North South Foundation, a non-profit organization which conducts educational contests for kids of Indian origin in United States, has held the national championship round of its contests on September 3^rd and 4^th at San Jose State University, California. Approximately one thousand kids from different parts of the country participated in these contests. The contests held this year included Spelling Bee, Math Bee, Vocabulary Bee, Geography Bee, Essay Writing, and Public Speaking.

Later on, Kavya Shivshankar and Sameer Mishra, national Scripps Spelling Bee champions in years 2009 and 2008 respectively, presented the winners with trophies. Kavya and Sameer were NSF spelling bee champions themselves. Mr. C.M. Rao, treasurer of NSF India, also awarded trophies to some of the winners. He travelled to United States to witness how the contests are held in United States.

Speaking at the award ceremony, Dr. Ratnam Chitturi, founder of NSF, said the organization is run with labor of love and everyone is a stakeholder. He said NSF was started in 1989 with the objective of providing financial assistance to poor but deserving students in India. NSF has provided financial assistance in the form of scholarships to over 5000 students since 1989.

Dr. Pawan Dhingra, Museum Curator at the Smithsonian Institute spoke to the participants and said "I am going to help bring NSF into the Smithsonian". He also said he needs the help from the audience in bringing the story to Smithsonian. He requested the audience to come up with Ideas, Images, and stories that would tell the story of Indian experience in United States.

Please visit NSF website at http://www.northsouth.org for more information on NSF educational contests and scholarship program.