Gifted Winter Program 2022
For Students in Grades 6 through 10
December 18 - 30, 2022
GenWise, in partnership with Ei (both Founding members of the Gifted India Network), presents our 3rd program in calendar 2022, exclusively for students who are Gold/ Silver/ Bronze Scholars on ASSET Talent Search.
Students will reside at India's most modern sportsplex, the Dravid-Padukone Center for Sports Excellence (CSE). Classes will be held at the brand new facilities of Vidyashilp University.
Students will arrive at the CSE in Bengaluru, India on December 18th by noon and will leave on December 30th after 2:00pm. There will be an open house and convocation ceremony on Friday, December 30th in the first half, which parents are invited to attend.
GenWise is an entity dedicated to supporting the needs of learners, through their network of accomplished mentors - with excellent academic, professional and teaching credentials. GenWise offers 2-3 week summer programs modeled along the lines of Johns Hopkins CTY, Northwestern CTD etc., adapted to the Indian context. GenWise believes its programs are on par with these programs, given the expertise of its mentors. GenWise is also a founding member of the Gifted India Network that supports parents, teachers and schools in meeting the needs of gifted students.
GenWise residential programs help bring out the child’s potential by supplementing the work of schools and parents. GenWise’s approach and the benefits of the programs are outlined here.
The Program is split into 2 tracks:
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Senior (Grades 8,9,10 in Acad Year 2022-23)
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Junior (Grades 6,7 in Acad Year 2022-23)
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The Senior track comprises the following 2 academic enrichment modules-
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The Junior track comprises the following 2 academic enrichment modules-
Apart from the academic enrichment work, students will engage in a host of activities that broadens their horizons, enhances their socio-emotional development and allows them to make connections with their peers and mentors and have fun (in a device-free environment).
Watch the short film below to hear what parents and students have to say about the program experience, and read the testimonials of past participants here.
Safety of students is ensured through tightly-monitored, well-established processes, as well as well-trained staff. The Staff-Student ratio in our Programs are typically 1:4. In coordination with Vidyashilp University and the Center for Sports Excellence, GenWise expects that issues, if any, will be well-managed.
Regarding medical issues the Vesoma Sports Medicine Center on campus provides round the clock medical care. The sports medicine center is equipped with a 24 x 7 nurse and Doctor on call. Additionally, we have First Aid Kits and trained First Aid Administrators within our team. Besides that the world-class NRV Hospital is 10-15 minutes from the program venue and the Aster CMI, one of Bengaluru's best multi-speciality hospitals, is a 30-minute drive from our venue.
Parents will also be required to share their child's detailed medical history and insurance details for our reference.
Program Fee, Registration Form
The program fee is Rs. 96,000 (this is inclusive of tuition, food and accommodation and 18% GST). There is an Early Bird discount of Rs 7,000, if the Program Fee is paid in full by Oct 15, 2022. There are no additional discounts for Gold/ Silver/ Bronze scholars.
If this is of interest to you, please register here.
More information/ links around securing a seat via an advance, making the full payment, cancellation policy, etc. on this Page.
Please reach out to any of us in the GenWise Leadership Team, if you'd like to speak live:
Sapna @98211 12090
Eklavya @70464 66866
Vishnu @93422 47734
For detailed Course Descriptions, click here...
Introduction to Bio-Inspired Soft Robotics
(Senior Track - Students in Grades 8,9,10 in 2022-23)
Imagine robots that look more like caterpillars and starfish rather than the giant robotic arms that you see on factory floors...this is the world of Soft Robots! While traditional robots are constructed from rigid links and simple joints, the new generation of robotic devices are soft, using flexible materials. The growing field of soft robotics offers exciting new approaches for bio-inspired design, fast and low-cost prototyping, and integrating novel materials with digital control. These soft robots have the potential to benefit humanity in a wide variety of applications, ranging from medical devices that interface gently with the human
body to robot explorers for remote or dangerous environments.
"Introduction to Bio-Inspired Soft Robotics" is an interdisciplinary course that brings together Biodesign, Mechanical Engineering & Robotics. Students will be introduced to the following topics -
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Bioinspired soft robots
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Engineering with soft materials
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Design and fabrication techniques for soft robots
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Principles of soft actuation mechanisms
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Sensing and control technologies for automating soft robots
Students will:
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Learn the principles of the engineering design process
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Use a range of materials to design, compose, construct, and evaluate gripping prototypes for specific design challenges
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Apply their knowledge of physics and geometry to build a soft robotic finger
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Fabricate functioning soft robotic gripping devices made of compliant materials
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Test and analyze the performance of the soft robotic gripping device and interpret the results
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Appreciate fundamental mechanisms of actuation, sensing, and control in the context of soft robotics systems and explain their advantages and limitations.
This article on Using Soft Robotics to Introduce Engineering Design gives a sneak peek into the course.
This course is facilitated by Muralidhar K.
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Being a Digital Native in the 21st Century
(Senior Track - Students in Grades 8,9,10 in 2022-23)
As this generation grows up, more and more of their social life is mediated by the internet, and now it appears that a lot of their work life will also be online. It is important for them to understand the internet well: how it works, what is the underlying technology, what are its strengths and weaknesses, so you know how to leverage the former and avoid the latter.
This course will help the students understand to appreciate the following aspects of the modern internet:
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Technology: an overview of how the internet works; browsers, mobile phone apps, servers, the network infrastructure, how these all interact, which direction the technology is moving, and how to position themselves to best benefit from the trends.
