Top of the Class Podcast Transcript Library

Ep #29 Publishing a Book and Teaching Epidemiology to Fight COVID

🗓 JAN 23, 2021

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Podcast Host 00:00 Hello, and welcome to the Top of the Class podcast. I'm your host, Alex Cork. And today I chat with Texas student Stephanie Wang. Stephanie has been fighting COVID-19 in unique ways by writing and self publishing a book, teaching hundreds of students about public health, and creating lesson plans for biology students that her school will start teaching soon. She gives fantastic advice for aspiring authors, and invite you the listener to contact her about getting the public health curriculum taught in your school. Let's chat with Stephanie Wang. Hi Stephanie, welcome to the Top of the Class podcast. It's fantastic to have you on. Can you tell our listeners a little bit about yourself? Stephanie Wang 00:56 Well, hi, Alex. First of all, thank you for so much for having me. My name is Stephanie. I'm currently 16 years old. And I'm a junior from Texas. And I really am involved in helping improve educational access across communities and doing that in whatever shape that may be. And I recently wrote and published an introductory epidemiology textbook called epidemiology unmasked. And the purpose of this textbook was to help spread public health literacy to students across my community and even beyond that, during the pandemic, because we all know that during the pandemic, we all face difficulties, and some face difficulties and informational access. So that was my main goal in writing the textbook. Podcast Host 01:40 That's awesome that you have come up with a book in response to the Coronavirus because obviously, like the education side of things has been a real struggle. Obviously, there's a lot of people who have skepticism about it, who don't really know how things like this kind of spread. And you have developed a very strong interest in epidemiology. Can you take me through that and how that kind of started and then how that perhaps accelerated through the Coronavirus? Stephanie Wang 02:06 Definitely. So I am a member of my school Science Olympiad team and I have been competing in Science Olympiad for about this would be my fifth year. And I started when I was in seventh grade, in seventh grade, I went to my middle school had a very, very good Science Olympiad team. And I at first joined because I wanted to know what it was all about. I didn't really have very strong aspirations. But once I started actually getting engaged in tournaments and exploring different events, I came across one event that really, really helped me a lot in defining my passions and what I wanted to do so that event was called disease detectives, and disease detectives is essentially an event focused on public health and epidemiology. And for the actual aspect of the event, participants basically follow through an outbreak investigation and solve it throughout the entire process. And beyond the outbreak investigation, the testimony also test concepts, you know, like microbiology, disease spread, things like that. And that was pretty much how I really got into this field. And from that event, I learned so much about epidemiology, which is a field of science that I would not have otherwise learned in school, and I probably would not have otherwise even known or really explore deeply if it wasn't for that event. From then on, I began pursuing projects that were outside of the scope of Science Olympiad, but really helped to augment my experience in epidemiology. And that included a research project that included talking to professors in the field. And so from there, I've been really alert to all sorts of public health developments in the world. And of course, the latest one would be the pandemic and pandemic has been pretty hard on the United States, especially in Texas as well. And so I realized, you know, there are some people who may not have had the same epidemiological education that I had through Science Olympiad, and they were the ones who are most vulnerable to being misinformed or taking things that may have been wrong and rolling with it, which can be detrimental to people and to the society as a whole. So that was something that I felt needed to be changed and targeted. And so from for doing that, that's how the idea of my book really came to fruition. Podcast Host 04:32 Yeah, that's fantastic. What kind of fallacies or misinformation Do you find that you are often correcting that people might have because they might not have much background in epidemiology and for those who don't know, epidemiology? It's a bit of a big word, I guess. It means the study of the spread of disease. Is that right? Stephanie Wang 04:53 Yeah, pretty much just the study of like how diseases spread in populations in ways that people can prevent and treat the population level. Podcast Host 05:02 I think it's become a very popular word, obviously, in 2020. It was everyone who was, you know, knew about Anthony falchi, the head epidemiologist in there in America. But yeah, what kind of misinformation or fallacies? Do you find yourself correcting? Or do you find yourself being most pervasive, I guess, within the Texas area that you will like that is just completely wrong? Stephanie Wang 05:24 Well, there is a wide variety. I think I read a statistic back in June, when I was doing research that over half of Americans have seen at least some form of misinformation online. And definitely that number must be a lot higher by now. Because that was back in June. And so some of the more common ones involve sort of conspiracies about the vaccine, or like questioning the effectiveness of various public health measures, such as math and social distancing. And although scientists often tell us to do that, it can cause people to question whether or not we should do it. And I think the best way for us to do to help each other and help sees the spread is to listen to the experts. And I think convincing people that it's important to listen to the experts and do these various precaution measures that I've been recommended. I think that's the most important sort of misinformation, or trying to combat that misinformation. That's the most important thing that I've been trying to do. Podcast Host 06:24 Yeah, and it's really exciting. I think that a student of your age and of your experience, like you're, you know, have an interest in epidemiology, but by no means do you have like a degree in epidemiology, but you still saw that there was an opportunity for you to make a very big difference in your community. And you started out with the book epidemiology on mast, which, by the way, I think is an awesome name. Can you take me through the writing of that book? And can you take me through, like how the idea even came about that a book would be a good idea to try and combat this misinformation, Stephanie Wang 06:55 of course. So obviously, there are a lot of different online resources and things like that. But I, what I realized through my time in studying epidemiology, as a middle school student in a high school student is that a lot of the text that is presented and a lot of the manuals or online resources, they can be hard to read or hard to understand for people, especially those who may not have a firm background in the subject or anything related to the subject, which is most of the population. And so I decided, you know, since I, I recently had to overcome learning this, and making sure I understand everything, I believe I have the ability to make all of this complicated stuff into something that would be simple and fun. So that's why I decided that I was going to write a book. And it was going to be a book that was not another repeat of all the other epidemiology textbooks on there, or the manuals online. Instead, I really wanted it to be something that would be fun to read. And something that would be easy to read, something that maybe even a child or a kid would voluntarily pick up and read. Because I think that's the best way for students to learn is to be happy and be very eager to do it. I know that most students will not be interested in just reading a textbook. So for my textbook, I went through an entire hypothetical outbreak investigation that I made. And it was supposed to be a book where the reader steps into the shoes of an epidemiologist understanding and going over and tackling the outbreak. And so along each of these steps, I presented them with the adequate information necessary to understand what each part of the outbreak investigation is, and understand important epidemiological concepts along the way. So that's basically how I structured the book. And as for writing, I knew I didn't want it to be, you know, very textfield, since that would sort of discourage students. So instead, I actually designed it on a graphic design pretty much the entire book, I designed on a graphic design tool, all 117 pages, and after that, it was able to make the book a lot more aesthetic, and make made people actually want to, you know, look at it, and especially younger students, that would definitely help them. Podcast Host 09:10 Wow, 117 pages, I didn't know it was that long. And so you throughout that 117 pages, take students through this whole investigation of a hypothetical disease, and then how they might be able to combat it. So it's kind of like you're putting them in the shoes of the scientists who are discovering and combating the disease. Is that right? Stephanie Wang 09:31 Yes, that's correct. And I did that because I feel a lot that students learn best when they're doing things and not just reading facts, because in school, I definitely enjoyed the more project based activities more than a lot of my friends do as well. So I feel that encompassing this subject as a project based or a problem based activity almost would be more fun for students to read. And that's the bulk of my book. I also have my last chapter that's dedicated on just basic information. About COVID, and things that have already occurred, and helping to inform the readers just about the main things that they need to know about the pandemic. So they can establish a baseline to look at all the other facts that they're presented to them, and evaluate whether they believe it should be credible or not. Because I think we all should have like a baseline to evaluate. And I, that's my goal with the last chapter of my book. Podcast Host 10:24 Wow, that's fantastic. And I love this whole kind of writing a book journey that you must have gone on. And I'd love to explore that with you a little bit more. Because I think the idea of actually, funnily enough, I'm thinking of writing a book. And I think the hardest thing when you're considering that is knowing how do I start? How do I structure? What is this book going to look like when I finally finish? And then you know, how am I going to get it published? And how am I going to get it seen? And all these kinds of things, and all these questions that come up along the way? So can you take us back? I guess, however long ago, the idea of the book came about, and then take us through your journey of how did you decide upon the structure? How did you decide upon the length was the length that you ended up having the book at 117 pages? Was that roughly what you thought it would be at the start some of those kind of questions that you probably tackled along the way through writing and publishing the book? Stephanie Wang 11:18 Yeah, of course. So what I did was, I had the idea in around March, that time when the pandemic was first really starting to get serious in Texas and in the country. And so one night, I just jotted down every single topic I wanted to cover, in my book, this range from, you know, basic reproduction number to disease transmission to micro organisms, all of the things I wanted to cover, and then I sorted them in main blocks that I wanted to cover in one chapter, for instance. And I, you know, thought about how I wanted to structure it, should I just write everything, should I just tell people the information, but then I realized, you know, it would be much better if I formatted this in sort of a structure of a disease detective test, and allow the reader to go along the entire journey and learn things along the way. So that was basically how I structured the book. And I definitely did not think it would be 117 pages, I remember starting it and thinking it would be 50, at most, but there was just so much that I wanted to include and so much that I wanted to elaborate on that it ended up being much longer than I originally anticipated. And I also did not originally plan to put the last chapter in the COVID chapter. But then, you know, I thought, well, the main reason why I'm writing this book is to help prevent misinformation and foster responsibility during COVID. So it sort of be a missed opportunity, if I didn't include at least some information about COVID in there. So that was, after I pretty much wrote the whole book, I decided to add the last chapter. And after that, it did end up totaling around 117 pages. So for the publishing process, I explored different routes of publication, usually, there's traditional publishing where the author gets in contact with a publishing company. And then they pretty much do all the heavy lifting for you. But the sort of disadvantage of that was that it didn't really give the author much freedom to do what they wanted with the book. And also, it would take a very long time, the author would also not have as much royalties for their book. And so there was also the other common auction, which was self publishing your book. And for that, I actually felt that it would be more worth it to do self publishing, because even though I didn't really have a marketing, or like a company to do the marketing, for me, self publishing is very fast, you pretty much just upload it, and then you wait a few days, and then you're done. So I feel like time is a very important issue, especially in the pandemic. And I really wanted to get it out as soon as possible because the pandemic was already raging on. So that was the main reason why I decided to self publish. But there was also the other reason of royalties. And royalties are much higher in self publishing. And what I actually wanted to use the royalties as sort of a fundraiser for the people working on the front lines for COVID. So that was another main consideration. And so even though when I was exploring the traditional route, I was able to get in contact with a publisher, or I decided, you know, I don't think it was really worth it. In my circumstance, even though for other authors, oftentimes, traditional publishing is worth it. But for me, I felt that the advantages were sort of offset by the drawbacks. So I decided to go with self publishing. Podcast Host 14:37 Wow. Okay. So it's quite a journey you've gone on, what kind of resources were you using during that time to kind of figure out your journey through to publishing a book. Stephanie Wang 14:45 No one in my family really has done anything like of this sort. So I wasn't really able to ask them much for this publishing advice, help. And as for the whole publishing process, I essentially just did a lot of online research and I've just a lot of googling a lot of websites that I browse. But for that part, not really. But for the actual review of the book and making sure everything was credible, I actually contacted a few professionals from the Texas Medical Center, which is located here in Houston. And I was able to get in contact with a few professors, including the director of infection control, MD Anderson, which is the largest Cancer Center in the world, I believe. So he definitely was such a huge help, he helped me look over everything. And then he made sure everything was correct in there. And then he suggested a few revisions here and there about you know, braising and there was also one of my previous professors that I worked with in the past, he also offered to review my book and look over all the information and make sure everything was correct. And so they were also able to offer me editorial reviews. And that definitely helped because it definitely helped to boost the credibility that my book had. And those were my main sort of advisors. Yeah, I also got my brother to read the book. He's currently 11. And he is sort of in the target audience a little bit younger, maybe, but around that range. And he helped me read over and see what parts of the book he couldn't understand. And so I wanted to figure out, you know, how can I word this a little bit differently, to make it understandable for everyone, especially kids who are younger, so those were my main advisors. Podcast Host 16:28 Fantastic. And in terms of the professor's I think that's super cool, and definitely adds legitimacy to your work? How did you go about getting in contact with them? And then like, how did you go about saying, hey, look, I've written this book, it's 117 pages, would you mind reviewing it? I'm imagining these are pretty busy people, particularly at this time with the Yeah, demick raging? So how did you manage to kind of convince them to take a fair chunk of time out of their day, to review your book and to, you know, make notes and really help you out through this journey. Stephanie Wang 16:59 So one of the professors, he has a friend who is friends with, it's like a chain, you know, it's like a chain of connections, but I sort of knew him from my parents and their connections. So I emailed him, and then he definitely was busy. But he was kind enough to spend some time a few hours, it wasn't too long for him, because he's an expert in this stuff. So he helped me just look over it. He didn't nitpick, but he just made sure everything was correct. And just offered some advice on where to fix a little bit. But I would say he was my main reviewer. And then my other reviewer. I knew him previously, because he had been my mentor for previous research. So he definitely was very willing to do that. And yeah, since I knew him previously, that helped get him on board. Podcast Host 17:48 Yeah, well, that's the the power of networking. Right. And I think that's a really big tip. Yeah, it's who, you know, thinking of creating some research and those kinds of things is to if you can contact professors, because it just adds that legitimacy. And I think a lot of professors would probably be quite excited to know that there is a student someone in their teen years, someone who's still in high school, who is keen to make a difference, and it was really interested in their area of expertise. Did you find that as well, that, you know, there was a professor being like, oh, wow, this is like a great initiative by a high school student. Stephanie Wang 18:20 Oh, yeah, definitely. Both of the people and some other ones that I contacted. They were all very, very excited. They definitely were very encouraging. And were very supportive, gave some very kind words and some very good advice. So yeah, for students out there, I think, if you have an initiative, I don't think you should be scared to contact adults who are experts in the field, because I think most of the time, they will be very receptive and very happy to help in any way. Podcast Host 18:47 Okay, yeah. No, that's fantastic advice. I'm interested as well, in the cost side of things. And I don't need exact numbers here. But I think it's an interesting question, because self publishing, to me sounds like a potentially expensive thing to do. And I know that you wanted to do that because you wanted to get the royalties and then donate that royalties, as you said, to the frontline, COVID workers, which I think is a fantastic initiative and kind of like, brings it full circle, which I think is awesome. But there must have been a bit of debate in your mind about whether to publish it as an E book, which obviously is, I think, would be lower cost versus an actual book. So can you talk us through a those kind of practical sides of things in terms of the cost factor? And what made you really want to go down the publishing route as opposed to an E book? Stephanie Wang 19:31 Sure. So it may be sort of surprising to people but self publishing is actually quite cheap. I never actually had to pay anyone to do anything. For me. I think the main expense for publishing a book is the actual printing. So for example, the website that I publish it on, I actually have it on Amazon and on Lulu, but my original publishing site was on Lulu press, and their publishing is actually quite cheap. Their printing is also quite cheap and For the actual uploading the self publishing part, that part doesn't cost any money. But the actual printing for my book, I believe that costs around $7 or so I can't remember exactly. But it's not too expensive. And so they also give you like a base amount that it has to be over, your cost has to be greater than that to account for the royalties and the publishing and my book currently on lose about $9. So isn't really too expensive. So yeah, I don't think the money is a very big issue in self publishing. However, in traditional publishing, it definitely does cost more money. Because when I was originally getting in contact with that traditional publishing company, they definitely had a lot more cost it was in the hundreds. So that was also another factor why I didn't want to do that. But that being said, the self publishing royalties, I