KARACHI: All floors of The Dawood Foundation’s (TDF) MagnifiScience Centre, including the rooftop, had students of classes five to 10 of some 11 schools of the city working in groups as they took on distinct challenges in the form of innovative science projects during the Dawood Public School (DPS) D-Inventia 2026 competition on Thursday.
If one group was busy taking down readings following an experiment, another was busy balancing account books as yet another was putting to the test their robotic innovations. Some surrounded work tables while others sat on the floor with their notes laid out all around them.
The date of the event was specially chosen with science in mind as Oct 8 is marked as Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Day, a nod to hydrogen’s atomic weight of 1.008, and falls within World Space Week (Oct 4-10), the UN-declared global celebration of space science.
The participating schools included the hosts DPS, Karachi Grammar School, Haque Academy, The CAS School, Generations School, Mama Parsi, Happy Home School, Ecole School of Success, The Academy, Nasra School and Khadija Kazi Ali Memorial Higher Secondary School. This year’s edition marked 10 years of collaboration between DPS and TDF (2016 to 2026), and five years of the MagnifiScience Centre.
D-Inventia 2026 features five modules of science and commerce projects
Designed to take learning beyond the traditional classroom, D-Inventia featured five interactive modules: RoboSphere, Venture Dash, Greenovate, Logic-Craft and Math-A-Thon. Putting practical application, critical thinking and creativity to the test, it was, basically, a battle of minds under the theme of ‘Ideas in Action and Innovation in Motion’.
Prof Dr Shahana Urooj Kazmi, former pro vice chancellor of the University of Karachi, the chief guest on the occasion, highly appreciated the children’s projects.
DPS Principal Iffat Basrai said that D-Inventia is a celebration of science, ideas and intellectual curiosity. “It is the voice that asks ‘Why?’, ‘How?’ and ‘What if?’ Imagine it as a circuit. Our students are the energy, powering it with their questions and imagination, the teachers and mentors are the conductors guiding that energy and schools, parents and partners create the connections that help ideas travel,” she said.
While explaining the format of the event, she added, “The competition covers five different modules: the three sciences, physics, chemistry and biology and mathematics. To these we have added robotics and Python-based programming, and new this year is a module on commerce, too. Money and how it is distributed is such an important factor, and economics plays a big role in our daily lives, so that module is the fifth addition to our STEM modules.” The inter-school event also provided students with an opportunity to interact with peers from different schools, exchange ideas and work collaboratively while applying their knowledge in practical settings.
“MagnifiScience Centre stands for Science is for All, and that mission runs through the entire TDF,” said TDF’s CEO Favad Soomro. “We are celebrating 10 years of joint collaboration, in which numerous exhibitions and competitions have been held. Through this journey, one of the most beautiful science museums, and the only one of its kind, was born, and MagnifiScience Centre now turns five. We wanted to celebrate curiosity and the use of museums by inviting the brightest minds of the city to interact with our exhibits, to look at the spirit behind them and the perennial laws of science at play in our everyday lives,” he concluded.
The event concluded with a closing ceremony and prize distribution, where outstanding participants and teams were recognised for their performance, creativity, teamwork and approach to the challenges.
Published in Dawn, October 9th, 2026
