WASHINGTON (May 21, 2014)-Akhil Rekulapelli of Dulles, Virginia, a 13-year-old eighth-grader at Stone Hill Middle School in Ashburn, took top honors at the 26th annual National Geographic Bee held today at National Geographic headquarters in Washington, D.C. Akhil, who finished in fourth place at the 2013 National Geographic Bee, is the first student from Virginia to win the competition. Akhil's prizes are a $50,000 college scholarship, lifetime membership in the National Geographic Society and a trip for two to the Gal pagos Islands on an expedition aboard the Lindblad ship National Geographic Endeavour.
The second-place winner and recipient of a $25,000 college scholarship was Ameya Mujumdar from Florida, an 11-year-old fifth-grader at Turner Elementary School in Tampa. Third place and a $10,000 college scholarship went to California's Tuvya Bergson-Michelson, a 13-year-old seventh-grader at The Nueva School in Hillsborough, near San Francisco. Tuvya was a top-10 finalist in 2011 and 2013. Fourth place and $1,000 went to Pranit Nanda of Colorado, a 14-year-old eighth-grader at Aurora Quest K-8 School in Aurora, east of Denver. He was a top-10 finalist last year and a state winner in 2012.
The winning question was: The discovery of a major shale oil deposit in the Vaca Muerta formation in 2010 has led to an expansion of oil drilling in the Neuqu n province in what country? Answer: Argentina.
Fifty-four state and territory winners took part in the preliminary rounds of the 2014 National Geographic Bee on Monday, May 19. The top-10 finishers in the preliminary rounds met in today's final round. There were nine perfect scores in Monday's preliminary round, and Akhil beat out seven other contestants in the tie-breaker round to secure the final spot in the top 10. Today's final round was moderated for the first time by award-winning journalist Soledad O'Brien. The six other finalists, who each won $500, were Ansel Ahabue of Georgia, Nicholas Rommel of Massachusetts, Kyle Yu of Ohio, Max Levine of Rhode Island, Krish Patel of South Carolina and Asha Jain of Wisconsin.
National Geographic Channel and Nat Geo WILD will air the final round at 7 p.m. on Thursday, May 22. It will be aired later on public television stations; check local television listings for dates and times.
More than 4 million students took part in the 2014 National Geographic Bee, which was sponsored for the sixth year by Google.
NOTE: B-Roll from the competition will be available later today via http://press2.nationalgeographic.com/downloads/geo_bee_2014/.
(username: press | password: press).
Press resources and profiles of the 54 state winners can be found at the press room site http://bit.ly/GeoBee2014. Videos of many of the finalists are at http://www.youtube.com/nationalgeographic.
Media Contacts:
For first-place winner: Kelsey Flora, (202) 828-8023, kflora@ngs.org
For second-place winner: Farley Fitzgerald, (202) 775-6119, ffitzgerald@ngs.org
For third-place winner: Eric Tunell, (202) 862-8278, etunell@ngs.org
Most recent headlines
05/01/2027
Worlds first 802.15.4ab-UWB chip verified by Calterah and Rohde & Schwarz to be ...
06/09/2026
June 9 2026, 23:00 (PDT) Dolby and MagentaTV Bring Fans Closer to the FIFA Worl...
04/08/2026
Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, t...
04/07/2026
April 7 2026, 19:00 (PDT) Detective Conan: Fallen Angel of the Highway Opens in...
15/06/2026
Detach from Direct-Attached: How Remote Editing with EVO Keeps Creative Teams Mo...
14/06/2026
Library captures 1960s R&B/pop drum sound
Following on from their recent wave of plug-in effects, Iconic Instruments have just launched an all-new virtual d...
14/06/2026
HBO Comedy Rooster Shot with URSA Cine 17K 65
Brie Clayton June 14, 2026
0 Comments
Large format brings viewers intimately close to characters.
Black...
13/06/2026
Latest expansion pack includes 252 presets
Devious Machines have recently introduced another expansion for their powerful multi-effects plug-in, Infiltrator...
13/06/2026
Create custom DAW/plug-in controllers using prompts
MetaGrid have recently introduced an all-new AI Builder function to their touchscreen-based control surf...
13/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
13/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
12/06/2026
YES Network and The Gotham Sports App will air seven Athletes Unlimited Softball...
12/06/2026
The United Football League will host its FAST Innovation Suite at the 2026 United Bowl presented by Credit One Bank on Saturday, June 13 at 3:00 p.m. ET at Audi...
12/06/2026
PTZOptics and LayerJot will present live demonstrations at InfoComm 2026 showing how natural-language AI prompting, robotic camera control, and on-device comput...
