Sathwik Karnik, a 12-year-old Indian-American boy, has won the prestigious National Geographic Bee contest after getting all five questions right as the children of community members continue to dominate the geography bee and the spelling bee competitions in the US.
To clinch the title, Karnik correctly named Chimborazo as the mountain in Ecuador that represents the farthest point from the Earth’s centre.
Karnik, whose parents emigrated to the US as software professionals from Karnataka, got all five questions right in his one-on-one contest with 13-year-old Conrad Oberhaus, the runner-up.
Karnik, a native of Norfolk, south of Boston, is a 7th grader at King Philip Regional Middle School. He will take home the spoils of the Bee prize that include a $25,000 college scholarship, an all-expenses paid trip to the Galapagos Islands, and a lifetime membership to the National Geographic Society, National Geographic reported.
The national competition this time round turned out to be dominated by the Indian-Americans even as in the finals held in Washington on Wednesday, eight of the 10 finalists, who competed among the four million participants for the competition, were Indian-Americans.