We introduced you to YouTube’s competition Space Lab back when it launched in October. Since then, 60 finalists were selected, out of which 6 regional winners have just been announced.
Four of the regional winners are from Egypt, India, New Zealand and Spain, with the remaining two winners from the United States. The competition, a first of its kind, gave high school students the opportunity to submit experiments that can be performed in outerspace.
The six finalists were chosen with the help of 150,000 YouTube users, who participated in the voting period, and the winners of the competition will be chosen by an impressive panel of judges, which includes Stephen Hawking, ESA astronaut Frank De Winne and Cirque du Soleil’s founder Guy Laliberté.
The six finalists will be flown to Washington DC in March to take part in a series of events and activities, including a ZERO-G Flight and an awards ceremony at the Newseum.
Two of the six remaining finalists will then be selected to have their experiments not only conducted 250 miles above Earth aboard the International Space Station (ISS), but they will also be live streamed on YouTube this coming September.
The two winners will also get to choose between a trip to Japan to watch their experiment blast off into space, or the chance to participate in an astronaut training experience in Star City, home to Russia’s Cosmonaut Training Center.
Speaking about the competition, Zahaan Bharmal, Google’s Head of Marketing Operations for EMEA, and the brains behind the operation said, “This grand project demonstrates that math and science matter. These six winners represent the next generation of scientists and even space explorers. Their families, schools, local communities and countries should be very proud.”
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