When COVID-19 hit the globe and forced the entire country into an extended lockdown, 10-year-old Veer Kashyap from Bengaluru certainly put it to good use. He used materials lying around his house to design an interesting and educational board game that was designed to spread awareness about the pandemic and honour Corona warriors. Called, Corona Yuga, the game is designed to teach safety guidelines to survive in the pandemic through behavioural change and is available on Amazon.in

He tested it several times and then posted it on YouTube, where it went viral. Veer’s game caught the attention of Teck Team Solutions and the firm showed keen interest in publishing the board game in order to encourage Veer. Accordingly, even during the lockdown, they worked tirelessly to make this design into reality in a record time of 30 days and received over 60 orders through Amazon in the initial month of the launch.

Today, Prime Minister Modi in a tweet congratulated Veer as he is one of the winners of the Pradhan Mantri Rashtriya Bal Puraskar 2021 for his excellence in the field of innovation.

Sharing his thoughts on the development, Veer’s father Cdr Vinayaka who is employed with the Indian Navy said, “This was very unexpected and a real surprise. It is extremely encouraging for Veer. When he took this up, the primary intention was to create awareness about coronavirus. So, we are thrilled to hear the news.”

His mother, Sangeeta, too was extremely ecstatic and said, “It is an honour to get this prestigious award. We never expected this outcome for his creativity and effort. This is extremely encouraging and will help boost his confidence to design even more games.”

Veer, who is passionate about solving Rubik cubes, cricket and also plays guitar, harmonium, keyboard, and piano, has already been working on developing more game ideas, one of which is a card game on Goa Tourism is already in the prototype stage. Here’s to many more successes for this young entrepreneur!