An Indian-American teenager has won the 2019 Teen Jeopardy quiz winning a prize money of US $100,000 in America's most-watched individual quiz show. Avi Gupta beat 15 students, including three other Indian-Americans, to mark a near-clean sweep of students contests in the last year by Indian-Americans.
The show was televised on Friday but it was pre-recorded several weeks ago when Avi was still in high schhol. Hailing from Portland, Oregon, Avi has now completed his high school.
While the show was going on, he told the host, Alex Trebek, that people usually questioned the value of accumulating a trove of trivia when they could easily be googled. He also said that building a wide range of knowledge was necessary as arguments and ideas can only be built on facts.
Previously, another Indian-American Dhruv Gaur had won the 2018 College Jeopardy, which also carried a prize of $100,000.
The National Geography Bee, which tests the knowledge of geography, was won by Nihar Janga.
In the 2019 National Spelling Bee held last month, seven of the eight co-winners were of Indian origin. The previous 10 years have only seen Indian-Americans winning the contest.
Indian-Americans have made their mark in science contests as well. Although they did not win any contest, 16 of the 30 finalists in Regeneron National Science Talent Search, America’s top contest, were of Indian descent.
Eight of the 30 finalists in the Broadcom Masters science contest for middle school students were also Indian-Americans.
Comments
0 comment