The LEGO Education Builder Award
Google published the 2019 Science Fair results on 29 July. Against the LEGO Education Builder Award it lists Daniel Kazantsev of Russia, who “developed a communication solution for individuals who are deaf or hard-of-hearing”.
The Builder Award is one of four special prizes attached to the fair's partners, judged with a representative of each partner on the panel. The 2019 judging included people from LEGO Education, Scientific American, Virgin Galactic and National Geographic, chaired by Mariette DiChristina, then editor in chief of Scientific American.
What the project addressed
Communication technology is designed, by default, for people who can hear it. Announcements, alarms, telephone systems and conversation in a crowded room all assume an audience that receives sound, which leaves deaf and hard-of-hearing users depending on interpretation, captioning or luck.
Google's announcement does not say what form Kazantsev's solution took — whether hardware, software or both — how it was tested, or who tested it. What it establishes is the problem the project set out to address and the judgement of the panel that it was the strongest entry of its kind in the 2019 field.
The 2019 field
Thousands of entries were reduced to 24 finalist teams representing 14 countries. The grand prize went to Fionn Ferreira of Ireland for a method of removing microplastics from wastewater, which DiChristina credited with “tenacity and dedication to solving an important environmental problem”.
The other special awards went to Celestine Wenardy of Indonesia, for affordable non-invasive blood sugar testing; Tuan Dolmen of Turkey, for harvesting energy from tree vibrations; and Aman KA and AU Nachiketh of India, for an environmentally safe rubber coagulation process using fruit. It was a cohort built around applied problems rather than laboratory curiosities.
The name in two alphabets
The announcement gives his name in Latin script as Daniel Kazantsev. A Cyrillic rendering appears in the research behind this page as Даниил Казанцев, but it is not confirmed by the source used here, and transliterations of Russian names vary enough that a search under one spelling can miss everything published under another.
That ambiguity, combined with a single official source, is the reason this page carries no further biographical detail. Where a name cannot be pinned to one spelling, records found elsewhere cannot safely be attached to it.
What is documented — and what is not
The firm facts are the award, the year, the country, the description of the project and the shape of the field, all published by the organiser on 29 July 2019. A result stated by the competition that gave it is the strongest evidence available for a record of this kind.
Nothing else is present. No age, date of birth, school or city appears in the source, no photograph, no quotation and no technical description. No prize amount is disclosed, no follow-up reporting has been found, and nothing establishes whether the communication solution was developed further after the fair.
| Person | Country | Milestone | Age / Stat |
|---|---|---|---|
| Evann Sun | United States | An invention award at 14 for glasses that read printed pages aloud to stud | Age 14 |
| Akhil Nagori | United States | Cheap glasses that turn printed text into speech, built for students who c | Age 15 |
| Daniel Kazantsev | Russia | LEGO Education Builder Award, Google Science Fair 2019 | — |
| Jonah Kohn | United States | Winning the 13-14 category, 2012 Google Science Fair | — |
| Madhav Lavakare | India | Pradhan Mantri Rashtriya Bal Puraskar 2019, innovation | — |
What is documented — and what is not
✓ Documented
- LEGO Education Builder Award at the 2019 Google Science Fair (Google)
- Project described as a communication solution for deaf and hard-of-hearing people
- 24 finalist teams from 14 countries; grand prize to Fionn Ferreira of Ireland
? Unverified, disputed or wrong
- No description of the technology, prototype or testing
- The Cyrillic spelling of his name is unconfirmed by the source used here
- No age, school, city or photograph, and no reporting after July 2019
Questions people ask about Daniel Kazantsev
What did Daniel Kazantsev win?
The LEGO Education Builder Award at the 2019 Google Science Fair, for a communication solution for people who are deaf or hard of hearing.
What did he build?
Google's announcement describes the purpose but not the form of the solution, and no other source in this record does.
How old is Daniel Kazantsev?
No source in this record gives his age or date of birth.
How is his name spelled in Russian?
A Cyrillic form appears in the research behind this page but is not confirmed by the source used, so it is not stated here as fact.
Who won the 2019 grand prize?
Fionn Ferreira of Ireland, for removing microplastics from wastewater.
Is Daniel Kazantsev on Wikipedia?
No Wikipedia article was found for him. Google's own winners announcement is the primary published record.
How many finalists were there?
Twenty-four finalist teams representing fourteen countries.
Where is he now?
No source in this record says. The published trail ends with the July 2019 announcement.
Quick quiz: how well do you know Kazantsev’s story?
Whom was Daniel Kazantsev's project designed to help?
Which award did he win?
When were the 2019 winners announced?
Sources
- Students changing the world — this year's Science Fair winners — Google (The Keyword), 2019-07-29
Checked by the Geniuses.club editorial team. Ages are given as of September 2026.
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