3 Cambodian students received medals in America

Reported by Khmerization

Three Cambodian students received three medals in a competition with 600 other students from 60 countries, reports everyday.com.

The Cambodian students won the medals on an experiment topic titled "Initiatives on the solutions of energy usage", in a conference held in the United States.

Miss Sam-Ang Manith, 16, Mis Kuy Ayuwath, 16 and Miss Hourt Pisey Pichny, 16 were all studying in year 11 at Zaman International School in Phnom Penh.

After 6 days of intense competitions, the Cambodian students achieved the best results with Miss Sam-Ang Manith receiving a gold medal on her experiment by creating diesel fuel from hollyhock oil to generate an energy. Miss Kuy Ayuwath received a bronze medal for her experiment on using coffee to generate diesel fuel. And an honourary medal was awarded to Miss Hourt Pisey Pichny for her engineering experiment.

Congratulations to Monika Lavan, Silver medal recipient from the I-SWEEEP Olympiad in Houston, Texas

Monika Lavan, of Zaman International School, inspects a bottle of biofuel in the Phnom Penh school’s laboratory on June 5. (Photo: VANDY RATTANA)

Young scientist scores at global energy fair

Thursday, 12 June 2008
Written by Khouth Sophak Chakrya
The Phnom Penh Post

Zaman International School student Monika Lavan, 17, has been interested in the sciences since she was 12. Last month her coconut bio-diesel project, which successfully created diesel fuel using coconut oil and methanol, earned her a silver medal from the International Sustainable World Energy, Engineering and Environment Project (I-SWEEEP) Olympiad in the US city of Houston, Texas. On returning home, she spoke to Post reporter Khouth Sophak Chakrya about her project and the future of renewable energy.

How did you first join in the I-SWEEP competition?
One day, after the first-term final exams, I saw the I-SWEEEP announcement on the physics board, inviting students interested in becoming engineers to come to the city of Houston, Texas, in the US.

The announcement said that students who wanted to participate in the program had to send proposals about their projects to the I-SWEEP Committee ... in one of three main categories: energy, engineering, or environment.

I started to think about it and decided to choose renewable energy as my topic. I then started working hard on it, researching the scientific method involved in all the steps from collecting data to analyzing it. I sent my report and abstract to the I-SWEEEP Committee. One week later, my project was approved by the committee and I was invited to go to Houston at the end of April.

Tell us more about how you chose renewable energy as your project.
In fact, it was really difficult to find a good topic to submit to the committee, but one day my geology class was talking about energy and fossil fuels and I came up with the idea to focus my project on renewable energy. Fossil fuels are the biggest source of energy we use today and they will be depleted in our lifetimes. People around the world also face the environmental impact of fossil fuel emissions. They need alternative energy sources that are cleaner and renewable.

How long did you work on the project?
I spent over a month on it, from finding materials and chemicals needed for testing until I came up with an end result.

What happened in Houston?
I made a presentation on “How Coconut Bio-diesel Can Broaden Horizons for Cambodia” at the George R. Brown Convention Center on May 3. The I-SWEEEP Committee was able to evaluate my project, and the six judges were very interested in the technical aspects of coconut bio-diesel during my presentation.

How many students were competing?
There were 820 students there from more than 50 countries around the world ... among Asian countries, Cambodia was the best, with the silver medal and a $1,000 prize. Vietnam and Thailand shared the bronze medal which had a prize of $500.

How did you feel when you won the silver medal?
I was really happy to hear the applause of the other students congratulating me. At first, I couldn’t believe my ears when the judges announced my name.

How do you think winning the medal will benefit you and your family?
It really encourages me to go on and it honors my family and me. I hope it also brings honor to Cambodia and to my school, the Zaman International School.

Did you travel anywhere else in the US while you were there?
After the awards were presented, I was so excited because the I-SWEEEP Committee took me and all the participants to the NASA Space Center in Houston, the Mission Control for the Apollo space program. It was really amazing, especially to see it with my own eyes.

What is your goal for the future?
My dream is to be an energy engineer. I have thought about becoming an engineer since I was 12 years old.

Turkish entrepreneurs open second school in Cambodia

The second Turkish school in Cambodia opened in a ceremony attended by Cambodian Deputy Prime Minister Sok An.

29.03.2008
KADİR DİKBAŞ, PHNOM PENH
Today's Zaman (Turkey)

The second Turkish school in Cambodia opened in a ceremony attended by Cambodian Deputy Prime Minister Sok An.

The second Turkish school in Cambodia, an additional campus of the Zaman International School, which began its educational activities in 1997, was opened on Thursday in a ceremony attended by Cambodian Deputy Prime Minister Sok An and Justice and Development Party (AK Party) Deputy Chairman Dengir Mir Mehmet Fırat.

The new campus will initially host 300 nursery and primary school students. The old campus is used to educate 700 high school students. Principal Ali Kökten told Today's Zaman on Thursday that the Turkish school is among the leading schools in the country and that its team won the bronze medal at the Computer Olympics held last year in Romania.

Having lost hundreds of thousands of its citizens in the American bombardments during the Vietnam War and millions more in the "fields of death" during the Khmer Rouge and Pol Pot period, Cambodia wants to forget its past and open a new page. For this reason, foreign investments are being fostered and opportunities for cooperation exist in all fields, from education to agriculture. Within this scope, Turkish schools have started to operate in the country.

An, speaking at the opening ceremony, congratulated the school executives for the institution's achievements and said the country expected the opening of a university from the Turkish investors. An toured the school and watched student activities and performances. He also attended some classes and met with Turkish investors who attended the ceremony, telling them that they should start investing in Cambodia.

"Today the world needs love and peace more than ever. This school plants saplings of peace in a field of love. For this reason, I congratulate the teachers, who are the gardeners of peace and tolerance," Fırat said. Professor Şerif Ali Tekalan, head of the Union of International Universities, said he believed "that the students of this school, which has established a bridge of love between two countries, will work for the welfare and peace of their countries and that of all humanity in the future."

Civil Servants' Trade Union (Memur-Sen) Ahmet Aksu expressed his appreciation for the Turkish entrepeneurs' work. "The Anatolian people went outside and invested in these schools at a time when the state could not do it. Those who plan, undertake and support these services are heroes in the view of history," he said.

Economic and cultural relations between Turkey and Cambodia were not noteworthy in the past due to a mutual lack of knowledge about each other; however, this changed when the first school was opened, boosting Turkey's popularity among Cambodians.