Aayush will represent India on Rosatom's Arctic expedition aboard the 50 Let Pobedy nuclear icebreaker.
Fifteen-year-old Aayush Goyal, a Class 11 student of St Xavier's Collegiate School in Kolkata will travel to the North Pole in August on a Russian icebreaker.
Aayush earned his spot competing against about 4,000 non-Russian students in an international competition organised by the Russian integrated nuclear power major Rosatom.
"Overwhelmed and excited," Aayush tells this correspondent when asked about his upcoming expedition to the Arctic.
Aayush will represent India on Rosatom's Arctic expedition aboard the 50 Let Pobedy nuclear icebreaker, said Rosatom.
"The competition was tough and it was rewarding. The challenges were many. I had to rethink and rescript the video at least 40 times before finalising the same," says Aayush.
Son of Chartered Accountant Sushil Kumar Goyal and Company Secretary Rasna Goyal, Aayush says his domain is Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM).
And his hobbies include making equations of random things for fun, coding, LinkedIn content creation, reading and listening to music."
On his interest in nuclear science Aayush says: "The movie Oppenheimer inspired me to study deeply about nuclear science and hence I was able to score well when the quiz part came about."
The competitive selection of foreign participants was being held online on the goarctic.energy Web site, in which about 4,000 students from 20 countries took part.
According to Rosatom, a record number of entries were received from Bangladesh (841 participants), India (492 participants) and Kyrgyzstan (471 participants).
The international competition, which began on April 28, 2025, took place in three stages.
In the first stage, the foreign participants were asked to take a science quiz.
In the second stage, they were presented with a series of Webinars on Rosatom's breakthrough technologies, including technologies used for the safe development of Arctic shipping.
After watching the videos, participants had to test their knowledge and fill in the notes.
In the final round of the competition, the applicants with the most points shared their ideas in video presentations on how nuclear technology can change life in their countries for the better.
Creative assignments were evaluated by an international jury, which included experts from the expedition Icebreaker of Knowledge 2024, the ITER Project Center, Russian Quantum Center, FSUE Atomflot, etc.
The key factors in selecting the winners were content completeness and topic coverage, as well as originality and creativity in presenting the material.
Rosatom's sixth expedition of the Icebreaker of Knowledge will be dedicated to the 80th anniversary of the Russian nuclear industry and the 500th anniversary of Russia's beginning to explore the Northern sea route.
65 students aged 14 to 16 years will travel to the North Pole.
Venkatachari Jagannathan can be reached at venkatacharijagannathan@gmail.com
Feature Presentation: Ashish Narsale/Rediff
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