Month: November 2020

Business World Top Education Brands Award 2020 for SAI International School

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“Awards and ceremonies are all an applause of discipline.” – Sunday Adelaja

Business World bestowed the coveted ‘School of the Year Award’, under the K12 School category on SAI International School during an online ceremony held on Saturday, November 28, 2020. This recognition earns the School an elite place in the Business World Top Education Brands Club. Adding to its joy, SAI International Residential School received the Leading Residential Schools in India Award 2020 under the category of Residential School.

SAI International School was shortlisted for excelling in parameters like Growth in Academic Excellence, Sports, Learning Outcomes, Teachers Training, Parents and Community Perception, Community Outreach and other Awards received.

Founder and Mentor SAI International, Dr. Bijaya Kumar Sahoo graciously thanked the Jury and said, ‘the award is definitely a ray of motivation in the challenging times’. He added that ‘we are not just a School but a centre of human transformation’.

Amidst this pandemic, SAI International School continued its relentless effort to ensure quality education of its students both in scholastics and co-scholastics areas. The School as a team is painstakingly taking every step to provide a strong framework for successful learning, enabling children to align with the constantly changing world. This year it won several awards in recognition for its laudable endeavour. 

Humble Offering

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“Showing gratitude is one of the simplest yet most powerful things humans can do for each other.” – Randy Pausch

The Safai Sevaks of Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC) have been working relentlessly and dedicatedly inspite of the pandemic. Undeterred by the fear of infection, these frontline workers are taking every step to keep our surroundings clean.

As a token of appreciation, the Founder and Mentor of SAI International Education Group, Dr Bijaya Kumar Sahoo distributed food packets to the BMC Safai Sevaks on Thursday, November 26, 2020. Thanking the COVID Warriors, Dr. Sahoo said, ‘the work done by the Safai Sevaks is truly commendable and I humbly thank them for their selfless effort’.

Earlier on Saturday, April 25, 2020, to acknowledge and appreciate the praiseworthy work of the Safai Sevaks during COVID 19 pandemic, SAI International family was privileged to gift a towel each, along with dry food items like flattened rice, sugar, semolina, biscuits and bathing soap to more than 70 Safai Sevaks of Ward No 6. We humbly salute the services rendered by our BMC SafaivSevaks.

Career Talk @ SAI

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“Study abroad is the single most effective way of changing the way we view the world” – Chantal Mitchell

‘Learning requires humility & humility is the key to success’, said Dr. Sudhansu Sarangi, IPS, Commissioner of Police, Bhubaneswar-Cuttack during the SAI Career Talk held on Thursday, November 26, 2020. He provided valuable advice on how to effectively prepare for higher education in foreign universities. Talking to the students he said ‘what choice you make today will stay with you for the next 30 to 40 years’ and so one needs to make a judicious decision on time.

He gave an overview of the advantages of pursuing undergraduate courses in renowned universities in places like UK and USA, as many of them come within 1000 ranks in the World University Rankings. He spoke about how students are prepared methodically to make them job ready while doing their undergraduate course.

Delineating the life in a foreign university, he said that apart from concentrating on academics, one should also focus on personality development, leadership ability, communication skills, creativity and develop team spirit. He urged the students to develop a love for reading and become voracious readers, accumulating as much knowledge as possible. He urged them to become self-reliant, learning to do their own work, so as to make their life easier in abroad universities.

Dr. Sarangi congratulated SAI International School for becoming the No.1 School of India. He asked the students not to think themselves just as students of the school but as real ambassadors of the school who carry its core values as they go abroad to study. Dr. Sarangi answered to numerous queries posed by the students of SAI International.

Dr. Bijaya Kumar Sahoo, Founder and Mentor, SAI International thanked Dr. Sarangi for dealing upon the practical aspects of studying in foreign universities, which is very significant in students’ life.

Your Turn Meeting with Japan and Uganda

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“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed people can change the world. Indeed. It is the only thing that ever has.” – Margaret Mead

Your Turn is a collaborative meeting held between students of SAI International School, Jr. & Sr. Kogakuin University, Tokyo, Japan and Gombe Online School (GES), Uganda on Wednesday, November 11, 2020. These inter-cultural exchange meetings are conducted regularly with various partner schools across the globe, to promote understanding and respect for each other’s culture and nurture students towards becoming global citizens.

This week the topic discussed was on father-daughter relationships and how they vary in different countries. As a whole teenagers tend to dislike their fathers as they step into their teens. It was interesting to see how the relationship between fathers and daughters differed from country to country. Five basic questions were asked including what do you think of your father? Do you always love your father? What are some of the disagreements you and your father have? Who is more strict, your mother or father? What different pressures and expectations do the girls have in the family unit placed on them by their fathers? 

