alongside his research, Igor has remained steadfast in his desire to learn and help Ukrainians throughout the Russian invasion of Ukraine, conducting online maths and physics lessons for his peers. He recently started volunteering with the Ukrainian Global Scholars, a non-profit that helps Ukrainian students obtain scholarships to attend some of the world’s best universities.
Igor's research
When Russia invaded Crimea in 2014, Igor wanted to help his country. Always interested in science, he decided to apply his learnings to develop robots for demining. In 10th grade, he began incorporating quadcopters and drones into his ideas. For the last two years, Igor has been working on his latest research, Quadcopter Mines Detector, which he has successfully presented at numerous competitions and exhibitions. He was a finalist of the X Festival of Innovative Projects ‘Sikorsky Challenge 2021: Ukraine and the World’ and won the gold medal in the junior category at Malaysia’s 21st Technology Exhibition (MTE) 2022.
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Igor’s Quadcopter Mines Detector has received two official patents from Ukraine and detects anti-personnel and anti-vehicle landmines, providing coordinates of their location within two centimetres. Because the device flies, it can spot mines safely from above. Igor is now working on improving the drone by adding new technologies: spraying paint to mark the location of the mine, and using AI technology to identify the type of landmine and best course of action for safe removal.
He has collaborated with scientists from around the world to develop the drone, as well as a humanitarian organization on the ground in Ukraine that is dedicated to de-mining the country’s post-war territories. With the help of funding from the Finnish NGO Ministry of Good Spirit, which he received after taking part in the Ukrainian-Finnish program for startups, Igor has developed two working prototypes of his device. He is now working with various organizations, including the Ukrainian Future Business Incubator, to develop a minimum viable product for fast real-world implementation to help reduce the number of victims of explosive devices.
Since completing schooling at the Kyiv Polytechnic Lyceum of National Technical University of Ukraine in May, Igor has recently started studying computer sciences at the University of Alberta in Canada. He is also pursuing a part-time online degree in automation of computer-integrated technologies at the National Technical University of Ukraine’s Igor Sikorsky Kyiv Polytechnic Institute.
The Global Student Prize
The Varkey Foundation partnered with Chegg.org to launch the Global Student Prize last year, a sister award to its $1 million Global Teacher Prize. It was established to create a powerful new platform that shines a light on the efforts of extraordinary students everywhere who, together, are reshaping our world for the better. The prize is open to all students who are at least 16 years old and enrolled in an academic institution or training and skills program. Part-time students as well as students enrolled in online courses are also eligible for the prize.
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If students were nominated, the person nominating them was asked to write a brief description online explaining why. The student being nominated was then sent an email inviting them to apply for the prize. Applicants were able to apply in English, Mandarin, Arabic, French, Spanish, Portuguese and Russian.
Actor and humanitarian Hugh Jackman announced last year’s winner, Jeremiah Thoronka, in November 2021. Jeremiah, a 21-year-old student from Sierra Leone, launched a start-up called Optim Energy that transforms vibrations from vehicles and pedestrian footfall on roads into an electric current. With just two devices, the start-up provided free electricity to 150 households comprising around 1,500 citizens, as well as 15 schools where more than 9,000 students attend.
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