The 2008 National Geographic Bee contest has been won by 11 year-old Indian American boy Akshay Rajagopal. A sixth-grader from Lux Middle School in Lincoln, Nebraska, Akshay Rajagopal has been awarded with a $25,000 college scholarship as well as a lifetime membership. The 2008 National Geographic Bee contest was convened by the National Geographic Society.

 

It was on Wednesday 21 May that Akshay Rajagopal was announced as the winner of the National Geographic contest which took place in the Washington D.C. It witnessed participation of students from the fifth to the eighth grade in the 10 to 14 years age group. Rajagopal succeeded in answering all the questions of the contest correctly.

 

The last question posed was - The urban area of Cochabamba has been in the news in recent years due to protests over the privatization of the municipal water supply and regional autonomy issues. Cochabamba is the third largest conurbation in what country? To this, Akshay Rajagopal swiftly and correctly replied Bolivia. The host of this contest was Alex Trebek. Apart from Rajagopal, there were two other Indian students who had made their way to the final 10 - Nikhil Desai of California and Milan Sandhu of New Hampshire.