Maanasa Mendu, a 15-year old inquisitive genius, came up with her own version of renewable energy source upon seeing the condition of lack of electricity cowering the remote parts of India.
With the unfolding realms of good and bad around the world, a 15-year old girl was the answer to the impending darkness that blanketed a good chunk of India. While a normal teenage girl (13-year old then) would have enjoyed her vacation with her parents, this Ohio based Indian American teenager, Maanasa Mendu was set on being the change to drive away darkness away from this world.
Quoting her own words, Mendu said that she wanted to make a difference to change the “permanent reality” of darkness that prevailed on over one-fifth of the global population.
Mendu, on her vacation to India with her parents, witnessed the scathed reality of lack of electricity throughout the country and decided to come up with a resolution for the condition. She named that resolution “HARVEST.”
HARVEST is an inexpensive and affordable device (priced at 5 USD) that aids in the production of cheap and renewable energy. Are you wondering what’s new to this invention? It’s the source of energy that she used to produce the unbelievable outcomes.
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This device has been created to actually deploy the pressure exerted from the wind and rain (along with sunlight with the presence of solar cells) to produce power and electricity. The scientific explanation behind this working model is the “Piezoelectric effect”.
Piezoelectric effect is the phenomenon which results in the successful formation of electric charge upon action of any form of mechanical stress – wind and rain pressure in the case of HARVEST. She refers to the components of the device as “solar leaves” which are activated upon the vibration created by the applied pressure of the wind.
Maanasa Mendu, who was only 13-years old when she invented this amazing breakthrough for power generation, had a vision to make this device commercially viable and approachable so that it can be deployed in countries (third-world especially) that is in desperate need of it.
With this amazing discovery, this Indo-American brainstormer received the prestigious title of America’s Top Young Scientist back in 2016. Her only goal was to find suitable funding and scaling strategies to ensure that it actually does what intention it was discovered with – to produce and provide electricity to the countries which need it.
Genius and out of the box thinkers like Maanasa Mendu are the little specks of hope that this world is currently in need of. While a normal 15-year old might just be worried about the latest iPhone, Mendu wanted to bring about a change in the world and HARVEST was the answer to that.
-Somapika Dutta
