2026 Middle School Winners

Viaan Bachalakuri, Eric Yan, Arjun Reddy, and Karthik Tummala are in the 8th grade at Debra Nelson Middle School in Frisco, Texas. They learned about the World of 8 Billion Contest in their integrated language arts class and saw it as an interesting and creative way to raise awareness about their topic while building their presentation and speaking skills. Before creating their video, they knew that as the population increases, more land is used for cities, farming, and businesses, which can destroy or pollute wetland areas. But they didn’t realize how important wetlands were to climate regulation because they are major carbon sinks. They also discovered that wetlands help clean water, prevent flooding, and provide habitats for many animals. They wanted to promote paludiculture as a solution because it enables a sustainable use of wetland areas.

Arjun, Eric, Karthik, and Viaan worked extremely well together as a team, and each led different parts of the video’s creation. Eric and Karthik wrote the script, Arjun and Eric filmed and did the voiceovers for the film, and Viaan was the editor for their project. They had made videos before, but mostly informally, not for a competition. They really enjoyed collaborating as a team and made time to take breaks for fun when they could. Finding credible sources and information about paludiculture was difficult because the topic isn’t widely known. Creating a short but impactful script also took some time, since they had only one minute to get their points across. Their advice to future contest participants is to make sure you have a good idea to start with, so you can go deeper in your video, fully understand your sustainable solution, and ensure it is viable.

They are interested in continuing to take action and raise awareness about protecting wetlands in the future, and they feel that winning this competition will help them do so. Outside of creating videos, Karthik plays soccer and the oboe in the school band. Eric is into art and robotics, and he has competed in world competitions twice in VEX V5 Robotics. Arjun plays basketball and has won several art awards, including two Texas Art Education Association Awards for Visual Arts Scholastic Events. Viaan plays the violin in the school orchestra, loves solving Rubik’s Cubes, and enjoys caring for his aquarium. They are considering what they want to do after high school. Karthik is interested in the tech field, possibly building apps; Eric is considering robotics; Viaan is considering a career in medicine; and Arjun is exploring many options.