Round Rock ISD student wins national STEM award

AUSTIN (KXAN) — A Central Texas middle school student has the goal of helping people suffering from food allergies, and now he's working on a product to help.

Samvith Mahadevan, a Canyon Vista Middle School student, has made a device that uses a sensor and AI algorithms to "smell" allergens in foods.

Mahadevan said his own personal experience with food allergies inspired him to create the tool.

The 14-year-old entered his design in biotechnology company Thermo Fisher Scientific's Junior Innovators Challenge, a national middle school science competition. Out of thousands of entries, Mahadevan was selected as one of event's top five winners.

"When I was awarded the Lemelson Award for Invention, it was super exciting and it also showed me that my project had a lot of potential," said Mahadevan. "That motivates me to keep working on it and I hope through developing it, I can create a product that can help other people just as it helped me."

Mahadevan received a $10,000 prize for his invention.