believe, they really do pay off because I have been able to get enough money from the royalties to buy 1000 masks for the frontline health workers. So that definitely was a very rewarding experience for me, just to see that sort of work pay off in the form of monetary donation to the frontline health workers. Podcast Host 21:11 That's fantastic. I'm really glad to hear that. But it's actually your idea is being carried through and now you're seeing the results of, you know, helping the frontline workers get through this very difficult time. So that's fantastic, Stephanie. Now I want to kind of shift gears a little bit towards how you got that book into libraries, because that's obviously like, you know, people can publish a book. But getting it seen and getting it actually, in legitimate places, is a whole new task altogether. And I think a lot of students might say, well, if I'm going to get my book out there, I might have to just hit up social media pretty hard. But you actually said, Okay, if I'm going to get my book out there, then I need to get it in places where people might see it in in legitimate libraries is a great place to start. So can you give us a bit of an insight as to where people might be able to find your book, if not online, and how you got into those libraries? Stephanie Wang 22:01 Sure. So my book is available in the Fort Bend county libraries, which is the county where I live. And for this process, I basically just called the one of the administrators of the entire Fort Bend County Library System. And she is responsible for dealing with like incoming literature. And she had to look over all my books. And also they have a requirement where the book has to be has to have like at least one reliable review, whether that be on the media, or via like a professional. And so before doing that, I also got a lot of press coverage for the books so that it could get the word out there. And so having already established this credibility, it was a lot easier for the library to see my book and realize that it was credible. And so it took a few days for them to review it and look over it and make sure everything was good quality. And then they basically just cataloged it inside their library systems. And so this way, readers from Fort Bend county libraries can just go online, into their Fort Bend County Library database, and just search my book and place it in hold or, you know, go to the actual libraries and check them out. everything like that is possible now that it's in the library. Podcast Host 23:18 What's been the the proudest moment for you so far through that journey? Was it getting tick of approval from the professor The first time you held the book in your hand, getting it into the library? Like there's a lot of moments that you can be really proud of throughout this journey? What do you think has been the most kind of aha moment for you where you were like, Stephanie Wang 23:37 I've done it. Beyond just writing the book, I decided, you know, I have to do more than that I have to make a class or some sort of teaching project where I can actually get this book into the hands of students and teach them the material in sort of a live fashion. And so what I did was I actually held a class with my nonprofit kid teach kid. And we actually got around 1000, something signups for the class. And so I basically for the entirety of the class, I taught them, the outbreak investigation, went through each step with them, and went through the curriculum step by step in more detail. And from that, at the end of the class, at the very last session, I asked them to brainstorm ideas of projects that they could potentially pursue that would help their community during COVID. And so these kids are very, very talented and very creative. And so they started rolling in a bunch of cool creative ideas. Some of them ranged from creating coding classes for their friends. Some of them range to creating informational YouTube videos to help people understand everything better. And so I think seeing these kids have such great ideas on how to help the community and being that my ideas were able to help fuel their passions. I think that was definitely the proudest moment. For me throughout this entire process, Podcast Host 25:02 so that's your nonprofit kid tasty? Stephanie Wang 25:04 Yes, it's a very, very similar process to how I decided to write the book, I have a few friends that I have been doing a lot of math contests with for the past few years. And since the pandemic started, we realized that most of the classes were going to be over for the kids, especially at the end person ones. And so we decided to start this nonprofit originally to help teach kids math. And after that, it was a pretty big success. So then, we recruited other students, our other friends to help teach other subjects. And so that's how we started this nonprofit. And that's also how I was able to do my public health class as well. Podcast Host 25:40 Wow, that's fantastic. So you really kind of made a lot of inroads in this COVID situation, I think it's fantastic. Because a lot of students were probably feeling a little bit helpless, and probably felt like they had a lot of time on their hands. But obviously, like you use your knowledge, and we know we can in epidemiology, and your love of teaching, to turn that into a many different ways to get the information out there. And one of those ways, which we're going to discuss now is a curriculum change. Now, I know that a lot of students would think that this idea is way out of their realm, that curriculum is decided much higher above them. But it's something that you've been able to do over the last couple of months in terms of suggesting it to your teachers. And it sounds like it's coming to fruition now in March, April. I know there's a lot of students out there who would wish to be able to change the curriculum in some way, shape, or form. And you've actually gone ahead and made that happen. So can you take us through that and what made you want to decide to change the curriculum. Stephanie Wang 26:42 So I of course, was motivated by the misinformation and irresponsibility, the same forces that motivated me to write the book. And you can do as much as you want through activism or educational advocacy, things like that, especially in book writing, and everything, everything that I have been pursuing so far. But I believe the most fundamental way to change the problems that we've been seeing is to conquer the educational insufficiencies from the root. And I think the root of that is the school system. And I know that in my school system, at least, we never really learned much about public health or epidemiology, which was also another big reason why I decided to write the book. But that being said, I felt that it would be possible for me to suggest to teachers to teach this instead into maybe even give it just a few days of class material, just for students who would be interested to be exposed to this sort of curriculum and for them to understand the basics of disease spreads so that in the future, when we may have another pandemic, these students who are in my generation, who will be the adults by then will be very responsible and more receptive, and more immune to misinformation. So that was how I got the idea. And I basically curated a custom curriculum with several PowerPoints, homework, activities, projects, and you know, just handouts, notes, sheets, things like that. And basically, it covers the entire book, but in that sort of form, and like classwork form, and it also does the same thing, it goes over the same outbreak uses the same calculations. And so I compiled them all together, and I approached my biology teacher, and she helped me look over everything, make sure it would be something that teachers would be receptive to. And so then I reached out to my school's freshman biology teachers, because in my school, the biology classes mostly occur in freshman year in junior or senior year. So I wanted to start with the freshmen students, because that's when most students take biology. So for them, I reached out to them, and they definitely will, one of them was very receptive to that. And currently, we're working out the details, but I think it should be able to come into fruition as in they may have like, a few days in a period of time after standardized testing for them to teach the material and do the activity with their students. And so this way, the students in their classes during this time, have a way to be exposed to public health and Epidemiology often for the first time. And I think it definitely sounds more scary than it is. But I think the most important thing to do is is to talk to people who are close to you first, for example, your teachers, and then maybe expand it further because if I am able to successfully get this to work very well in the schools in my school, then I have aspirations to expand it across the district. And in doing that we can just help combat this issue from the start so that we don't have to deal with it as much in the future. Podcast Host 29:51 I think this is fantastic. And and I think, you know in terms of addressing the root cause of the problem, as you said, like the going back to what is taught in schools seeing if we can kind of get in there early with the right ideas and the right information, particularly for something like, you know, that's so important, like public health, because I think the Coronavirus would agree that the the reason that it's been able to spread so much is because a lot of people just don't understand the science or have been fed misinformation and believe the misinformation more than the experts. So I think, you know, getting that into the school curriculum is a really good thing. But one of the things I'm interested in is, did you create the entire curriculum, the handouts, the slides, and all that kind of thing? And then took it to your biology teacher? Or did you mention to them be like, Hey, I think, you know, we might be able to come up with a few days worth of classes on public health? Can I work on something and then show it to you? Because I think a lot of times, one of the things that's missing, potentially, if students have tried to change the curriculum before, is they just haven't presented enough quality work, and they haven't presented enough quality information that the teachers can look at and say, Yep, I can turn this into a class No problem, right? Like, you got to make it easy for the teachers to say, yes, this would work in a classroom setting, which is what you know, which is what you did really well. And now your school is on board. So it kind of makes sense. But did you go through all that process first? Or did your teacher say, hey, Stephanie, if we're going to do this kind of thing, we're going to need a lot more information before we even consider it. Stephanie Wang 31:24 So I originally had a sort of pseudo curriculum already, because I have been teaching that public health class for kids each kid over the summer. And I didn't create the entire full blown worksheet curriculum yet, for my potential school curriculum. I first approached my biology teacher and told her about my idea. And she told me basically the necessary things that I have to have in order for teachers to consider it, such as all the lesson plans, the PowerPoints, and the structure that would be the most helpful for teachers. And so after having that information, I was able to sort of tweaked my original curriculum and fit than necessary or fit the necessities that she talked about. And that was how we got it to work. Podcast Host 32:14 Yeah, I think that's super important for students to realize what kind of landmarks or what kind of points the teachers are trying to teach, because they've got their set curriculum that they're trying to teach to. And if you can create a curriculum that fits in with that, or that makes sense with that, or that complements what the biology teacher or what any teacher is really trying to teach, then there is a lot higher chance of your changes being adopted, or at least being considered. So it has that journey been for you kind of like writing all these lesson plans, and you know, really going to work and creating like a full in a couple of day curriculum on epidemiology. Stephanie Wang 32:55 It's actually been quite fun, because, believe it or not, it's very, very fun to create things that I feel like are would be helpful to students. And I would say, for students who are interested in sort of, you know, changing their curriculum, or find this public health idea to be good, a good idea to implement into their school system, they can always, you know, contact me, and we can actually I can send them all the stuff, and then they can see if it'll, their, their teachers would be receptive to the idea. But I would say in general, the, the journey has actually been very fun, I would say, writing the book, though, there was there were some challenges, because I think the main challenge with writing the book was the part where I had to tell the whole part where I have to change this difficult thoughts, or this difficult concepts and difficult trains of thought into something that young students would be interested in when loved to read. And so that was something that was difficult because I had never really, when I was learning, I had never really learned with the intention of trying to regurgitate it as a fun learning resource. And so that was difficult. But again, my brother was willing to help me out with that just to help me look over which parts he was not able to understand. And so that was very, very helpful for me throughout that process. But I think, yeah, that was the main difficulty. But other than that, I would say it's been a very, very rewarding process. Podcast Host 34:25 Yeah, well, I hope it does get taught and and is a success. And obviously, like, there might be tweaks and changes that you might need to make. And it might take a little bit of time for it to be refined. But I think it's something that you can be really proud of that this is potentially the start of a very long lasting change, which is extremely exciting. And I think that's it for students out there who thought that they might not be able to change their curriculum that the curriculum is something decided by people who are much more senior and have been in education for 2030 years. That's not always the case. And you know, you can look at Stephanie's example. And of course, definitely, you've said that students can contact you to get the resources that you've created already. And we'll put that link in the show notes. So if you want to contact Stephanie and get those resources, I would 100% recommend that because I think that's like, even from my interest, Stephanie, I'd love to say it, just so I can learn a little bit about epidemiology, but also see the potential of how this could become, you know, part of a school curriculum elsewhere around the world, because it's obviously something that you know, many students are aware of, because of everything that's been going on with COVID. So it's something that I'm sure students will be pretty keen to learn about. But anyway, what's next? For us? Definitely, you've been doing a whole hate during this COVID situation, probably more than a lot of students would think would be possible during this lockdown period. But what's next for you in 2021? Stephanie Wang 35:47 Well, I think 2021 Well, I hope it would be more, it would be better for everyone. And I think 2021 is going to be a year where I really tried to get this stuff as far as I can. And that's why I'm also encouraging students from other states, other regions to contact me and we can try to get this into your state as well. So I think this year is going to be me focusing most on amplifying the impact of public health literacy and public health education. And just continuing on the work that I've been doing in 2020. And pushing it even more. And I think in the future, I would like to see, most of the districts in my state or even most of the schools in my state adopt a similar lesson plan adopted a similar curriculum that they would be using for their students, because I think if there's anything that we learned from this pandemic, is that anything can happen at any time. And we should all work to be well prepared for future incidents like this, and be well prepared to prevent the detriments that we've seen this time around. And so I think, for me, my work would be just to help spread the message more help get more students interested in public health, whether that be in teaching classes, or hosting workshops, or speaking on podcasts like this one, and helping to spread the message to today's youth into adults who are also willing to help with the spreading of the message. Podcast Host 37:18 Yeah, and hopefully the message can be spread faster than any virus, that's for sure. And, yeah, and in terms of college, because obviously Crimson education support students to get into world leading universities, I just saw the Oxford acceptances came out. And we've got a lot of students from Crimson who are heading there, which is very exciting. But what would be your kind of goal in terms of getting into colleges around there in the US, obviously, there's some fantastic universities in Texas. But is there anything in particular that you're looking at? Stephanie Wang 37:48 Yeah, I think my dream school just from when I was perhaps in middle school was always MIT because it's very stem focused school. And I've been on that campus many, many times throughout the past few years for competitions. And especially last year, I went there for a Science Olympiad competition, it was a beautiful campus, and they just seemed like such a great community. I think that's probably the school that I most want to get into. Of course, I would apply to a lot of there are a lot of great in state schools in Texas, like rice, and UT. But beyond that, I think, I haven't really given much too much thought into college yet, even though I should be probably since I'm applying this year. And yeah, I think we'll see. Because I really hope MIT is a place that I get into. Well, yeah, I Podcast Host 38:37 know that that is super competitive MIT. So for those of you I know that you might be a fan of Marvel cinema. I know Tony Stark, I think was a student there or has connections there. And Spider Man as well. Peter Parker, that's when I whenever I'm trying to describe MIT to students here in Australia, and they'll be like, Oh, you just sounds like a stem University. I'm like, Yeah, it's a stem University. But like, this is the kind of university that Peter Parker and Tony Stark go to right like it is. Next Level kind of STEM. So yeah, surprise, right. Yeah, it's a fantastic campus VIII visited there in January of 2020. As well, they are unabashedly nerdy. I think that's what the tour guide says. We are 100% nerds. And we are very much like believe that that's who we are and who we want to be. And I think it's like a really cool culture. We actually had the student body president of MIT on a previous episode, Danielle? Yeah. Give that a listen. Because she shared her insights into what life is like their at MIT. Stephanie Wang 39:37 And MIT snowed as well. And it never really snows knows where I live. So that would be great to see. Podcast Host 39:43 Well, I did ask Danielle, what is the coldest she's ever been? Because she was originally from Florida. And she said they stayed in the research labs for too long and it was quite a long walk to their dorms. And she said like it was an absolute blizzard outside and she said, that's the She's ever been. So if you like the snow, it might be a novelty factor there for the first year or so. But I think it might quickly wear off. I think that's what I've generally heard is that it's exciting for the first time and then not so exciting thereafter. But I'm sure it'd be an amazing experience to be among all those amazing students and right next to Harvard as well. So for people who don't know where MIT is, it's literally like one bus stop away from the grounds of Harvard. So you'll meet a lot of lovely, very, very clever people up there in Boston, which is fantastic. Now, Stephanie, you did say that people who contact you, what's the best way for people to get in touch with you? Stephanie Wang 40:36 I would say email would be the best because I check my email very often. And yeah, it's Stephanie.wang2004@gmail.com. And of course, you can just link it in the description as well. Podcast Host 40:47 I will put it in there for sure. Well, Stephanie, it's been awesome chatting, I think it's super inspiring for students who are interested in writing books, are we interested in making a change during COVID, who are interested in making a change in their curriculum, I do hope students who are interested in biology, particularly take you up on that fact to get the resources that you would make available. I think we won't leave that in the description because I think it's probably the right thing to do for people to actually contact you about that. So yeah, I would recommend students do that. And hopefully we can get this these messages and your book and your classroom, lesson plans, etc. and we can get that far and wide around the world, which would be fantastic. Stephanie Wang 41:27 Thank you so much, Alex. Thank you. I really enjoyed this conversation. Thank you so much again.

