“I beat an American!” Sam Ang Manin, a 16-year-old Phnom Penh young girl, still cannot believe it: her project to produce biofuel based on jatropha oil won her a gold medal at the I-Sweeep 2009 international contest between budding scientists, when a similar project of a United States high school student was awarded “only” a silver medal. The young Cambodian has even more reasons to be proud since she has also received a scholarship and a special prize of a U.S. firm. She thereby did even better than a previous Cambodian prize winner, who had obtained a silver medal in the same category “Senior Energy” in this contest in 2008 for her coconut diesel.

Three wins


Thrice, Sam Ang Manin heard her name be called in the great room of the Conventional Hall of Houston, Texas, where the I-Sweeep contest, an international Olympiad on energy, engineering and environment which aim is to spot and reward budding scientific geniuses from all over the world. The young Cambodian first walked onto the podium when called by the jury of the University of Fatih, which granted her a full tuition scholarship for four years to study a science subject in the Turkish college. She was then called again to receive a gold medal in the category of new energies in the I-Sweeep contest – a medal coming with a cheque of 1,000 dollars. Finally, Manin won over a private company, Ege Construction, which was one of the event's sponsors and awarded her its special prize for “Innovative energy solutions.” 

“When I received the first award, there was little clapping, because very few Cambodians were present,” the good student in a private high school of Phnom Penh says mischievously. “But when I was called again to receive my second and then my third prizes, everyone, including the participants from various countries, showed a lot of enthusiasm.” Indeed, a plethora of medals were given out in this contest (in Manin's “Senior Energy” category, eight other students received gold medals), but no other participant was honoured with three awards.