Dikhya Gupta, a student of Class-IX of the St Vincent Convent School here has been selected to visit the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), USA.
She is among five Indian students and the only one from Odisha to get this opportunity.
She is daughter of Sanjay and Rashmi Gupta, a businessman and a teacher, respectively. They are residents of Gopalgaon in Baleswar town.
Dikhya said she is selected in an essay competition published in a web site , ‘Go4Guru’, which had invited writings from students on the topic “If you had met an alien in Mars”. She took part in the competition after her school informed about such a programme in the month of March.
Students of Japan, Indonesia, China, Malaysia and UAE besides India participated in the completion. Around 3,000 students from different schools of India took part in it.
“My travel and stay are free as it would be borne by the Go4Guru as I remained in top three among the selected. During our stay, we would be having an opportunity to meet NASA astronauts.
In NASA, during the conference, there would be another competition among the visiting students; and anyone selected would enjoy free-of-cost higher study in the NASA. In the international platform we would find opportunity to exchange our ideas among other students and scientists,” said Dikhya.