Ep #28 The 12-Year-Old Studying Aerospace Engineering at a Top US College

🗓 JAN 20, 2021

See transcript

Jamie Beaton 00:00 Welcome to the Top of the Class. I'm really excited today to be here with Caleb, Caleb is making headlines all around the world for his incredible academic ability. Alrighty, let's get started, Caleb. So to begin with, why don't you bring me back to your younger days? So, um, what were some things that were quite unique about your upbringing compared to you know, your average student? Caleb Anderson 01:06 I really think that, you know, my mom drove to teach me younger than a lot of other kids. I really think that, you know, she, she tried to teach me at a really early age. And I think that's one of the things that really brought me to where I am. Jamie Beaton 01:21 Yeah, I think that's a really consistent trait that I see in many high achieving young people that parents are really heavily involved early in their education. And was there a particular subject that you guys did a lot of teaching together? And she's like, math or something? Or was it across all the subjects? What was the focus area? Caleb Anderson 01:38 It was really all subjects. But I think that, you know, she really started with reading because, you know, that really helped us to communicate with each other. And then, you know, she went on to science, math, history and things like that. Jamie Beaton 01:52 Why don't you give everybody a bit of an update as to what you're up to now? So I was recently watching an interview did with CBS, where you, I think, just been admitted to Georgia Tech. So what does the world look like for you today? How your studies, you know, where are you at in those various programs? Caleb Anderson 02:08 Yeah, I did just get admitted to Georgia Tech, you know, I'm going there and fall 2021. But I think right now, I'm just trying to manage all my classes, especially during COVID, I take my first all science classes, um, this semester, so I have labs and things like that. And a lot of my classes are a bit late at night. And we have to wear masks when we walk in. So I think that's really you know, what everything looks like for me. But I think you know, that I can do this. And you know, even though it's a bit awkward, I think I can manage. Jamie Beaton 02:38 I'm very confident you can, I'm actually calling you today from New Zealand, which is one of the few places in the world that's currently quite COVID, free, as our Prime Minister has done quite a good job of locking down the borders. And we're quite a remote island. But I do miss the us quite a bit. I was there in both Boston and California for college and Business School. And I do miss it quite a bit. Now, if you think about your your academic journey and your age, what years would you say you had the kind of peak acceleration in terms of years of content you got through, you know, for a given year level. So for example, maybe from age into 11, you got through three years of high school content or something like this. So where would you say your fastest acceleration was? Caleb Anderson 03:20 Really thing is beginning in the end, you know, when I started college, I think that's, you know, I'm one of my periods of acceleration, you know, one of the greatest because college semesters cause one high school, you know, on full year, so, I'm doing High School, you know, I'm twice as fast. So I'm already you know, in my senior year, with this goal enrollment program, I'm doing high school and college at the same time. So, you know, I'm, if I'm doing full time I call it I'm doing High School twice as fast. And, you know, the early years, babies, you know, they make 3 million, I think it was 3 million neural neural connections a minute, um, you know, until there's the age of three, I really think that on my mom's, you know, saw this and she also saw, you know, my extreme, you know, aptitude for intellect. So, I think she, you know, I'm fed that an early age, and, you know, I was doing communication in fractions, you know, when I was two, so, um, you know, that's third grade things for that's for people, you know, four times my age. So that is another period, you know, when I was learning the quickest. Jamie Beaton 04:20 Okay, that makes a lot of sense. One kind of piece of my, I guess, academic philosophy that I really believed in is this idea of competency learning where you move based on your ability, you know, not your age. So, you know, I think to students like Tristan Pang, who was a student of mine a little while ago, who finished high school when he was 13, and then finished his first degree when he was 16. And now he's in Oxford doing his PhD when he's 17. And when I spoke to him, one of the key breakthrough insights he had was really, in school, if you just move at the pace, you'll teach the teaching you, you know, you're just going to be very arbitrarily constrained. But you know, he just chose to go super deep and math and just You know, keep digging and digging and digging and taking more and more advanced coursework. What's your view on competency learning? Do you think that there are many students who could systematically accelerate a little bit? Or do you think that this is, you know, this is something that is highly anomalous, and actually can't easily be replicated around the world. Caleb Anderson 05:20 I think that, you know, everybody has the aptitude to do this. But you know, I really think that, you know, that that one class that, you know, you're, it's really boring to you, and, you know, you don't feel like they were learning anything in that class, I think that's the class that, you know, you should be accelerated, and, you know, um, our modern, you know, our system, the whole path doesn't move on into the last student understands the subject. And, you know, there might be classes where you're bad at, and, you know, there might be classes where you're extremely good at, and, you know, there might be classes, we're just average out. And, you know, I think a good kind of learning would be accelerating at your own pace, you know, being slower at some classes and faster at other classes, you know, um, I have a friend, he goes to a hybrid homeschool, and, you know, he's doing sixth grade math, but he's doing 12th grade history, and things like that. And, you know, I think that, you know, that's a really good philosophy, you know, for the classroom. And I think it's a really good philosophy overall. Jamie Beaton 06:19 Yeah, I totally agree. Because I think, you know, people do have different expertise levels in various subjects. And so it's very arbitrary that you would go through all your subjects at the same speed. I totally agree. I also think there's like some subjects that are so content based, like, say biology or history and other subjects that require, you know, some really solid like quantitative reasoning, like math and physics. So your ability to process those two types of subjects can be quite different depending on what age you are, how did you find those more content based subjects, like the histories and the biologies compared to those subjects? like math, for example, where it's a lot more about calculations and quantitative reasoning? What was your strength initially? And how do you feel? Caleb Anderson 07:01 I'm definitely stronger, and you know, I'm verbal academics or academia, um, you know, I'm gonna history I know, I read extremely fast, I read a 12th grade level, I've been reading on 12th grade level, actually, for quite a while. And, you know, I really think that, you know, those are my strong suits. I'm not really too good at math, and I've never been good at math, but I still count on my fingers every once in a while. Um, so no, I don't think math is my strong sheet. But once you start doing it, and, you know, once you get to the fun parts of math, I think, you know, I am accelerating know, in my math, you know, I don't, I don't have to think as long for the know, the short calculations. And I really think that, you know, I'm becoming, you know, my grade level in that. Jamie Beaton 07:46 Now, I read the, you're interested in a lot of different career pathways, one being space, space exploration, aeronautical engineering, etc. And the second being law. And this is very close to home, as in my undergrad degree at Harvard, I did applied math, and that was quite an engineering focused topic, and then recently, actually began at law school. And so I have seen both of these worlds quite closely. And I'm very curious to hear from you, you know, what attracts you to these two different schools of thought? And where do you see your future life? Caleb Anderson 08:17 Well, I think the reason, you know, I'm really attracted to science and things like that, you know, I math is because, you know, it's harder for me, it's more of a challenge for me, you know, I think that it's not something that I would necessarily excel at, but you know, it's something that, you know, I'm gonna have to work for, I'm gonna have to, you know, strive to complete. And, you know, I, I like challenges. So, you know, I think, and I've always been fascinated with space anyways. So, you know, I don't want to have some easy, you know, some easy goal, you know, I want to push myself, and I think, the law, I think, you know, again, I I'm better at, you know, verbal things. So, I'm reading, talking, debating, things like that. So I think that, you know, if anything happens to, you know, my dream of helping people get up to space, you know, I think that I do have a fallback plan, something that, you know, I'm good at, and, you know, I'm, you know, I can make money, and you know, I can support myself until you know, I can get back up again. Jamie Beaton 09:12 One of our alumni actually a boy called Zong he was from New Zealand, actually. Then he went to Caltech. And now he's working for Tesla, which is quite cool, which I guess is one step removed from SpaceX. But, you know, these are really exciting companies that are attracting lots of young talent, what particular excites you about companies like SpaceX? Caleb Anderson 09:34 I think the difference between NASA and SpaceX is SpaceX is doing things that haven't been done before. And NASA is sticking to the formula that they already know, and trying to, you know, make it better. And I honestly think both of those things are good, you know, pushing, you know, the boundaries of reality, pushing the boundaries of, you know, the impossible and the impossible. You know, I think that's really important, but you know, playing it safe And trying to, you know, having a sort of primitive technology, trying to make it better, you know, trying to evolve it, I think that's, you know, and also a really good thing that you can do to, you know, I guess change humanity for the better. And people have to push the boundaries, say, the light bulb on Thomas Edison and Nikola Tesla, or more Nikola Tesla, but he really had to, you know, push the boundaries, you know, say candles, you know, we don't use candles anymore. We're gonna use lights, this is better. But now we have, you know, these LED lights, we have these. We have these chandeliers. Now we have all enemies have all these kinds of, you know, lights, and, you know, they're all better than, you know, just a simple light bulb. And, you know, um, they're all more useful than just a simple white ball. I think that, you know, that really differentiates between what you know, companies like SpaceX, and what companies know, like NASA are doing. Jamie Beaton 10:53 I think watching this from afar, it does seem like basics has both the resourcing and the ambition to Yeah, push the boundaries, like you've said, and they've been able to attract many talented young people like yourself, you know, aspiring to go there who normally wouldn't enter the space sector, but you know, are entering it because of the level of innovation that we're seeing from Ilan and the team at SpaceX, which is, you know, quite powerful. The other thing is, it seems to be quite a phenomenon now that private space companies are driving innovation, whether it be, you know, Blue Origin from Jeff Bezos, or, you know, Musk's SpaceX, as opposed to the government organizations like NASA. So I think there hasn't been a time in human history before where private space entrepreneurs have driven so much of the innovation. What do you think is the role of the entrepreneur in the world? Do you think that government should be solving a lot of our big challenges? Or do you think that it should be folks like the Musk's of the world that go out there and try and deal with things like climate change and sustainability? Caleb Anderson 11:51 I really think people will, you know, like, Musk, you know, these people should start it. But I do think, you know, the government is going to be the one that ends it, you know, I think someone has to speak up, and, you know, tell people that, you know, this is a problem, or, you know, we have to do this. And, you know, I think, you know, people who step up like that, you know, people like Elon Musk, who are stepping up like that, you know, trying to, you know, change the world. You know, I think people like that, you know, are the people who are going to start these movements, but ultimately, you know, the government has more money, it has more, it has more power and more authority. And I think that, you know, if if, you know, the government says, hey, that's a good idea, let's try to uplift this, you know, it'll make the people feel better, we'll make the environment better in so you know, if they catch on to these ideas, and, you know, I really think that they're going to be the one, you know, I'm finishing off. Jamie Beaton 12:40 Yeah, I think that's very smart. In the case of, for example, here's where I know, they've received more than a billion in grants from the government to subsidize them on the basis of their, you know, renewable, sustainable efforts. So I think you're right, that the government does definitely enable some of these new technologies that might not be so cost effective. On a standalone basis, a lot of companies, a lot of countries, I should say, have been announcing his commitments to going to electric cars, when you're about 20. When you're about 25, what do you think the world is going to look like? You know, do you think there's going to be still a ton of kind of petrol cars in the road? Where do you think space travel will be? Give me some of your predictions? 