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    Young innovators shine in 3M STEM competition

    July 26, 2019
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    Young innovators shine in 3M STEM competition

    Winners of the fiercely contested 2019 3M Young Innovators Challenge were presented with their prizes at celebration events held in Bracknell, Berkshire, and Loughborough, Leicestershire.

    Young innovators shine in 3M STEM competition

    Winners of the fiercely contested 2019 3M Young Innovators Challenge were presented with their prizes at celebration events held in Bracknell, Berkshire, and Loughborough, Leicestershire.

    Young innovators shine in 3M STEM competition

    Winners of the fiercely contested 2019 3M Young Innovators Challenge were presented with their prizes at celebration events held in Bracknell, Berkshire, and Loughborough, Leicestershire.

    • Young Innovators Challenge 2019

      Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport and MP for Loughborough, Nicky Morgan, handed out the certificates and prizes at the Loughborough event and congratulated all the winners and finalists on their creative and innovative ideas. 3M’s managing director for the North Europe Region, Irfan Malik, did the honours for the Bracknell awards night.

      The competition is designed to inspire the next generation of original thinkers and shine a light on STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) learning. This year a total of 829 youngsters from 62 primary and secondary schools got through to the judging stages of the competition.

      Primary school teams in Leicestershire and South Nottinghamshire took part in the Cargo Carrier Challenge, Mighty Monument Challenge and Slo-Mo Marble Challenge and secondary school teams faced one another in the Fragile Freight Challenge, Science Detectives Challenge and VizTech Challenge.

      In Bracknell, primary school pupils competed in the Mighty Monument and Slo-Mo Marble challenges and secondary school students battled it out in the Fragile Freight and VizTech challenges.

      The winners of each challenge received £750 for their school to buy science and engineering equipment and every student who took part in the competition earned a British Science Association CREST Award, giving them a nationally recognised accreditation for their work.

      As well as handing out the prizes at the Loughborough event, Nicky Morgan gave her own presentation, sharing photos of successful people from many different fields who had studied the sciences in their early life.

      She said: “Who would have thought that Harry Hill is a qualified neurosurgeon, or that Rowan Atkinson has a degree in electrical engineering?”

      At the end of the presentation, she left a blank picture box space, saying to the young people present that she hoped their names and photos would one day fill that space.

      Congratulating all the competitors and winners in Bracknell, Irfan Malik said: “We hope that the 3M Young Innovators Challenge has created a spark in your minds that will inspire you to study STEM subjects and join a company like ours one day; to not only enjoy a good career for yourselves, but to make a difference and do some good for the planet.

      “Taking part is about so much more than winning. It is about science, of course, but also about networking, teamwork and building confidence.”

      Speaking about the 2019 competition, 3M corporate communications manager for the North Europe Region, John Klee, said: “It was a fantastic way to showcase so many talented young people’s work and to recognise and celebrate their achievements. Our thanks go to all our internal and external judges for giving up their time and to the teachers and parents for their support.”

      3M reputation communications manager, Rosalind Smith, added: “We are already looking forward to next year’s competition and to devising some new challenges to continue to inspire the creativity and ingenuity of the next generation of local scientists and engineers.”


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