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Economics: How is it that we get so much software/services/apps for free? How do Google, Facebook, Amazon etc make money? How is this different from non-internet businesses and older ways of making money, and how does this affect us? How and why the internet is eating the world of business and how to be prepared for those changes, both as a producer and a seller.
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Psychology: The structure and economics of the internet ensure that people's behavior on the internet is not the same as their behavior in real life. People who understand this and use it effectively find that the internet is one of the most powerful tools at their disposal. People who don't quite get this find the internet to be either toxic, addictive, dangerous, or a waste of time. This course will teach the students to be in the former bucket.
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Security: With our identities, reputation, and finances being tied to the internet, how should individuals think about being safe on the internet? And how are governments thinking about security? What is, and what should be, the nature of the overlap as regards the answers to these questions? What is the role of regulation of the internet now and in the years to come?
This course is facilitated by Navin Kabra & Ashish Kulkarni.
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Think Like a Scientist
(Junior Track - Students in Grades 6,7 in 2022-23)
Science begins with curiosity and wonderment about the world around us, observing things with attention and asking questions. Unfortunately, the formal system and curriculum focuses on students answering questions based on ‘knowledge transferred to them’. If this becomes the habit of the student, they will not be able to develop their natural curiosity and ability to inquire, question, and arrive at multiple ways of understanding the physical and natural world through a systematic and scientific approach.
The scientist answers questions through developing hypotheses (educated guesses), and analysing data to verify or reject these hypotheses. These data must often be collected through experimentation, which means designing and conducting relevant investigations or experiments to study the link between one factor and another, while keeping other factors constant.
In this course, students will learn to develop the attitudes and skills needed to think like a scientist. A number of engaging activities are planned to allow this to happen:
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Observing some ‘simple’ phenomena, asking questions about these and designing and conducting experiments to answer these questions. For example, students will investigate things like which combination of oil and water on a surface is the most slippery, how high can a balloon fly before it falls to the ground, or which biscuit gets least soggy when dipped in hot chocolate, or the best way to dip the biscuit without getting it to plop into the drink.
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Studying and discussing famous experiments from the history of science, to appreciate that the methods used by the great scientists are very similar to the methods the students are using.
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Investigating the case of fish in a pond which have died, by collecting and making sense of data from different sources. In this simulation, students will work in groups, each student taking on a particular role (e.g. water chemist, microscopic specialist, private investigator) and in this process, learn about the collaborative nature of scientific endeavour.
This enriching experience should help students realize that science is not confined to hi -tech laboratories but is all around us. So we can be scientists all the time!
This course is facilitated by Vishnu Agnihotri & Radha Gopalan.
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Heroes & Villains
(Junior Track - Students in Grades 6,7 in 2022-23)
Humans and human societies have always been inclined to reduce everything to binaries – light and dark, right and wrong, winning and losing, male and female, good and evil, heroes and villains, us and them. It is easy to see why – it keeps things simple, brings order by compressing infinite shades of meaning to just two possibilities, and holds out the beguiling promise of certainty in a world that is entirely uncertain.
But what is popular is not always what is ‘right’. Indian philosophy and storytelling, since the most ancient times, has emphasized the grey areas in between the two extremes of every binary, while at the same questioning the binary itself. Is the word hero, for instance, an objective word or a subjective one? Is someone who is considered a villain condemned for life to be one? Can a hero turn into a villain (and back into a hero), in the space of a lifetime (or a day)? Can a person’s behaviour in a situation be considered both heroic and villainous, or neither of the two, depending on how that behaviour impacts different groups?
In this interactive course, we explore answers to these questions through stories from the worlds of mythology, philosophy, science, sports, contemporary history, film, global politics and more. The attempt is to help children recognise and see through the easy / lazy binaries of news reports and popular narrative, reflect on the dangers of succumbing to the social pressure to pick a side, and develop a more nuanced way of thinking about issues that are in play around them each day.
In today’s deeply polarized world, where having a strong opinion, and expressing it at every opportunity, is seen as an essential accomplishment, this course hopes to bring to children the most important life skill of all – the ability to think for oneself in the middle of the noise, without feeling compelled to contribute to it.
This course is facilitated by Roopa Pai.
Viewing Current Society through a Literary Lens
(Junior Track - Students in Grades 6,7 in 2022-23)
“Several of them would have protested if they could have found the right arguments.” - George Orwell, Animal Farm
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Examining the past allows us to comprehend behaviours, activities and decisions of people across the ages – a factor that’s key to understanding how this has shaped, and continues shaping, the world as we know it.
Unfortunately, however, history as taught in today’s educational system has been reduced to facts about ancient wars and dates of incomprehensible treaties, drowning out the stories and, along with them, the lessons.
This course aims to present the past and the lessons it teaches us in the form of a story – literally. The book Animal Farm by George Orwell will form the backbone of this course: students will be required to read the short book before the course, and instruction time will focus on unpacking the story, exploring the concepts presented, and then discussing, debating and writing about those concepts in the context of current events. These concepts include persuasive techniques, prejudice, equality and equity, propaganda, economic systems, and the importance of education.
*Students are encouraged to purchase the hard copy of the book via Amazon for Rs. 50/- before the course begins.
Learning Objectives
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Appreciate the role of history in helping us understand our present and future better.
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Appreciate the power of story-telling in the understanding and analysis of historical events.
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Develop a keen interest in current news and world events.
This course is facilitated by Ritu Lamba.