10 years ahead. Caleb Anderson 13:21 10 years ahead, I really think that, you know, this decade, and you know, possibly even the next decade, someone will, you know, have gone to Mars, and you know, I'm really hoping for that. But you know, I don't think cars are gonna go away, they're cheaper, you know, then a little bit better for, you know, the economy, because, you know, there are a lot of these gas companies, and know, what are we going to do with all of these, you know, these 1000s of these millions of cars, that are, you know, are just sitting in people's backyards, you know, they're all gas, if we start making these electric cars cheaper, you know, people might start buying them, you know, the newer generation, and, you know, I don't think people you know, I don't really think cars will go away. But you know, I think the emission, you know, are going to, you know, slowly but surely, you know, I think they're gonna go down. Jamie Beaton 14:10 And I get some truly interesting speaking to a student as motivated as you What do you think motivates you? What, what gets you up every day to attend these classes at midnight? Or to, you know, get into college early? You know, where does the drive come from? And what keeps you going? Caleb Anderson 14:24 I think a lot of people are counting on me, you know, especially, you know, since, you know, the story broke and things like that, you know, a lot of people have their attention on me. I think that and, you know, a lot of my friends and a lot of my family, you know, they're looking at me, as well. So I think that's, you know, one of the things that motivates you, or me, and I think, you know, the other thing is, you know, it's fun, it's a little bit hard to explain, you know, I don't particularly you know, like like doing the work, but I do like learning and I think, you know, work is part of learning and you know, that's just a step that I have to take. And, you know, it is fun, you know, just learning new things, you know, having information, you know, in my brain that I can use, you know, help the world and know, I'm, everyone's gonna want to talk to my friends, you know, I think that, um, you know, just being able to learn, you know, being able to see, oh, this is how this works or, you know, this is how the world works, that's one of the things that really motivates me. Jamie Beaton 15:21 And that's the end, I guess, reflecting back on your journey, so far, it's, you know, gone quite incredibly, anything that you would go back and change, like, anything you wish you learned that you haven't learned yet, etc, or you feel like it's been pretty solid. Caleb Anderson 15:35 I think that, you know, there are a lot of paths that it could have taken that, you know, might have been easier. But no, I could have, um, you know, actually gone to college a year before. So, you know, I might have been in Georgia Tech now. So I think that's one of the things that, you know, I would have done, but, um, I didn't, you know, there are a lot, there are some schools that, you know, I didn't really I didn't like, and I really feel like I wasted some of my time there. So I think that, you know, I if, you know, going to, you know, a better more stem focused school, I think that, you know, would have been, you know, better spent time. Other than that, I don't really think there's a lot I could have changed, there's some stuff that you know, that I would have changed, but you know, it's outside of my control, like the pandemic. But, you know, other than that, you know, there's really nothing, I'm really glad you know, where I am. And, you know, it's not perfect, but, you know, it's the way life goes. And, you know, I personally like my wife, Jamie Beaton 16:32 yeah, no, it's, it's incredible. I think I'm reflecting back on my high school journey, probably, I would have switched French for Mandarin, because I guess there will be a lot more useful probably, in modern careers, given the rise of China, and then I would have proceeded to take in computer science, but apart from that, you know, I was also quite content. How do you like languages? You know, do you put much focus on languages, or not, not too much of an interesting to you, Caleb Anderson 16:55 I don't think languages are, I've learned six languages in the past, but I only remember a little bit of like, middle school, high school Spanish. So I think that, you know, I should have put a little bit more focus into languages, but Americans are lazy, and, you know, everybody's learning English now. So I don't think it's going to be too much of a problem. But, you know, I do wish that, you know, I could have communicated with people in the native language, you know, I think it's much more polite. Jamie Beaton 17:27 What's really interesting, now thinking forward to your role models, so who are some of the people that you know, you're just really inspired by, you follow, you're excited by who some of those role models, both in your immediate community and then in the wider world, Caleb Anderson 17:41 immediate community, definitely, my parents, the reason they work is for us, though, sometimes they don't really realize it. Um, you know, and sometimes, you know, I don't care, but, um, you know, they're trying to do the best they can. And, you know, I, you know, I really want to, you know, imitate that. And I really respect that. And, you know, in more of the wider world, I have three, you know, I'm really big role models, Eleanor Roosevelt, you know, as a black person, you know, I really respect what she did for this Husky airman, and, you know, for the entire civil rights movement, you know, as a whole, she, you know, she pushed the boundaries, you know, she tried, she tried to, you know, change America. And, you know, even she even changed, you know, some of the whole world, you know, by, you know, being a white lady, you know, trying trying to respect black people, and Native Americans and, and, you know, things like that, um, Nikola Tesla, he, you know, Thomas Edison, kind of, you know, stole his idea, but he didn't care, you know, he kept on working, even though he knew it would happen. And Thomas Edison literally made a bet for $50,000 if you could, you know, invent the basic idea for the light bulb. And, you know, Nikola Tesla did it. And, you know, Thomas Edison was like, No, I'm gonna pay you, like, $10 an hour. I think that was horrible what he did to him, but you know, um, you know, he kept on going, and, you know, he invented, you know, other things. And, you know, he did change the world. And lastly, I think Neil Neil deGrasse Tyson, um, you know, again, as a black person, you know, he made it, and, you know, it really shows me that I can make it incredible. Jamie Beaton 19:20 And what do you think of Kamala Harris becoming the VP in the US? You know, her being the first Caleb Anderson 19:26 woman Vice President, the first woman, I know, the first black Vice President, the first vice president, as a daughter of immigrants, and, you know, I'm all of those except a woman, you know. So, you know, I think that, you know, again, it also shows that, you know, you can be whoever you want to be regardless of the amount of melanin in your skin, regardless of you know, your gender, you know, regardless of your disabilities, regardless of your, you know, your sexuality, you know, regardless of anything you you can be who you want to be. Jamie Beaton 19:58 I think it's a very inspiring message and And yeah, I think people all around the world are, you know, watching the US fascination obviously, I've never, for example seen in New Zealand, so many people are fascinated by the US elections as they are now, you know, for obvious reasons. And I think this new era will, you know, hopefully see a return to a normal us presidency, what do you think? You know, we're Caleb Anderson 20:19 still gonna feel a little bit of backlash, but, you know, especially since you know, the attack on the Capitol, there might be more of these terrorism acts. And, you know, I live pretty close to Atlanta. So I'm a bit worried. But I really think that once you know, our new president comes in, I think that you know, um, things will start changing, and hopefully for the better, nothing's gonna be perfect. President Biden and vice president Harris are not going to be perfect. But you know, I think that they're gonna start, you know, distribute the Coronavirus, Coronavirus vaccine, and they're gonna try to, you know, change, like, minorities. And you know, I'm in the US. And I think that we're going to try to make, you know, the US as an example for other countries, Jamie Beaton 21:01 while sit will sit Okay, and then taking, I guess, a final little detour. How do you think about extracurriculars? So when you're going through school, to all these great academics, you know, how relevant were things like sports or like community service or other things to you? Was that a big focus? And I asked this, because, you know, many of our students around the world apply to the US for college, and a big part of the application process is typically, extracurriculars, leadership, you know, personal statements, that kind of thing. So how have you waited kind of those don't academic things? Is that been a focus for you? Or have you been just so busy with all of his academic? Caleb Anderson 21:37 Yes, COVID, I haven't really been able to do a lot of extra clicks here activities, but, um, I put in semi competitively, you know, in my neighborhood, and, you know, I dance, um, you know, which is really fun, but I don't think extracurricular activities are too much of a focus for me, I, you know, try to I try to help out my local church. Again, since COVID. I haven't really been able to do any community service, any meal, sports, anything like that. But um, you know, previously, I think that I have been able to, you know, help my baby. Jamie Beaton 22:08 Got it. Got it. Okay. Now, since you're really in a great place, you've accelerated nicely, you're starting in Georgia Tech shortly. I'm sure you'll get a strong GPA. What are some of your goal? graduate schools, you would want to go to graduate school something you're excited by? what particular degree programs? You know, are you interested? I guess law school is one of them. But yeah, any any particular degrees you're kind of excited to do in the future. Caleb Anderson 22:32 Massachusetts Institute of Technology, I think that's my dream school. I know that MIT, you know, Georgia Tech is one of the best schools for aerospace engineering in the country. But I know MIT is just a little bit better. Um, you know, they have more money, you know, they have better technology, you know, um, you know, they have better students. And, you know, it's okay, if you graduated from Georgia Tech, you know, on this MIT this route, I mean, I'm just gonna go on to Georgia Tech. But I really, you know, I really hoped to, you know, go to MIT and get my PhD. They're amazing. Jamie Beaton 23:01 It's a fantastic goal. And, you know, recently your story has been really inspiring many young people around the world as they hear about your, you know, really amazing acceleration. So how have you been handling this kind of media? attention? Has it been quite fun? Has it been challenging? Has it been annoying? Tell me a bit about that experience. Caleb Anderson 23:18 It's definitely been fun talking to people from around the world to new perspectives on you know, just someone like me, you know, I'm just a little 12 year old from Georgia. Um, you know, you know, it's, it's been fun, it's been interesting, you know, I'm seeing people's takes on me. And, you know, people say to my parents, and, you know, my learning, every once in a while, can get annoying. If I have three or four interviews in one day. That's, that's not fun. I can't really do my work. I can't really, you know, watch TV or play any games or anything like that. But, you know, it's not really too much of a hindrance. And yeah, I think that's, you know, we are mostly, you know, really fun, and I do really enjoy this. Jamie Beaton 24:00 That's great. And lastly, you know, it's easy to look at a student as incredibly gifted as you and assume that, you know, you don't do much for fun, you know, you cranked academics, but you know, talking to you, it's clear that you probably have, you know, but a balance as well. So, what kind of things do you do for fun? You know, do you play any particular video games you like, or any movies you like, you know, what do you do when you just want to relax? Caleb Anderson 24:21 I like anime. I love Marvel movies. I like these Japanese toys called beyblades, nerf, transformers. My dad introduced me to the old like 1980s Transformers when I was six. And I actually since i think that you know, on most of my arm, things I do for fun. I really like hanging out with my friends. You know, it's been it's gotten a bit harder during COVID we quarantine ourselves and then we we hang out. But I don't really think that I know a lot of people see me as you know, this nerd who solves Rubik's Cubes when I'm nervous. or something like that. Um, that's, you know, a lot of my friends is here as like, you know, go to a different school. And you know, a lot of people don't tell me that I'm emotionally mature as well, especially for my age, you know, I can sit in the classroom with people, you know, twice my age, and not be bothered by it. And you know, they're not really bothered by me know, a lot of people know who I see, you know, actually don't know my age, and they're really surprised to know my age, they just think I'm sure. So I don't think I'm really nerdy. I just think I have good grades. Jamie Beaton 25:37 Yeah, no, no, I can attest, you know, you're very mature for your age, I don't think I've spoken about, you know, US presidential elections with many 12, 13, 14 year old before in my life. So this is very exciting to me. In any final advice you'd give to our listeners around the world. Caleb Anderson 25:55 Definitely believe in yourself. I know, it's real. It's pretty cheesy. But I think that's very important. Because a lot of people tell you that you're not allowed to do this, or you can't do this. But you know, you don't know something's possible. Until you know, someone does it. People think back hundreds of years ago, people thought that, you know, we wouldn't have these flying missiles. But you know, we do we know people who invented this kind of stuff. And a lot of people told, you know, these people like Henry Ford, you know, this is impossible, but he did it, you know, he created cars, you know, people told Nikola Tesla, hey, you can't make a electricity candle, but he did it, we have light bulbs. So you know, I think that, you know, that's believing in yourself. And you know, not listening to what other people tell you. And you know, really important. Another thing is not being afraid to fail, you will learn more from failure than from success. Everyone has failed at least once every famous actor, every famous engineer, every famous entrepreneur, they've all you know, hit the downward spiral, you know, they've all hit rock bottom. But you know, they got back up, and they learn from their mistakes. So I think that's, you know, another really important thing, you know, to success. Jamie Beaton 27:07 Incredible. Thanks, Caleb. Well, that’s been a real blast. That's everything for today. But yeah, I just want to say, you know, it's very inspiring your story. I do meet many students around the world over ambitious, but I think what you've achieved so far is incredible. And you should keep it up. The momentum is so strong, and I'm sure you're going to achieve some wild things I look forward to following the story. Also, I have many of my alumni that place that MIT, etc. So let me know if I can be useful to connect from you to any of them. And, you know, more than happy to help, but yeah, keep it up. Keep it up. I'll be cheering you on. Caleb Anderson 27:37 All right. Thank you. Podcast Host 27:38 Thanks for listening to top of the class. subscribe for future episodes for show notes and to plan your best future head to Crimsoneducation.org

