Bangalore Student Wins New York Times Contest

  Bengaluru: Samvita Amladi, a Grade 10 student from Stonehill International School, Bengaluru, was among the top 25 winners at The Coming of Age in 2021 Contest held by The New York Times Learning Network. This was the second edition of the multimedia competition, which gave students a platform to showcase their creativity while sharing their experiences of being a teenager in a global health crisis.

Last year, the contest was only open to teenagers in the US, but this year they opened it up for international students as well. There were 25 winners, 25 runners-up and 46 honourable mentions out of 4000+ multimedia submissions from around the world. Samvita Amladi’s winning entry was a poem titled “The Roarin’ 20s?”, which drew from instances from daily life, online school and experiences taken for granted before the pandemic.

Sharing her thoughts, Samvita said, “I’ve realised that being a teenager in 2021 means being inherently political because whether you like it or not, your actions today dictate how you and other social groups will thrive in the years and generations to come. 2021 has given us a chance to understand our full potential as change-makers in a society that was made to ‘not budge.’”

Additionally, Samara Venkataramani, Grade 8, also from Stonehill International School, got an honourable mention. Samara’s submission was an original song ‘Believe’ that she wrote, composed and sang.