Year 11 pupil Paarth Aggarwal has been named the UK winner in a global artificial intelligence competition run by technology giant Intel.
Parth took the national title in the AI Changemakers ages 13–18 category after impressing judges in the Intel AI Global Impact Festival 2024 with his multilingual GenAI-powered NavigateNinja app.
The app harnesses storytelling in a natural voice and animated video to offer personalised learning to children with autism and related conditions.
His victory, which brings prizes worth £1,000, is his second major competition success of the year: in the Summer Term, he won the European Space Agency’s Climate Detectives challenge with his AI-driven study into tackling electronic waste in Barnet.
Headmaster Neil Enright said: “My sincere congratulations go to Paarth on this latest success – a splendid achievement. I am encouraged not only to see his obvious mastery of AI, but also to recognise that, in line with our School ethos, he has put this exciting technology to use in ways that seek to make the world a better place.”
The competition drew thousands of entries from across the world, with Paarth’s entry being one of 111 projects to reach the global stages.
He spent many hours researching, developing, and refining the project. His app provides unique content across different subjects, based on skill level; it aims to enhance comprehension and information retention.
“Children with autism and several other similar conditions may have trouble with learning through conventional methods,” he said. “…My vision is to empower autistic children by globally launching this app and keep on adding new features like personalised avatars, voices, scenes, ‘gamification’ etc. to make learning fun, engaging and rewarding.”
Paarth used Intel Core Ultra Processor for its strong graphics and fast rendering times for complex animations. He also deployed the OpenVINO toolkit running on Intel Dev Cloud to execute AI models at scale.
His proud dad, Saurabh Aggarwal, said: “This victory is a testament to the excellent education and continuous support Paarth has been receiving from the School and his teachers.” News of Paarth’s success would, he hoped “encourage more and more students to explore the world of AI, inspire them to become the next generation of AI innovators, and realise the limitless possibilities it holds for their careers”.
- Discover further details of Paarth’s competition entry here.