Ep #27 Building Businesses that Change the World with Young Australian of the Year, Nathaniel Diong

🗓 JAN 16, 2021

See transcript

Podcast Host 00:00 Welcome to the Top of the Class podcast. I'm your host, Alex Cork. And this episode is packed with amazing advice from the founder and CEO of the Future Minds Network and young Victorian of the Year, Nathaniel Diong. With a burning desire to change the world for the better. Nathaniel turned to entrepreneurship. And today, more than 11,000 students have learned the fundamentals of how to start a business through the Future Minds Network. Nathaniel discusses the misconceptions around entrepreneurship, and how to get started today. Let's chat with Nathaniel Diong. Nathaniel, Welcome to the Top of the Class podcast, it's fantastic to have you on. Can you tell our listeners a little bit about yourself? Nathaniel 00:53 Yeah, thanks for having me, Alex. Well, I'm Daniel, I'm the CEO of future mines network. And I've been working to unlock the endless potential of youth, whilst tackling stemming unemployment through entrepreneurship. So we've been really lucky to work with 11,000 Youth across the world to build human skills, a growth mindset and create their own jobs through startups. Podcast Host 01:14 Right. It sounds like you've done that quite a few times. When did you start future minds network? Nathaniel 01:19 Yes, I actually started the exodus theme. And it really came from a place of helplessness. And I grew up feeling really helpless to make a difference where 1000s of people died each day. And so I actually, I got clinically diagnosed with depression, because I spent a lot of time thinking about people in the world who would die. And I wanted young people to realize they could make a difference and realize their own potential. Podcast Host 01:41 I think that's an interesting take that you go to Ward's creating an organization or building a network of people. When the enormity of the issue is weighing so heavily on your shoulders, it can be very difficult to kind of say, what can I do as one person? I think a lot of people get weighed down by that, right? They see the world's issues, and they think, well, what can I do? And you're like, well, I might not be able to do much as one person. But if I put together a whole group of people, and created a network now that has a bit more power, was that your thinking behind creating future minds network? Nathaniel 02:16 Yeah, like for me, you know, I spent like six years thinking about what I could do to make a difference. And it really just started from an idea. I thought to myself, What if we could do this? What if we could run a conference where we could gather people just like me, and see what we could do? And so you know, sometimes I wish I had this grand idea that I create a company that would influence 1000s, and millions. But it really, it never intended to be a company. I started it off as a gathering of 100 yachties. And it just grew from there. Podcast Host 02:48 Where did you go about finding those emojis? I mean, like you were trying to find people like you, how many people will like you at school? Did you have to go too far outside of that community to find these 100 young ladies, Nathaniel 03:01 I think in terms of people like me, not many, because I spent a lot of time by myself thinking about these issues, and really trying to dissect and understand the world around me, like, at 10 years old, the world, like cracks already began to form in a perfect world where I realized that, you know, it was an absolute privilege to have a bed to sleep on every night. And you have to be on the table and to have water. And I think particularly if this conference, what I realized was young people really do want to make a difference, but they just don't know how they don't have the right tools to do so. And they don't know where to start. And so we see this increasingly, like even see on social media, where young people are getting more work, if you will, and more aware of the issues around them, and using advocacy as a way to do that. But for me, I wanted to do more than that. And I wanted to be able to create tangible projects where we could actually see the impact happen. And so that's where I stumbled into entrepreneurship. And the journey began. Podcast Host 03:57 It's very interesting to kind of take that leap from advocacy to projects and tangible, actual action. How big a leap was that? And was that a big challenge for you? Nathaniel 04:08 Yeah, definitely a big challenge. And by all means, I don't think like advocacy or entrepreneurship should be one or the other. I definitely think like, in order for us to work as a society, they really have to coexist. Yeah. And you can't have entrepreneurship without advocacy. And you can't have advocacy without entrepreneurship. There's not one that's better than the other or one that's like more superior in that sense. And in terms of elite to me, I literally, I mean, and to this day, I'm a big believer that nobody knows anything. And so for me, it was just a process of just trying and figuring out what I could do. I literally started with a conference and I thought about, okay, how can we actually turn this conference into something where we make tangible projects. And so I started this idea of a hackathon. And I explored that and then eventually it turned into a fully fledged program where I began running it at high schools across Australia and so on. For me, I think it's a very like entrepreneurship mindset in the sense that I really had to just build, measure and learn everything I did. And from that I was able to see what worked and what didn't, and really understand what are the intricacies? And how do I actually run a program like this. And so like throughout the whole program, like, and my whole journey, the company and its vision has constantly evolved. I wouldn't say that even now I have like, one set definition of what it is. But that's the beauty of it. Like just like a team culture. And just like, the world that we live in today, everything is constantly evolving and changing. Did you have any co founders, so I was doing a solo, I had a, I had a team of about eight, so I had a cabinet of eight at my school. And so they helped me to sort of coordinate the conference. There were some mishaps in the conference, actually, on the day, we had one entire school rock up that we didn't account for. And so he had an additional like, 30 people to feed with no budget to do so I'll venue space got cancelled three times. So we had to re navigate. And the project and technology shut down for an hour. Podcast Host 06:06 Of course it does. Like the one thing you can almost certainly bank on is the time you run your first conference, that object is going to shut down. Nathaniel 06:15 And so like throughout the whole process, like we have to add live, we have to find icebreakers to fill in the time do new activities. And I feel like you know, that first taste of running that conference is exactly what entrepreneurship is like us, as a founder, you have to do everything from marketing, to pitching to business modeling. And a lot of the time things aren't going to go your way. But being able to adapt in these times of uncertainty and extreme pressure is what's going to help you in the future. And I think like during the moment, I very much considered the conference as a failure. I was like I did such a bad job as a leader, you know, I should have been able to see these risks in advance. But looking back, it was a really valuable learning experience for me to see that now, even if you plan, the best conference in the world, mistakes are gonna happen. And it was two or three years ago, I was actually chatting to someone who'd been to the conference. And they said, it was absolutely amazing. And I talked to them about like everything that happened. And they're like, really, I had no idea. And to me that that really amazed me. Because in the moment, I was like, This is the worst thing I've ever done in my life. I've made the biggest mistakes. And so it's really interesting to see those two different perspectives where, you know, you can be really harsh on yourself in the moment. But failure is really just another learning experience. So you'd build measure and Linda? Podcast Host 07:35 Yeah, absolutely. And you do say build, measure and learn. And you say that as if it's like something that you approach almost everything you do with that philosophy of build, measure, learn. What are some of the metrics that you use to build, measure, learn? Nathaniel 07:51 I think it really depends, depends on what what projects you're running. But typically, like, in everything that you do, particularly if you're if you're building your own business, for example, you're really testing a bunch of assumptions, right? And so it really starts with the customer. So customer is king in everything, and being able to understand what are the pain points that they actually suffering from? And what how does my solution? Or how does my company actually fix that? A lot of people approach entrepreneurship, thinking that, you know, I have the best solution in the world, I'm going to change this problem forever. But I forget that the customer is at the core of that problem. And so whether build measure land comes in, is really testing these hypotheses on these customers and understanding what is the biggest problem that they're facing right now? How can we focus our priorities on that, rather than trying to force something or the best product in the world onto them? Podcast Host 08:46 What is it like being a student entrepreneur, though? Do you think it is easier to be a entrepreneur or entrepreneurial student? Or is it easier to be an entrepreneurial 20 to 23 year old? Nathaniel 09:00 It's it's a double edged sword with everything. Particularly when you're younger, there's more room to fail. Yes. And that's because nobody really expects you to do anything better. And so if you come in fresh faced 17 1819 start a business and it fails. No one bad tonight. But if you're 34 years old, trying to sell into like a new career, if you fail, there's a lot more at stake, you have to think about family car mortgage housing. But beyond that, there's a lot about reputation and what other people will think of you. But when you're young, not only do people not have any expectations of what you should do, because they think you should be studying. But people are also a lot more willing to help you because they've been there before. They have been young people who've had amazing ideas of the world that they want to create, but haven't been supported to do so. And so a lot of the times you'll get, you know, political entrepreneurs from Y Combinator or Forbes 30 under 30 actually come back and teach the students because they're doing what they wish they had. when they're younger, and so very much we see this in our programs that future minds Well, we have amazing entrepreneurs come in and teach these students and everything from customer discovery and validation, all the way to how to create a business model and pitching. And it's all based on wanting to give back, because they wish they could have started their business at 16 instead of 20. Podcast Host 10:21 Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I think I think there's a lot of people who would love to see entrepreneurship being a bigger feature of the school curriculum. And I, you know, there's the argument that people like Gary Vee often make that school failed him because it didn't give him the toolkit to be an entrepreneur, and he had to kind of self learned, did you have to self learn it too? Like, were you kind of just going on YouTube or talking to people? How were you approaching the discovery and experience of entrepreneurship and trying to learn what to do? Nathaniel 10:51 It was all learning by doing. And so you know, when you when somebody wants to learn soccer, right, you don't tell them to sit on the bench and watch someone else play soccer for a week. Because that only helps when you know what you're watching for. Get them to get on the field, start playing gel, start playing games, losing over and over again, and practicing and practicing and practicing until we get better. And so for me, that was the exact same process, I just started building things when they didn't work. I use that as an opportunity to think about what did I learn from this experience, because failure is just feedback, right? It's telling me what's not working and what I can do better. And so the other thing I did was really surrounded myself with community, I surrounded myself with people who I looked up to in the space, and try to learn from them, like very much like law of attraction that you might have heard of, yeah, but being able to manifest and if that's something that you want to become, in the future, hang around those people, and really being able to understand and realize that, Hey, I know nothing now. But there's a whole world of opportunity where I can learn more, I think the other thing was consistently putting myself into ditching me, I went into like seven different startup programs across Australia, where I got to learn through a program, which is meant to give birth to startups. And so I got to learn from the weight Institute from Fitzroy Academy, catalyze a lot of different programs, where the whole process was them teaching you how to learn by doing and constantly pushing you to fail, Podcast Host 12:23 did interesting kind of concept of learning by doing I think there's some people who are doing but not learning at the same time, like they're just doing and they're pushing forward, or they're too attached to their idea. And then they externalize blame, oh, it was these things that were the issue, not my product, not my marketing, not my this, that or the other. It was everything else. But me that was the issue. How do you switch that kind of thinking to take responsibility, take ownership of what is going right? And more importantly, what is going wrong? without necessarily feeling without feeling weighed down by the failures and thinking that maybe entrepreneurship isn't for you, right? Like, how do you keep the motivation going, as you're taking responsibility for the failures, because that must be a bit of a tricky thing to do. Nathaniel 13:13 It's a delicate balance. Because obviously, you know, we talked about this trait called pathological optimism, where you continue to fail, even though you know, you will fail, and you go into that failing again, and again, and again, and you constantly get up. And that's one of the biggest and best things that I've found that can have in mindset. But the other hand is, it's also really important for founders to know when to stop, you know, when an idea is not working and be able to pivot or persevere. Those are the two options that we often hear about. I think, particularly when we talk about an idea and holding yourself dear to the failures that happen, I've definitely encountered that before. One of the things that I've had is almost thinking about your idea as a rock, right? It's not your baby, it's not part of you. It's a rock sitting on the table. And so when people talk to you about your idea and give you ideas about that idea, or they give you feedback on the idea, they're not criticizing you, they're describing the rock. And they're giving you feedback on how to shape that into a better towel than you could ever imagine before. And so I think really taking this perspective and being able to process feedback is something that takes a while as well, because there is a beauty in being able to create something of your own. Because it's like your baby, right? Like when you start a podcast, you're proud of that. Oh, yeah, I think that you've made right and you can't take away from that. But I think what really differentiates success is being able to see your idea as a rock and allow other people to describe that for you and see what they see because you're going to be able to really understand all these different perspectives that you might never have seen before. People could be seeing the rock from a completely different angle. Like it could be in front of you here, but they could be describing the crevices on the other side. Podcast Host 14:55 I love that idea because I feel like in my life at the moment, my brother is Got his own business? Yeah. And I feel like he is the business. Right, he hasn't been able to externalize the business from him. So when people are critical of the business, he feels like Nathaniel 15:11 an attack on yourself. Podcast Host 15:12 Yeah, right. Right, he feels it and it gets him down. And that kind of stuff when he kind of used that thinking of the rock or externalized. And being like, it's not a criticism of me, it's just feedback on the rock, right, which is, you know, the rock that you've created and whatnot, but still, it's, you know, perfectly fine to give feedback to that external piece of piece of yourself, then that's, that's, I think, super, super important. Nathaniel 15:35 The other thing is like being really conscious of who you take feedback from? Yes, the way that I sort of think about it is I almost have like three buckets of where I see feedback. So there are like one or two people that I really look up to. And I really value that advice, because I know they have, like experience, particularly in the industry of education. And they have valuable insight that there are two to five people who have some involvement in entrepreneurship and know the space well, that I sort of trust. And when I hear that advice, I'll consider it or not consider it. And then there's everyone else who has never started a startup before has never worked in education. And the opinions won't really influence the decisions I make. And so it's really important because often, when you're first in your journey, you're listening to everybody, because you want to receive all that advice. But when you do that, people might point you in all different directions, and you won't know where to go. So knowing what to regulate. And when people do describe that rock, knowing what to receive and what not to receive is also a really good trait as well like having one or two trusted people, where you know that they probably have the best angle that you've never thought about and being able to consider that. But then also having the bucket where people describe that rock and they tell you what to do. But knowing that if they have no experience, and you don't trust what they have to say, then it's totally okay to stick to your guns. 100% I Podcast Host 16:57 think it's a really interesting concept of those unsolicited advice that you get 17:03 a lot, right. Yeah, yeah. So Podcast Host 17:05 how do you pretend to listen to the unsolicited advice without necessarily being, you know, mean, or cutting people off? Like, they're obviously trying to give advice, because they feel that their advice would be helpful at this point in time and whatnot. But like, if you haven't chosen them, as your trusted source, how do you kind of sit there and nod and say, Oh, yes, that's very interesting. I'll definitely give that a go. Like, how do you handle that? Nathaniel 17:29 I don't think you have to necessarily, like be fake about it, and nod and agree. But the way that I tend to deal with it is I like to listen first and completely, like, I might spend one or two days actually processing the information, somebody told me next one or two days, I won't receive it straightaway. And so I really acknowledge it because I genuinely care about the advice they're giving me. But I'll look at my own values, I look at what I've learnt and see where does that actually fit in? If it challenges my beliefs? Is it challenging it in a way that will result in progress? Or is it challenging it in a way that will just serve to put me down? Because sometimes the advice that you get is completely unconstructive. People might just say your ideas, horrible idea doesn't have customers, the idea doesn't have a market, which may be true. And so being able to have that time to weigh up these options, and really understand where they're coming from, Podcast Host 18:25 I think it's really important as well. I think sometimes like parents, they can be so well meaning, but at the end of the day, they might not know a huge amount about what you're trying to achieve. And other friends might say, well, well, I know you so well. And you're like yes, but you might be a bit of a negative Nelly, and I love you for it. But in this case, I'm going to choose who I take my advice from. So when you're thinking of the people who you take your advice from, what was your selection criteria for that, like, what were you trying to, or who were you trying to pick and for what reasons, Nathaniel 18:54 and we're not talking about people that I trust or information that I trust, I always look for things that challenge my perspective. And so particularly, it's almost like I seek out people who don't think like me, is often in the space, it's easy to get trapped in your own bubble. And I think we see this in our friendship groups as well, obviously, the friends that we have people who are a lot like us, because we don't want the disagreement, and we don't have it, we just want to hang out and have a good time. And so for me, I like to hang out with people who have a lot of different perspectives to me. So for example, you know, in the education space, someone that I talked to about education innovation is Janette chia from the hacker exchange. So she has a really interesting insight about what the future of work is going to look like, how startups are going to influence that and how the gig economy is constantly changing, that I might not have the same expertise of. So I see the rock, I see the angle, but I see that angle from the person of a young person who's trying to navigate the world of work Janette, she sees it in the perspective of someone who's been in the industry and who's worked in innovation for 1015 years. And so being able to identify what are the things that I'm looking for? And who do I want to challenge my perspectives really helped me to pick the people that I want to spend my time around. Podcast Host 20:11 Yeah, that sounds like a pretty important part of the entrepreneurship process, right? Like you've got your product or your service idea, and you've got all these other bits and pieces. But I think knowing who your trusted sources are, knowing who your community or your support group is, is almost as important as the initial idea in itself, right? Because you know, you need people who will be straight with you will tell you exactly what they're thinking without necessarily being too negative or too nasty about it. So you have been really smart about who you choose, and your support group can be a super important thing. Would you recommend students to choose some older people as well as younger people? Because I mean, I'm sure most kids will look around, you know, in their group. Yeah, as you said, like your circle of friends. Usually you'll find people who agree with you, but I'm willing to guess most students would take their best advice, or their most advice in their circle of friends, and their parents most likely. Nathaniel 21:08 It really depends. I mean, if you have a group of people and all of your friends have businesses that all 17 year old business tycoons, then sure, and the other thing is, maybe they don't have to be business tycoons. Maybe you're working on a idea around disability, and maybe the people that you consult, and your friends are people who've lived with disability, think that's something that we really pushed out programs is, you know, entrepreneurship at future minds isn't just about skills building. That's also about jobs building and mindset building, and thinking about all these different perspectives, and how can I gain insights, and open my mind up to feedback without being overwhelmed by feedback, it doesn't necessarily have to be an older person that you take advice from, but someone with different with experience, or from what I hear from young people is, I don't have enough experience. And I get where that comes from. Because often people think age is experience. But in reality, it's not. Just because you're younger doesn't mean you don't have as much experience means you have a different experience. So depending on the product or service that you're serving the market for. If for example, you're doing work, working with teenagers who love playing video games, and you're developing a solution there, maybe your friends are the best people to talk to because they are the customer. So it really depends on the scenario that you're dealing with. Yeah, Podcast Host 22:28 love that. Love that. How did you say entrepreneurship, helping to solve the issue of injustice and poverty and helping people in different circumstances around the world? Because I think when most students think of entrepreneurship, they're just thinking like money in the bank. Right? So when you think of entrepreneurship, you obviously saw that it could be a solution to some other