This topic was selected to help one of the Class X participants from Japan School, who is collecting data from all over the world on this topic for her thesis paper. The first presentation was by the Japanese students. Apparently teenagers in Japan are not very close to their fathers and often find them annoying and overbearing, always asking too many questions. Fathers in Japan don’t understand this sudden shift or the apparent rift. Uganda students spoke about their culture and how their fathers held the highest position in the family and had the last word so if your father said no then the answer was NO. This sort of authoritarianism caused problems between teenage girls and their fathers. They also said that the respect they had for their father often came from fear. India had a slightly different take. They said that they do have disagreements with their fathers but they are resolved quickly and that most just wanted to make their fathers happy and proud of them. The overall consensus was that even though teenagers often do not get along with their fathers all the teenage girls agreed that they loved their fathers very much and they liked spending time with them.

It turned out to be a wonderful global conversation that overcame many stereotypes about fathers and daughters and it was interesting to hear each country’s perspective. Mahiro also shared a google survey form and asked everyone to fill it out, which the students did with great sincerity. 

SAI Career Talk – Three Myths around Liberal Arts

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“Dreaming, after all, is a form of planning.” – Gloria Steinem

The SAI Career Talk was delivered by Ms. Hansa Sachdeva, Director Admissions and Financial Aid, Ahmedabad University on Wednesday, November 18, 2020, on the topic ‘Three myths around Liberal Studies’. She explained about various undergraduate courses in Humanities, Social Science, Science, Management, Commerce and Engineering as well as guided the students on how to learn through interdisciplinary academics and real-life experiences that traverse these intersections.

Liberal Education empowers individuals and prepares them to deal with complexity, diversity, and change as well as provides students with broad knowledge of the wider world. She said each degree programme provides students the opportunity to craft their own learning across disciplines and create their own academic pathway. She also highlighted on Research programmes available at the University.

SAI International School believes in bringing about a meaningful change in the lives of its students by constantly guiding them to pursue the right path. Simultaneously, the school takes care to identify and understand the area of expertise of the students as well as motivates them for self reflection to assess their own strength and weakness. This gives them the ability to weigh options before taking any decisions and also inspires the children to gain a better control over their life in order to move ahead successfully. 

SAI Alumni Talk by Alumnus Tanmay Pani

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“If necessity is the mother of invention, scientifically developed production is the mother of scientific research.” – Arthur Edwin Kennelly

Alumnus Tanmay Pani delivered the SAI Alumni Talk on Saturday, November 21, 2020. The talented boy from the Class of 2015 is presently pursuing PhD in Nuclear Physics at Rutgers University, USA. He has completed his BS-MS in Physics from NISER, Bhubaneswar.

Tanmay briefed the students on the significance of Scientific Research especially in Physics. He said ‘any scientific pursuit begins with a question and experiment is the truth no matter how strong the theory is’. His specialization is in Experimental Particle Physics or High Energy Nuclear Physics. His work mostly involves analyzing data from big collider experiments.

The brilliant outlined the process of undertaking a research work like asking a question, doing background research, constructing a hypothesis, testing with an experiment, if it matches with hypothesis then analyzing data and drawing conclusions. He also spoke doing research work at Brookhaven National Lab, which is home to seven Nobel Laureates and many more awardees.

Tanmay advised the young students to make friends with people of equal mindsets so as to make the journey of life more meaningful. He thanked SAI International School for helping him shape his personality and make him a confident learner. He praised the school for creating thinkers, who never shy away from asking questions. Founder and Mentor Dr. Bijaya Kumar Sahoo recalled some cherished moments with Tanmay and said that the boy has always been a deep thinker and his interest in physics was evident from his school days. He blessed Tanmay for a glorious future. 

SAI Alumni Talk with Alumnus Siddharth Chinmay

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“A dream doesn’t become reality through magic; it takes sweat, determination and hard work”. – Colin Powell

Learning is a lifelong process believes SAI International alumnus Siddharth Chinmayfrom the Class of 2016. He delivered SAI Alumni Talk on Saturday, November 7, 2020 to the students of class IX and above.  His highly humble and informative presentation and talk made the students understand the value of hard work, persistence, and focus on dreams. His talk enticed the students to interact with him and know more about his journey.

Siddharth is a Googler and currently working as Software Engineer at Google India and is part of the Smart Device Management Team of Google NEST. The talented boy has also interned at places like Samsung R&D, Bangalore and Phoenix Robotix, Bhubaneswar, where he applied the concept of Machine Learning.

Siddharth while addressing the students said that he had never expected to be a part of SAI but he was thankful to the institution for grooming him in the right direction and helping him in achieving his dream career.

Siddharth had secured All India Rank (AIR) 100 in JEE Advanced to bag a seat in Computer Science at IIT Kanpur. He is a recipient of NTSE Scholarship, secured AIR 35 in NEST (2016) for NISER and Centre for Excellence in Basic Sciences, Mumbai, secured 99.23 percentile in AIIMS entrance (2016) and 99.71 percentile in NEET (2016). A short profile of Siddharth is attached to help you know more about him.

SAI Alumni Talk endeavors to pave a way for interaction between our alumni and our current batch of SAIoneers, to inspire our students to dream big and achieve their dreams. It is a brilliant medium for the students to interact with seniors of the school who have paved their way to success and widen the learning horizon.