Hoang Than is a student at Dai Kim Elementary School in Hanoi. He has won 2 national prizes in invention contests so far. So what about it? Well, he was born in 2000!
He has memorized the multiplication tables, and knows how to solve difficult division problems.
The first prize he won was for developing a way to solve math operations using the plastic covers of Vietnamese herbal pills. These plastic covers had the same function as calculation sticks used by elementary students. This won the youngest inventor’s prize.
The second one was for developing a model with forests as the theme.
Little things, perhaps, but considering his age, and the fact that he competed with students from all across the nation older than him, Hoang Than has a bright future ahead of him. Hope we will hear about him more in the near future!!

Abebe Negash is a refugee from Ethiopia, who is studying at University of New Hampshire. He has invented a machine which may help in reducing the amount of pollutants from a car’s exhaust pipe. Preliminary tests with the not-so-elegant device (it is made out of PVC pipes and hoses, strapped to a trailer hitch and filled with brown solution) have gone well. Now he needs to test it more. However, he is a bit worried that someone may think of him as a security threat – with his ethnic skin and the bulky machine he is using. And he has reasons – people have insulted him in the past, including calling him a terrorist. However, he does not hold any spite. Negash says, “I can be more useful than the people who do that!”
Still, he is trying to test it in other ways, even if some of those methods may not be scientific. So far, according to those methods, he has been able to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by around 10%.
Negash uses plant-derived liquids, since according to him, plants consume carbon. Details of the invention were not available for evaluation at the time of writing this.

Let us hope Negash is able to successfully test his invention – even 10% reduction in CO2 emissions is very good news, if he can achieve it.

Feedback: please send your feedback at: – we will greatly appreciate it!