problems. And how did that come about? And how is the connection continued to grow since then? Nathaniel 22:58 To get context, right now we're in a global unemployment crisis. So 2.8 million young ladies in the next 10 years, need to be significantly rescale. That's seven and 10, Yama, Z's, right. Enterprise skills, human skills, already three times more in demand than technical by employers, and technical is everything that we learn at school. And so entrepreneurship is that gap that bridges all of those things. It does skills building does jobs building, and it does mindset building. And more than that entrepreneurship is a canvas to create change in the world. I started understanding that with entrepreneurship, you could essentially create your own business on anything. And so the way that it really formed was, how might we work with young people to create impact driven businesses? Because what I found was a lot of young people had amazing ideas of how they wanted to change the world. But they just didn't know where to start. Because it seemed too far fetched. Yes, business seem too complicated. It seem like it cost too much capital. And so a lot of it was giving them the blueprint to actually do that. But along the way, we realized that within the education space, it has this endless capacity to help young people into future employment, because you practice things like financial literacy, when you're building your business model. Practice things like communication, when you're pitching. And these are all future skills for a lot of work. Podcast Host 24:18 So like, entrepreneurship isn't just the experience of starting a business, it doesn't matter what the business is, because you will be learning the skills of financial interesting pitching, etc. So it's like, it's like almost a whole new extracurricular, right, because everyone's like, Oh, go do sport. It will teach you teamwork or go down music, it will, you know, make you smarter. But you're like if you want to build a tangible, real world skill set, practice entrepreneurship. Nathaniel 24:45 Yeah. 100%. And the goal of entrepreneurship isn't always to become an entrepreneur. Because whether you succeed or fail, you would have learned skills that are so valuable for future employment. And so we've had what 11,000 young people Go to the program now. So young people from 50 different cultures have gone on to land jobs at UNICEF, build companies with more than 50 employees and gain their own financial freedom. But beyond that those who haven't started their own businesses, they've gained really valuable skills, things like critical thinking, like problem solving, like analytical reasoning, and they've been able to apply it in their own lives to find better employment. Podcast Host 25:25 Now we're getting it because why not? Yeah, I guess, like, my understanding of entrepreneurship was a little bit one dimensional, right? It was like start a business make money, but I didn't really think about it is the skill set and how that skill set can continue to impact you in other areas of life, beyond school, within school, all kinds of different ways. And as you say, like can help to alleviate some of the global issues that are out there, whether that be through starting your own company and employing people donating money. Yeah, because that's why I was trying to think like When most people think I want to make a difference in the world, and I want to help, and I think most students go to the side of, well, I guess I've got to raise money, right, you know, guess we do a casual clothes day. And everyone donates a little bit of money to wear casual clothes. And I guess you're you're kind of thinking bigger and bolder than that. And you're saying I don't know, like, it's about building a skill set first and making long term changes and building a long term skill set for long term impact. Nathaniel 26:20 And sometimes, maybe the donation drives are the best way to do things. Because one of the really important things if entrepreneurship is really being able to understand the customer you're solving for. And so if you do have, like, if you're working with people in Yemen, for example, and you're not from Yemen, and you don't understand the problems they're facing, most likely a business is going to fail. And it's probably not going to make any impact either. It's the same thing where we get you know, policymakers who say young people are the future leaders of tomorrow, but they don't consult young people. And so nothing habits. Yeah, there's no impact that's made. And so you know, when we talk about problems we often think about, you know, have you ever heard of the vitamin best painkiller example? Podcast Host 26:59 And no, Nathaniel 27:00 yeah, okay. So if you take a vitamin every single day, right, and you miss it once, nothing happens. But if you have a burning headache, you'll do anything, and you'll pay anything to get a painkiller. The other side of the spectrum is oxygen. So things you can't live without. So if you go for an entire day, without technology, your phone, the internet, the world's basically going to end, right. So when we think about vitamin, Painkiller, and oxygen, these are the same as how painful our problems are. So if you've got oxygen, you've hit gold. Yeah, something people can live with that. If you have a vitamin. It's a nice addition. But people probably won't care that much about it. painkiller, solving a big pain, that's when you've also hit God, so painkiller and oxygen, because at the end of the day, like each of the businesses that you've run, whether it be impact or not impact, aren't immune to the challenges of business, you still have to finance and what people are going to pay for are things that solve pain points, because there's so many other things to care about. So when we bring that back to the example, you're not solving a painful problem in Yemen, or in your local community, that's not going to be successful business. Podcast Host 28:13 Yeah, fundraising certainly has its place. I'm not saying fundraising is useless thing. I'm just saying like, it's interesting to kind of look at a problem and to think about it in different ways. Nathaniel 28:22 There's a funny story, like, because I started off my journey, fundraising as well. And so one year I did the 40 hour famine, and you might know that 40 hour famine is this competition, where for 40 hours, you give up things you love. This one year, I gave up food, water, technology, transport, furniture, talking, it's Podcast Host 28:44 Oh, my gosh, you went extreme? Nathaniel 28:46 Yeah, yeah. So I was like, completely silent the whole day, didn't eat anything. I had to sleep on the floor, couldn't sit on chairs. But yeah, that was like one of the experiences that you know, where I started off, donating and trying to make my impact there. And then gradually, I stumbled into entrepreneurship. So Podcast Host 29:05 really lucky to have had that journey. Yeah. And you saw that that entrepreneurship could have I guess, longer lasting change, and you could sleep on a bed and sitting on a bed, 29:15 which is a good thing. Podcast Host 29:17 Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Well, I'm interested in your entrepreneurship toolkit, right? So you've got all these different things that are going out there different apps, is there anything that you personally rely on and say, yeah, these are my go to that I use every day. Nathaniel 29:29 Honestly, there aren't any apps or systems in place that are going to make you successful. And there aren't any that you really need to be an entrepreneur, but some good ones just for fun. Things like figma, where you can start prototyping UI and UX. But you can do the exact same job just on paper and do paper prototyping and do sketches and wireframes that, you know, you can use everything from Google Docs to notion to air table where you get to start information, but I think the biggest thing is really starting with what is the problem that I'm solving, as we talked about before? Is it a vitamin painkiller and oxygen, and having open and honest conversations with the customers you're solving the problem for? So I think really like, applications are one thing, but just start and you'll find things that work better for you along the way. Podcast Host 30:21 When you say just start, what would be the first thing, the first point on the to do list that students should have? If they want to get into entrepreneurship more, because I know that there's a lot of students, and also podcast hosts who might suffer a little bit from paralysis by analysis, right? where it's like, I need to know more, I need to research more, and you're obviously an advocate of doing, but I think there's a lot of people who will say, Okay, yeah, look, I get the benefits of doing, but I need to kind of lay a little bit of groundwork first, before I feel ready to do the doing. So what would be some of those initial steps that you think students could take within the next 24 hours or so to start getting their business pointing in the right direction, Nathaniel 31:10 find the problem of solving, find something that you're passionate about, and you're able to relate to, or can connect to, or if you can't, people that you can talk to who suffer from that problem, always start problem first and just go from there. I think, you know, there isn't really a toolkit as to where to start, other than really diving into it. Because along the journey, that's where you actually learn. If you spend all the time planning, everything that you plan is based on assumptions, because you haven't tested anything. It's the same thing as, say, for example, you have like a lab experiment. If you spend all the time planning, you have a great research document, but the research documents going to be black until you do the experiment. That's when you see the results. And you learn from those results. Yes, so the biggest thing is being able to identify a problem, and really understanding you know, what's actually complex about this problem that I haven't thought about before? Who can I talk to who suffers from this problem? Is that a painkiller? Or oxygen? Or vitamin? Yeah, really starting there? Podcast Host 32:11 When you look at some of the world's problems, they can be pretty overwhelming. Would you recommend students look at working on more niche problems they can help solve? Or perhaps problems on a smaller scale? Nathaniel 32:22 Yeah, definitely. That's where they should start. And obviously, from there, it's just a process of brainstorming ideas and what you do, like you can literally, you know, okay, so I care about the environment a lot, I can think about how can we reduce plastic waste, so something very specific, but even then plastic waste is really big. So what's the tangible activity or thing that my business can do? What's the key activity that we can do, or we can earn money from, maybe we collect plastic bags, and we bring them to a recycling center, and they pay us like a seven donation to continue our work. And so it's starting from that problem, brainstorming a whole ton of ideas of what you can do, and testing each one of these ideas until you find something that Podcast Host 33:05 works. I love that last bit there. Because I think so many people get attached to an idea, right? The first idea, or the one that they love the most, or the one that they think will work best, right? And then like they I feel like some people get so attached to that idea that they're either a scared for it to fail, and so don't do much with it. Or be don't consider any other possibilities. And say, like, this is the thing, this is my golden ticket to success, right? No, but I love that idea that it's about creating a whole list, you know, brainstorm, 20 minutes, write as many things as you can all those kinds of ideas, right? There's little activities you can do. And then kind of testing one by one, you know, how will it work? Is it a vitamin? Is it a painkiller? Or is it oxygen? And then kind of going through that process of? Will it be able, you know, will I be able to monetize? You know, will I be able to monetize it? Is that my goal? In any case, you know, is it going to achieve the things that I want it to achieve? Essentially? Nathaniel 34:05 Yeah, exactly. And, you know, like, the first thing I started was a smart to set pack, which is equipped with light sensors and reminders for chronic illness patients. So with remaining chronic illness patients when to take the medication. And when the time was right, the pills would all fall into the center compartment, you'd open it up. And once you've opened it, the sensors would send reminders and notifications to your local GP, and your family and things like that. So they know that you took your minutes. And what I found was no, I tested this idea build prototypes did mdps. And what I found was I just didn't have the interest or expertise to continue doing it. But if I never took the leap, and if I never tried out this idea, I would never have you learned anything. And so I decided to close that idea and start a new one. I started meals and deals which was a start up in food and financial literacy. And I started future minds and so you This whole journey jumping from idea to idea was really exploring everything that we talked about before. It's totally okay to test different ideas. And if they don't work, it's okay to move on to another one. Podcast Host 35:11 I'm sure there's a students who think that once they kind of brand themselves as, say, for instance, the pill reminder guy, that it must be a bit of a pride swallowing activity to then give it up. And for people to be like, Hey, what happened to that medication idea that you were so passionate about? Not too long ago, what happened to that did you have to do with any of that, to me, Nathaniel 35:34 it wasn't a big deal. I was just like, you know, I didn't end up doing the idea. And that's fine. I just moved on. I can understand where it's almost like a reputation thing where it becomes your nickname, or it becomes a thing that people refer you to believe everything, like, even when you move high school to university, your nickname is change your identity and who you are, aren't defined by what you do. But what you consistently put out in the world, and so sre, you might be the pillar minor guy who didn't end up doing that, the setback and didn't end up mass marketing and making a billion dollar idea. But you're also that guy who learned from your mistakes, and had a valuable learning experience, which projected you even further into entrepreneurship. So I'm a strong believer, and you know, obviously, like, the the age old rejection is just redirection. But more than that, we as human beings are constantly evolving. And failure is inevitable. Like, if you're not failing, it means you're not trying at all, you're not even getting a shot. But if you are failing, that means you have that opportunity to succeed or fail, you're gonna fail either way. So my swag out of a bag? Podcast Host 36:45 Absolutely. I think that's very valuable advice, to just go back to that original mindset shift was there actually, that moment where you were like, hang on, I'm thinking about this completely the wrong way. It's not about me trying to solve the world's problems. It's just about me starting, was there any particular catalyst for that, Nathaniel 37:03 to me, it was realizing my place in the world, and where I fit into everything, and I'm sure you would have picked up from my talk and sort of how, you know, we've known each other for a while, and how much I think about the world and get it into that. And realizing that the world is not all about me. But the world is also not not all about me as well. And so there are like, in everything that I say, and everything that I do, everything is a double edged sword, and being really aware of the world around me and how I fit into that was a really big part of my journey. Because something with me is like, I have like a classic growth mindset, where everything I hear I almost absorb like a sponge. And then I process that information. So being aware that I know nothing at all. And I'm constantly on a learning journey really helped me to develop the perspectives I have today, and be really solid and what I believe in. Podcast Host 38:02 Yeah, no, that's, and that does take time, you know, when you're 1516 years old. Those are some pretty big topics that you're wrestling with, right? Yeah. Nathaniel 38:10 And there's no rush to success, right? You have the rest of your life to ponder about these topics, by any means. I don't think I want anyone else to go along my journey as well, because it was one filled with a lot of sadness, and one that was really challenging. But, you know, being aware that there is options to create the change that you want to see in the world, and to be able to create cool things without consequences of losing millions of dollars. It's really important. Like a lot of people think about startups and like, I don't want to start because I don't want to lose like 100 k in money to invest in my startup. Yeah, when people start, most people put in $0, if anything, they might get $10 out of it. So it's totally okay to use these as learning experiences to just do things that you care about and do things that you love. Podcast Host 38:57 Yeah, a very good message for our listeners, one of their guests, their perennial questions for any young entrepreneurs is what is the value of university, when you are wanting to start businesses, Nathaniel 39:08 universities have their value in the sense that they create a really good environment and community, for innovation and for creativity. A lot of the people that you meet in University are invaluable connections that you'll have for life. No, I go to Monash University and really blessed to have a really good curriculum around them trying to embrace innovation for the future. And so I've actually lectured at Monash college and developed some entrepreneurial content. And so it's good that they have this forward thinking but definitely, like all educational institutions, there's a lot of lacks. Yeah, a lot of the time like in degrees, we aren't being taught the skills that we need. And so it's really important that we as young people continue to explore these journeys. And don't just take University as the be all and end all in a sense university should be your supplement. And self learning should be your main source of learning. So you should be like able to be exploring all these different topics and learning new things all the time. And university degree, that should just supplement everything that you already know. So I definitely think like there's a lot of work to be done in this space. But yeah, it's it's, it's still very important in terms of being able to create that sense of community of people who can support you in the future, but also having a really good time. Like, there's no rush to become like a millionaire overnight. The good points is the community and the sense of knowledge that you can have the bad points is almost like you go through a system for four years, but what do you actually get out of that? How are you pushing yourself to use uni as a supplement, rather than your main source of learning? Podcast Host 40:48 Yeah, I think it's a not just a good way to live by when you're at uni, but definitely when you're at school, too. And speaking of self learning, and entrepreneurship at school, did you have any issues with your parents, when you started spending more and more time on your business ideas, rather than say, studying for the next exam? Nathaniel 41:04 Definitely. And coming from like a Malaysian Chinese background as well, like heavy like Asian parents, the expectation is, you know, get good grades, do really well get a good job, start a family have house, etc. I've always been a bit of a rebellious kid. To me, entrepreneurship, like I mentioned before, was this canvas where I could create the change that I wanted to see in the world. And so despite being told to like, consistently focus on my studies, I couldn't keep my brain away from it. And so if I couldn't take my studies off, which I didn't want to at the time, I might as well just do both, and see how I cope with it. And I think the the understanding there for me, as well as not putting an expectation on myself to change the world overnight, or start the best business overnight, but still be able to pursue my passion. While I still study. Some people that works for some people, does it some people have to drop out of school, and start their own business and do that full time? But if that works for them, that's great. If it doesn't for others, that's also great. I think it's a process of knowing what's most important to you, and giving yourself that opportunity to try. So if that means that you have to take off a year, like a lot of people actually do this, like take a gap year. Yeah, before university to explore what you want to do, then so be it. There's no like blueprint to success or blueprints, having a good life, but following what you think is best and giving yourself room to try and fail. The other thing that I hear a lot is, I don't know what I'm passionate about. And often people ask me, How do I find my passion? My answer is, try things. Yeah. Are you meant to know what you're passionate about? If you haven't tried anything new, be really bad at something, try surfing and keep falling off the board. If you love it, keep surfing and get the hang of it. Try Water Polo, play an instrument, start a business. Start your own Etsy store and make your own clothing or jewelry. Yeah, like there's an LS word for that to you to really explore, you know, right now information is at our fingertips. So if you look at AI, and you're like, Wow, that sounds really cool. I want to have a look into that. Google it, learn more about it. And maybe along the journey, you might end up building a startup that involves AI, you never know where that might take you. So if you want to find your passion, and you want to explore these things, just try a bunch of different things and see what you like. Podcast Host 43:27 Yeah, I completely agree that there's a lot of kids who do have that I can find my passion. passionate about. And yeah, I I usually say to kids, what frustrates you, when you see something on the news, or you read about something or you see something happening in your local neighborhood? And you're like, Oh, I have a visceral kind of emotional reaction to it. What is it? Nathaniel 43:48 It's like, you can create something, join something, learn something. And a lot of times, not knowing what you want to do is great. It means that you're not stuck in one pigeonhole. Like, if you're really set on, like you love playing the guitar, chances are you spend all the time playing the guitar and you never explore another instrument. So if you don't know what you're doing, or you don't know what you like, that's great. It means you have an endless amount of opportunity to find and see what are the things that really excite you? What are the things that frustrate you? What are the things that evoke these emotions? Podcast Host 44:19 Yeah, I love that I that concept is something that I talked to students about as well. They're like, I don't know what I want to do in the future. I'm like, great. All the doors open, right? Like, you know, at the end Nathaniel 44:28 of the day, like a thing that I say a lot is age is just a label. Yeah, at the end of the day, we're all curious humans. We all want to explore things, learn things. It's it's human nature to want to learn new things and be curious and ask questions. So if anything excites you, like go ahead and do it, and a lot of the times, there is no right or wrong answer. No one says there's a meaning to life or a set purpose for each individual. It's up to you to explore what that looks like. Podcast Host 44:55 Well, is there any other advice you would give for our lovely listeners from all around the world and keeping Your mind most of them are high school. Some of them are Crimson stuff. I'm sure if you heard this episode, some of them are going to be teachers and educators. But yeah, what advice would you give to our listeners no matter what age or walk of life Nathaniel 45:12 they're from. The advice I would give is, failure is just another word in the dictionary. And it's up to you to define what it means. Podcast Host 45:21 Yeah, short and short and sweet to marijuana. If you walk away with anything from this episode, it's a really good one to walk away with. Yeah, I think that's a really good message. If students want to contact you, what would be the best way? Nathaniel 45:34 Yeah, contact us on Facebook, Instagram, it's just future minds network. Or on LinkedIn, you can google us website, whatever is easier for you. We're running events in high schools all across Australia, all throughout this year next year. So excited to see where the rest of it leaves. Podcast Host 45:52 Thank you so much for joining us on the top of the class podcast, and we can't wait to see what you do next. Nathaniel 45:57 And thanks for having me.

