North South Foundation (NSF) is a volunteer driven non-profit organization that was established back in 1989 by Dr. Ratnam Chitturi in Chicago.

The organization’s mission is to develop human resources by giving scholarships to brilliant but needy students in India entering colleges, regardless of religion, gender, caste or creed. Each student is given a scholarship of $250 per year to pursue their field of education. Thirty-two chapters in India have distributed over 15,000 scholarships thus far! In 2018, NSF started partnerships with several colleges to directly distribute scholarships to students enrolled there.

NSF also promotes excellence in human endeavor by organizing Educational Contests for the kids in USA. We have over 90 chapters across the US that organize regional educational bees during March and April each year. Two-thirds of the contest registration fee of the bees conducted in the US goes towards the scholarships distributed in India.  We conduct spelling, vocabulary, math, geography, essay writing, public speaking, brain bee and history bees.   About 15,000 kids in grades from Kindergarten to High School participate in the bees.

NSF students have won several National level competitions including the Scripps Spelling bee, National Geographic bee, Mathcounts & National Science Bowl to name a few. Every Scripps bee winner from 2008 till 2018 has been an NSF kid. National Geographic bee winner/runner-up since 2012 has also been an NSF kid. We are very proud of all the kids and their amazing achievements.

In the north east region, we have two chapters in Massachusetts and one in New Hampshire that conduct the regional contests. You can register for contests at a chapter near you. Check out the calendar: https://www.northsouth.org/public/USContests/Regionals/calendar.aspx

Each year NSF holds its National Finals in the summer. About 10% of the highest scoring contestants are invited to the finals to compete among the best from the rest of the country. The invitation is based on the cutoff scores determined for each bee. NSF has hosted the National Finals in various cities across the country including Maryland, Houston, Tampa, Ann Arbor, Dallas & Chicago. We hosted the finals at MIT back in 2008 and are bringing it back to town!

This year marks the 30^th anniversary of NSF and we are excited to be hosting the 2019 National Finals at MIT. The finals will be held during August 9-11^th, organized by the Massachusetts and New Hampshire chapters. We are expecting to host about 1500 contestants and their families at this event. This is a huge undertaking and can only be possible with the support of our local volunteers!

The MIT Finals team is seeking volunteers to join our dynamic committees and potential sponsors interested in sponsoring the event. Interested volunteers and sponsors are requested to email Savitha Rajiv: Savitha.rajiv@northsouth.org.

Parents interested in registering your children for the contests, please visit our website : www.northsouth.org. Please see the flyers for contests being held in April in Massachusetts and upcoming online workshops. For any questions regarding registration, please email: support@northsouth.org

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