Omkar Manik Jadhav, a fourth-year B.Tech. Aerospace Engineering student at the Indian Institute of Space Science and Technology (IIST), Thiruvananthapuram, has secured first place in the South 2 Regional Round of the 10th edition of the IET India Scholarship Award 2026. The scholarship, which attracted 48,761 applicants across India, is one of the country’s leading scholarship programmes recognising outstanding undergraduate engineering students.Omkar successfully cleared the first two stages of the selection process and advanced to the South 2 Regional Round. As part of the regional assessment, he developed and presented an innovative forest threat detection system titled “Forest Sentinel” on 5 September 2026. Forest Sentinel is a network of small, low-cost, low-power devices designed to be deployed across forests that are vulnerable to forest fires and illegal logging. Equipped with onboard sensors, the devices can locally detect potential threats or anomalies and transmit alerts directly to a satellite, which can relay the information to a base camp. The system aims to enable early detection of forest fires and logging activities, particularly across large and difficult-to-monitor forest areas.For his presentation and innovative solution, he secured first place in the South 2 Regional Round, winning a prize of ₹1,00,000 and qualifying for the National Finals, scheduled to be held on 26 September 2026. At the National Finals, the five regional winners will present their technology solutions and vision before the national jury.