Ep #26 Making Change Through Advocacy, Action and Insects With Astro Adara

🗓 JAN 13, 2021

See transcript

Podcast Host 00:00 Hello, and welcome to the Top of the Class podcast. I'm your host Alex Cork. And in this episode, I chat with Adara Hagman. Adara, is a 17 year old from Canada who has partnered with organizations like IBM to tackle the Sustainable Development Goals, and who is working on projects as diverse as insect burgers to 3D modeling. We chat about the need for both advocacy and action, for tips for networking with organizations, and why you don't need to know everything to make a difference. Hi, Adara, welcome to the top of the class podcast, it's fantastic to have you on Can you tell our listeners a little bit about yourself? Adara 00:52 That's for sure. I'm excited to be here. So hi, everyone, I'm currently 17. And for me, my whole kind of passion lies around sustainability and exploration. And those are two really big areas for me. And what ties it together is this idea of closed loop systems. And that's basically us being able to reuse materials in a circular loop, which is really exciting for me in terms of us being able to slow global warming, making sustainable cities and also us being able to go to space, for example. And if we want to live on Mars, then we need to be able to happy systems. We want to terraform it and live there and like our future food and energy and everything. That's really exciting to me. Podcast Host 01:29 Awesome. So there's a lot of different things that we can talk about. But one thing that I want to start off with is your move from activism to then now I guess, being the action maker, can you talk about that balancing act between the activist side of things, what would be the other title and action maker a change maker 01:49 I like change maker but would like to even say like, I think even advocacy is a great form of Changemaking, as well. So I can definitely talk about that. And kind of like how I framed it in my life and think about it now. But maybe even this chapter can be like innovator in a sense, just because I'm going with more of like a technology problem solving perspective. So I'm really passionate about environment and women's rights, I'm going to talk about those issues and work on campaigns and things like that. And, you know, that's all I knew how to do. So that's what I started with, because that's all I knew about and I was exposed to. And I wasn't sure if I was making a lot of impact, and in doing so, but it felt like at least I was able to do something and I'm grateful I got to start there. But I almost felt like I wanted to do more like it did feel super tangible. And I wasn't sure if I, I was like too young to do anything. And then from there, I just had a bunch of kind of like serendipitous events happen, I guess, probably because I knew where my interest lied. And I think when you kind of know what you're interested in, you're seeking for things that kind of just pop up sometimes, which is kind of cool. From like working with charities, specifically, I was in their first ever social entrepreneurship program. And that led me to find tks, railing about technologies. And I was already really interested in programming in school, I thought it was really cool. And robotics specifically. But I didn't know anything about all these crazy technologies like genetic engineering and artificial intelligence and stuff. And when I heard about them and tickets, I was so excited that these could be tools. And I felt like I could do more by doing more actionable things. And I want to emphasize that I think it's so important to have that because the piece too is we're not talking about it. That's kind of the first step. But then from there, I feel like if you have advocacy, but no action, then it's just all talk but you still need that part before people are still talking about the problem. So then you need that second step after. And I felt like I could make more impact from actually being able to do that, which is kind of what ended up happening learning about technologies than just advocating for Sue found, like the advocacy and like the policy space more specifically. So for example, one of the conferences I went in before it was called the women's forum. And they work on the g7 mandate and a lot of like more woman related policies towards a bunch of these, like global conversations. But I found like from doing things like that, I was also in the Ministry of Education Council in Ontario, which is the province I live in, in Canada. And we got to make proposals and recommendations and all these things. But I found policy was so slow moving, there was um, United Nations youth general assembly was called the younger this year. And then we came up with this whole community of like, all these different problems that youth are really passionate about from the delegates across the world. But I still find that's really great. So we can get like, you know, our voices and opinions, or maybe some action can come from that. I just find it again, it's like a really slow moving area. But I think it's also so important that we have all these different aspects of change. So if your thing is advocacy, or if it's even like art or technology, and I think you know, you should really stick with the area that you like, and see how you can make change in that area. But for me, I think I can create more change within like the problem solving space. And that's something I already really love to do. Podcast Host 04:37 Well, you got a lot of things going on. I didn't know you were part of the UN youth general assembly, is that's what it was called? 04:42 Yeah, so that happened this year. I think it was the 75th anniversary, I believe the whole General Assembly. And this cool thing came up this year called the young gun, which stands for the youth General Assembly, it was led by this organization called bridging the gap and they got delegates from different countries around the world to join this Kind of like delegate union where we all had to talk about these problems, right, a mandate. We had some like meetings and things like that, too. We all joined working groups on specific problems. So there was one on like, health, there was one in education, I was in the climate action working group. And we had to talk about those problems, our perspectives, what we would see as like recommendations for that. Podcast Host 05:18 Yeah, that must have been a pretty exciting thing. How did you get into that? 05:21 For that one, specifically, again, I find a lot of things like come from I think I like having a network in certain places. And then like, also like knowing what you're interested in for me, again, like climate. And actually last year, so this specific thing, my friend, she invited me to this thing called bridging the gap forum. And it was the first ever one it was in my province, I don't think there was not many youth there, maybe like five actually. But those of us who were able to go got to go to this forum. There's much of cool people there too, like, Frankie grinder that's underground, his brother, and all these celebrities and stuff. And it was a whole forum talking about un related problems and the StG goals specifically, so it was the first one that they held here. And then we got to delegate for that. And then just from like, staying in touch the organization, I found out about the delicacy that they were going to do this year in partnership with the UN for the US General Assembly. And I was like, I need to apply for this. And I do that, and they got two delegates, that was awesome. Podcast Host 06:17 Great, and knowing when to apply, and knowing what to say, and that application of two very vital ingredients to make sure that you actually get into these fantastic opportunities. So was the application like for that the UN General Assembly, 06:30 this was essentially like a type form or like a Google form, depending on what you know, essentially, a bunch of questions about like, you know, why are you interested in being a delegate? And I think just really key to any application for a lot of these, like different opportunities, you got to be yourself, don't try to like tell them something that they might want to hear tell them like why why are you genuinely want to advocate for say, you want to do the health pillar specifically. And then like, you know, when you list everything, just like really authentic answers, and then from there to a lot of it didn't getting like any unique opportunity might also be like network. So if you can try to start building that now too, which is a whole like thing in itself to try to work on. But I'm seeking opportunities in areas that are of interest to you, via, you know, reaching out to people or, or seeing like, what events are out there right now that you could get involved with, or like specific organizations for the area that you're interested in. And then from there, a lot of opportunities could stem just from getting involved with one specific thing, which is kind of like for me, I got involved with a charity, which was all about social impact, and youth. And then from there, a lot of things just stem from it. So I think it's sometimes finding like your starting place, and a lot of things stem from seeking the things that you're interested in, Podcast Host 07:34 kind of like getting involved in one organization, and then keeping your eyes and ears open for other people in the organization that are talking about other things. And like, I know, LinkedIn, you're very active on that platform as well. That's where we connected on LinkedIn. And I think sometimes the social media algorithms like on LinkedIn and Twitter can be very helpful too. Because once you start adding a few people who are involved in these kind of organizations, then it just more and more people get suggested to you they're like, oh, maybe you should connect with this person and this person, is that similar to what your experience has been? 08:05 Yeah, I totally agree. It just starts from like, looking for a couple to be honest. And it stems from there. It's about like you knowing what you're interested in trying to secret. Like, for example, I like Twitter a lot. say like, you're interested in climate, you could even if you don't know where to start, you could Google some people who are digging climate, find their Twitter's, see, who do they follow, and it will ask many people to, or as a tweet, you might like find more threads. If they had this person, let me check it out. Maybe they're doing something cool. Maybe you want to follow them. It's kind of comes up organically. You can also do things like Google, what's a good slack group for climate, for example, there's a great one called work on climate, which I just learned recently. And I learned about that one. And I was like, This is such a great community, great things like that, where if you look what's a slack group or a community online that I can join for this specific thing. And you can again, from there, start reaching out to people in the slack group or this community and see where you can start your involvement? Podcast Host 08:53 Yeah, absolutely. I think we can definitely link a few of those things in the show notes. So watch out for that. But I completely agree on the Twitter side of things. I've been following heaps of really amazing students from all around the world. And so I've got about 200 students on there now. So if you want to try and get a shortlist of amazing kids to follow, then that's a good place to start. Just go and click on the top of the class podcast follow list. And you'll see a pretty good run. But yeah, I totally did what you just suggested and went to some, like people like Greta Thornburg and stuff, and I was like, I wonder who she follows, and then followed a couple more of those students. And then it kind of filters down, which is really cool. And from the networking piece, I think slack is something that I have been very surprised in and how quickly that's growing in that slack community group that you're in the environmental one. Are there many students or is it mainly like professionals? Like what do you tend to see from slack community groups? 09:42 I didn't even know about slack until the RFC, I was exposed to it in some sort of sense. If you don't know what slack is, I mean, you could definitely just check it out online, but it's kind of like what I would say to you like Discord. If you know what discord is for like gaming and talking to your friends. It's the same concept. Just normally for more of a work perspective. You have the workspaces. You can dm people And channels, right. And we also used it at younger this year. So we were able to connect with delegates from across the world, you can shoot each other DMS and stuff. But I think it's a really great way to connect with people. I often don't find though, unless you're in a specific like youth community, at least like it's a working climate. And I'm like this future if we wouldn't call it thought for future, I don't see a lot of youth in there. I think the reason is, it's not that you can't have youth in them. It's just I don't think they know about it to be honest. And you know, if that's what you're interested in enjoying it don't. I know, it might be a little bit like even intimidating that you might be the first youth in this slack workspace, but you know that that's okay, you can start being nice people. And oftentimes, they're open to talk to you, which is really great. And also, if there isn't a slack workspace that you want, you can also start one, you can be an activator for the things that you want to do too. So you could be like, I'm going to create my own workspace, reach out to people, starting my community, see if people can share this around for youth working on the future of health. For example, if that's not something and you want to create that community, you can also start it, which is a great thing, you just have to think about what path you want to follow. Podcast Host 11:02 I think that's a good tip for students to get outside of the school bubble. I know sometimes, how do you see yourself? How do you describe yourself to other students? Or how do you introduce yourself to other people? Do you lead with the fact that you're a student? Or do you lead with the fact that you're founder of a few organizations? Do you lead with the fact that you're an activist or an innovator? Like how in your mind, do you present yourself to the world? 