Davao teen wins in Intel Fair with cure for banana disease

A 16-year-old high school student from Davao del Norte has become a blessing for banana farmers by discovering a cure for a disease bedeviling his province's most valuable crop.

Judel Jay Angela Tabsing bested hundreds of other competitors from around the world by placing fourth with his project at the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF) last May 17, 2013 in Phoenix, Arizona.

 

Tabsing, who is now a college freshman taking up BS in Medical Laboratory Science at San Pedro College in Davao, beat out 318 other projects from 70 countries competing in the Plant Science category with his project which uses the leaf extract of the ornamental plant Impatiens balsamina as a cure for the deadly Fusarium banana wilt.

 

Tabsing's project was one of the top five high school science projects selected to represent the Philippines at ISEF 2013. Before that, his project won top prize in the Regional Science Fair in 2012 and landed in the top 3 in the Life Science Category, Cluster II (Science Schools). In the National Science and Technology Fair that same year his project won him the Ricoh Sustainable Development Award. In the ISEF 2013, he was awarded $500 for taking the 4th place in the Plant Science PS009 category.

 

What made Tabsing’s study stand out from the competition is the enormous potential it has to affect the international banana industry. Fusarium wilt, or Panama disease, is a fungal plant disease that has been known to wipe out entire banana plantations all over the globe. His study shows that it’s possible to have an organic, sustainable, and relatively inexpensive cure for one of the most virulent diseases affecting plants today.

 

Typical teen

 

For the most part, Judel is a typical Filipino teenager. His father, Julie, is a public school teacher and his mother, Edilita, is an OFW in Canada.

 

The pictures he took from the ISEF 2013 were full of selfies with pretty girls, something that he was teased incessantly about by his friends. He enjoys sports, which led him to become a sports writer for the school paper. And he loves table tennis. He’s so good at it he’s been representing Panabo since the 3rd grade for the Palarong Pambansa. The only reason he wasn’t able to compete this year was because when he had to start preparing for ISEF.

 

“ISEF was fun, we were able to use Ultrabooks at a lounge, we watched a baseball game, and there was a DJ there! We shared pins with students from other countries and made a lot of friends,” Judiel shares.

 

“And when they announced the winners, I didn’t hear the announcer say that the 4th prize came from Panabo City. All I heard was it was from the Philippines. When they told me that I won, I was just speechless and just started running to the stage.”

 

The value of focus

 

If there was anything unusual about Judel, it was his focus and determination. He credits his parents for instilling that discipline in him. When asked whether he received any special treatment for winning, he replied, “I was congratulated at school, but my father still made me do all my chores.”

 

Judel explained that his father always encourages him to keep himself busy with activities and to focus on whatever he's doing.  That focus and persistence is what led him to excel in whatever activity he chose to apply himself to.

 

That guidance also gave him the foresight to do something most teen scientists don’t normally do; apply for patent on his discovery and made arrangements with Tadeco (a major banana producer) and his sister, Jezzelle (who is an incoming 1st year student at Panabo High School) to continue his research.

 

Anyone Can Be in ISEF

 

Ms. Yvonne Flores from Corporate Affairs of Intel Philippines has been working with Filipino participants to ISEF since 1998. She shares that since then, there have been no definite trends on what kind of school would make it to the ISEF. Flores says “Winners don’t necessarily come from science high schools. It doesn’t matter whether you come from a public high school. What’s important is that you have a good idea and the research or the process behind it is solid. This is why student mentorship is important.”

 

One trend of note is that Philippine entries tend to focus on research into Life Sciences. “We would like to see more entries in technology and engineering from the Philippines. And we hope we’d be able to do that in the coming years with the K-12 system.”

 

The ISEF is the world’s largest high school science research competition. Every year, over a thousand students from 17 countries gather to compete, be mentored by scientists and engineers, and to network with other students. Finalists from all over the world receive an all-expense paid trip to the venue of the ISEF. Winners in different categories in the ISEF can receive a number of prizes in the form of cash, scholarships, trips, and research support. — TJD/HS, GMA News