12/06/2026
MultiDyne Video and Fiber Optic Systems will exhibit at InfoComm 2026, featuring...
12/06/2026
Ateme has announced that Eurovision Services is using Ateme's software-based frame-rate conversion technology for international live event workflows. The de...
12/06/2026
Bitmovin and Simplestream have announced a partnership with Xperi to simplify the launch of OTT streaming services on TiVo OS smart TVs and devices. The collabo...
12/06/2026
Net Insight has announced that a multinational technology company is deploying a...
12/06/2026
MLB Players Inc., the business arm of the MLB Players Association, has announced a partnership with Athletes First to develop and sell brand partnerships across...
12/06/2026
Guntermann and Drunck (G&D) and VuWall have announced the CommandKeyboard-Advanc...
12/06/2026
Comcast Smart Solutions announces a new smart technology deployment with Major L...
12/06/2026
Elevation Worship completed the initial leg of its Elevation Nights 2026 tour ...
12/06/2026
AJA Video Systems has announced KONA IP25 support for Colorfront Transkoder and ...
12/06/2026
Audinate Group Limited (ASX: AD8) will exhibit at InfoComm 2026 (Booth C7321, Ce...
12/06/2026
Pac-12 Commissioner Teresa Gould has announced the appointment of Scott Adametz as Chief Technology Officer. The Pac-12 describes the hire as the first CTO appo...
12/06/2026
Grass Valley has announced AMPP Edge Live, a production system combining Grass Valley hardware, NVIDIA Blackwell GPU acceleration, and AMPP OS in a single platf...
12/06/2026
At one time a trailblazer with the launch of the Longhorn Network, the Universit...
12/06/2026
Ratings Roundup is a rundown of recent rating news and is derived from press rel...
12/06/2026
Chyron has announced PAINT 10.4, an update to its illustrated replay and sports ...
12/06/2026
SVP, Production, Mark Gross: With the new schedule, with not having every Sunday night, it has given us an opportunity to take a step back and reimagine what o...
12/06/2026
For Televisa Technical Engineering Manager Roberto N nez Ibarra and the small team of 12 technicians and two production personnel at the IBC things are already ...
12/06/2026
Simple Steps to Better Acoustics - Taming The Small Room
Most of us mix in spare rooms and small spaces, where the acoustics fight us at every turn. At Gear...
12/06/2026
Latest addition expands vintage-inspired effects palette
Meris' Ottobit pedal range draws its inspiration from vintage gaming consoles, and the latest a...
12/06/2026
Soundbox-based chamber strings series expanded
Sonora Cinematic have just announced the launch of the second instalment in their Soundbox-based chamber stri...
12/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
12/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
12/06/2026
AJA Announces KONA IP25 Integration with Colorfront Software
Brie Clayton June 12, 2026
0 Comments
Collaboration enables uncompressed SMPTE ST 2110 I/O ...
12/06/2026
URSA Cine 12K LF Used to Create Visuals for STUTS' K-Arena Concert
Brie Clayton June 12, 2026
0 Comments
Organic visuals projected on a giant scre...
12/06/2026
MTI FILM Acquires Mango New Edit, Expanding its Global Post-Production Services ...
12/06/2026
AI Point Tracking Speeds Up Complex VFX Tracks in Mocha Pro
Jessie Electa Petrov June 12, 2026
0 Comments
The 2026.5 release adds automatic point trac...
12/06/2026
Bitmovin, a provider of video streaming solutions, has partnered with Simplestream, a provider of OTT and broadcast solutions, and technology provider Xperi, to...
12/06/2026
Leostream Corporation, creator of the world-leading Leostream Remote Desktop Access Platform, today announced Jigsaw24, a leading B2B IT solutions provider wit...
12/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
12/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
12/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
12/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
12/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
12/06/2026
How Aussie indie games and screen are levelling up with IP 11 June 2026
Ari Harrison, Pro Jank Footy
Head of Games Joey Egger and Ari Harrison of Umbrella sha...
12/06/2026
AgentPerf from Artificial Analysis, the industry's first agentic AI benchmark, gives developers, enterprises and infrastructure providers a clear way to com...
WASHINGTON (May 21, 2014)-Akhil Rekulapelli of Dulles, Virginia, a 13-year-old eighth-grader at Stone Hill Middle School in Ashburn, took top honors at the 26th annual National Geographic Bee held today at National Geographic headquarters in Washington, D.C. Akhil, who finished in fourth place at the 2013 National Geographic Bee, is the first student from Virginia to win the competition. Akhil's prizes are a $50,000 college scholarship, lifetime membership in the National Geographic Society and a trip for two to the Gal pagos Islands on an expedition aboard the Lindblad ship National Geographic Endeavour. 