11:28 No, honestly, it just depends on like, when I'm talking to people, I actually don't typically like lead off with like the founding a specific thing that just kind of comes up if we're talking about a topic that someone's interested in. But for me, the titles that I normally say when I am trying to kind of like encapsulate the type of person I am my interests, I usually go with futurist because I love thinking about the future. And how can we create a better future specifically sustainably. I always say Explorer, I love exploring things, especially like learning but also nature. Like I love exploring nature, I would love to go to space Monday, that's always been a really big aspiration. And I say activist a lot too. For a while actually. Like I think as you're like you're growing up, like you kind of like are figuring out like how do you like frame yourself and all these things, and it keeps changing, which is totally okay. She for me. I think I stopped saying activist for a couple years because I was like, Okay, now I'm in this innovator space more, I'm gonna leave that activism behind. And I kind of forgot about it until the past, like, two years when I was like, why can't I do a bit of both, because it's still important to have that advocacy part. And it was a big part of my journey. So I've been trying to get back into policy a bit more to because it does go hand in hand with making even technology accessible sometimes. And I forgot about that for a while. So I do say that because it's been a big part of my journey. And now I'm trying to get back into it with younger recently, and other related things. And I also say designer a lot now, because I found that's a really good way to kind of like describe the kind of person I am. I like designing systems and thinking about how we can solve problems. And I've always been really interested in art too, and creative kind of things. And that's what led me to wanting to be able to like work on tangibly solving these problems, because they're the kind of like challenges, but I really like solving challenges. So that's been something that made them so interesting to me, I think. Podcast Host 13:06 Yeah, well, on your website, it said that you are an explorer at Hot scientists and training part time researcher and aspiring astronauts. I love that because it definitely is so far removed from the typical mindset. I think, well, maybe I'm wrong here. And please correct me if I'm wrong, of what a student mindset typically is, like, I feel like a student mindset is very one directional in that you receive information and you then regurgitating it on an exam at some point in time. Usually, that's the kind of student mindset. And I love that in that sentence that you have on your website, it doesn't really mention the fact that you're a student, which I think is really interesting. How important do you feel it is for current students who are in year 910 1112, whatever might be high school to give these other titles a go? 13:59 Yeah, um, I mean, I'm still a student as well, I don't put that in my thing, because I think that's just something I am. And then I'm just kind of like talking about, like, the things that describe me personally, right. And I think the cool like part of that is, as you are like adopting maybe these titles, for example, the benefits that could come out of it, at least what I have found personally, is that it kind of like helps me understand who I am better and be able to explain it to people, like I know, like, personally, I know like labels aren't maybe like the best thing and you feel like really like kind of stuck in them. But if you can start to find some of the things that do really resonate with you, it helps you better understand yourself. And the goals you have what you kind of like want to move towards. And then when you're explaining to others, it's the kind of like the best way that you can maybe like encapsulate to that to someone else that could be like I'm an explorer, and maybe someone knows what an explorer is, and that we can go into that a little bit more. But it really helps I think and then set understanding yourself and communicating that to others in an effective way. So you can find people who will align with your mission and work with them and stuff. So as like you're figuring out your pathway. I think if you can find some of those things that really resonate with you then then start saying those two If you also want to say I'm a student totally embraced that you're a student too as well. I noticed Yeah, I don't normally say that. I'm not sure why, but I don't know, I feel like maybe it's just a given to some extent that I'm a student, or like, it comes up where people like, how old are you? And I'm like, I'm 17. In high school, right? So I'm a student, but here's like, some of the things that make me me, Podcast Host 15:18 right. 100%, it's interesting to kind of think that, you know, sometimes student is that kind of old school mindset of receiving information and then going into an exam. But it can be an exciting thing as well, to be a student, you could be a student of space, you could be a student of exploration, you could be kind of more than just sitting in a classroom, like, Don't limit yourself, I think it's really having that mindset, though, that you are more than just someone sitting in a classroom, trying to get a high school, and that kind of can really help develop who you are. And I think it makes you a more interesting person. When you say, Look, I've got passions and interests, and I've got these things that I'm learning about outside of school as well. 16:00 Yeah, I think being like a student is like a great thing, too. I think, I love this idea of being a lifelong learner, especially like, as moving forward right now, things are changing a lot. It's a really exciting time of like, all these new innovations and problems, we also have to solve which, which are hard, but it brings about all these things, and it's gonna be a lot of change. So we kind of have to be lifelong learners, which is such an important thing. And I think it's kind of about the way that you think about it, and frame it. Right. So I mean, student can like often be associated with again, like the kind of typical school thing of like, we keep regurgitating information. And like we do all these different things, right. But it could also be like, like you said, I'm a student of space, you're a student of XYZ. And even if you don't know what your thing is yet to, and maybe your focus really is you're super excited about the things you're learning in school, to be a student. And then you could like even like, explain to people, if you're trying to kind of like, talk about the things you're interested in that you're like a really big biology enthusiast. And here's why, like, you can go beyond like the classroom too. So it could start from there, like in biology class, and you're loving it. And this is your thing, you could be like, I'm a biology enthusiast, and then take on the things that you're doing in class, and ask a lot of questions. Don't just go from like that, I need to memorize this and regurgitate that also be like, I'm gonna start asking questions and diving deeper into this, because I'm interested in it. What can I do with biology, that's super interesting, and start doing your own research at home, it doesn't just need to be the things that are assigned, necessarily. And that's kind of where you can find passions. And if anything, sends interest from there specifically to Podcast Host 17:21 Yeah, I think a lot of students don't do that. Because, I mean, a lot of students do, which is great, but I think a lot of students sometimes don't, because they're like, let's just focus on the exam, I was good a good score in the exam. Like, if I want to learn different stuff, a lot of students will ask themselves first, but will it be on the exam, you know, like? So I guess for you? How do you justify learning above and beyond what you get taught at school? Is there something in the back of your mind that says, I'm learning this stuff, even though it's not going to be in the exam? Am I potentially costing myself a better score? 17:55 Yeah, I know, it's so easy to fall into, like thinking that way. Because we're trained to think that way. That's just kind of how school is we're trained to do that. So you don't know like other ways to frame it necessarily. Now, for me, like it took a while I had to unlearn a lot of things. I think it started a lot like to teach us specifically, like, I love learning, and I love learning in school, but I found like, you know, oftentimes, like, our curriculum is outdated. And all these different things about school, it didn't make sense to me. But we're taught to really care about our grades and like, do things sometimes just for a university application, which probably isn't the best motivator to do something. But we're like, trying to like check all these boxes to make sure that we get into this school by having the perfect life thing just for that purpose, specifically, but I think we have to, again, like think about the bigger picture. And it takes time to like, learn this. And I think I'm going to like a privileged position because I have parents that had been quite supportive of me like wanting to follow kind of, like, quote, unquote, unconventional pathway, and, and not being too hard on me with my grades and stuff. But like, personally, I was quite hard on myself still, because I'd be like, I want to get as like the best marks I can and like, make sure that I'm still checking those boxes. But then I was also trying to do like this new technology stuff starting and everything. And I had to learn that, you know, you can't do both necessarily, and like, well, you can, but you can't like do like everything. So I was trying to do like every club in school, and like crush like grades. And I wanted to do like the whole technology thing and stuff. And I had to figure out what was like, the most important. I left like a lot of extracurriculars and stuff because I was like, I think I'm learning more from doing this technology, extracurricular. I don't need to do everything. I think oftentimes, I've heard universities don't care about you, being well rounded, they want a well rounded class. So if there's something that is like your thing, and that you're really interested in, you spend your time, like say doing technology and like going really, really deep. Yeah. And that's really exciting because you're that kid and then they can have that athletic and they can have their world round of a bunch of people who are pursuing the things that they're interested in and it doesn't need to be one area. It's totally okay to not know what you want to do. But I think it's interesting when when you start like working on your own thing and things and stuff like that, too. It doesn't need to be checking all these specific boxes. In school, I didn't know it was like that way. But that's because we're trying to think that way. So I had to learn that it's okay not to do that. And know that grades aren't always the most important thing. But it's still I would say very important to like, get good grades and stuff. But you don't need to be able to have to do everything and be so hard on yourself sometimes, because you should be working on the things that you're passionate about. I think that translates the best into like, I think you succeeding because I found like, this, like really big trend where like, if you're doing like the thing that you really care about, I think it's oftentimes, like better work Podcast Host 20:31 at work. 20:32 Yeah. So they're really passionate about some things like Frank Gehry is really passionate architecture, he does amazing architecture. And like, it's really exciting and stuff. So if like, there's something that you really like it, you go into that area, you're spending a lot of time besides like doing your grades and stuff, like this is the thing that you spend your time outside of school doing as like your hobby extracurricular not having to do like, five, because you feel like you need to, I think you put a lot more effort and thought into that, and it will take you farther. I don't know, that's the correlation. I found maybe it's not true. But um, I think if you do the thing that you're passionate about, it can take you places. Podcast Host 21:03 Yeah, well, I certainly agree that finding your passion can be can really open up many, many doors. But I know a lot of students will say, Well, how do you find your passion? Now, one thing that I can tell from you is that you are, I guess what many people would say is well read. So you've gone above and beyond school, and you are absorbing information from a lot of different sources. And I think that's helped you find your passion. But you know, for students out there who are kind of thinking, Well, you know, I don't really know what my passion is yet. What advice would you give them? 21:37 Definitely, yeah, I feel lucky that I, I've found things that resonate with what, but I don't think it's like finding your passion. I think a lot of it, we say that. But I think the way I think about it is is like you're developing it too. And a lot of it comes from being curious. And you have to let yourself be curious. And I think that's one of the things we lose a lot as we go through school. And we're trained to, like think a certain way, we use a lot of the Curiosity we have when we're young. And we want to like ask all these questions about how everything works. And that's what we do, like when we're in kindergarten, right? And then we lose a lot of that. But I think if you kind of like, let yourself be curious. And if you're having a hard time, like set up forcing functions for yourself to do that. So like, I mean, like 10 minutes, or even like 15 minutes a day, I'm just going to spend some time looking into something that I'm just curious about. And like by doing that, it will build a habit. And then you'll just start to seek those things more often and ask more questions about things. But by exploring more things, you can find, like what does resonate with you, but you can also develop that passion, I think, and probably like the reason like I like certain areas is like for me, I think I love the environment, because I grew up loving animals, right. And I loved exploring nature. And I spent a lot of time in nature. And because of that, I think that translates into me being really frustrated when I found out that climate change was a thing. And all these things were happening to ecosystems, animals that I cared about, I got really upset about it. And I was like, I need to do something because I don't want that to happen. So I think you develop a passion based off of the things you're exposed to. And if you're not exposed to something, then you might not even know that exists. And that's the thing that you could be really excited about. So it's all about like, gaining exposure to more things. And you can do that by being curious. And asking questions. And also trying things experiences help you a lot with that, too. So you can exceed as many experiences as you can to try things that you might not have, or that are of interest to you, and you just like keep putting off. And I think it starts with even again, like that 10 minutes a day. I mean, I'll let myself look for something I'm curious about. And that's building the habit from like us, kind of like untrain our curiosity as we go through school a little bit more. Podcast Host 23:30 I think a lot of students put this pressure on themselves to quote unquote, find their passion. But they shouldn't be starting with what they're passionate about. If they don't have any passions, that's fine. That's Yeah, totally, totally understandable. Start off with what you're curious about, start off with a an interest explored further, see if it makes sense to you see, if you want to explore it even more. And then like, in six months or years time that can then become a passion. But I want to go into what TK is brought to you as well, because it sounded like you know, your journey from advocacy to action was in large part kind of catalyzed by your exposure of tks to a lot of different ideas and concepts and this kind of stuff. How was that not an intimidating experience for you like when you're 15 or however old? You were not very, not very old. I mean, in your mid teens say? And you're looking at these topics, I think most students would be forgiven for thinking that sounds like a university topic, if not further down the track even so how do you kind of say, yeah, I'm excited about all these cool things. 24:34 It's daunting in many ways when you think about it, for me, like I was, I think it was just because I was more excited about it at first and then then like nervous about how scary it was. I was just excited that I would have the ability to even learn about them in the first place. So for me, and honestly, I was worried I won't even get in. I was like, this is like this sounds crazy. But think about artificial intelligence. I remember I met the first cohort of kids at an event spontaneously and that's kind of like one of my first exposures to them. They're telling me they have LinkedIn profiles and all these things. And I didn't know what that meant. But it sounded really cool. But it also sounded really scary to be honest as well, you're right. But I was also just so overwhelmed with excitement, because to me, that was something I was interested in. I was like, you know, I want to make an impact. I knew that. And this sounded like kind of the pathway to do so. So I just wanted to figure out how I could get in or get involved in any way that I could. And then I applied it, and I did get it, which was so exciting. I was really excited. And I think that's what daddy need not be so scared about it. But yeah, they are really daunting topics. I know some people are just, like, probably more scared than maybe I was coming into it. But for me, I think a lot of it was the way they framed it, like teaching us all these skills and also chasing us like how do you learn on your own the skill of learning how to learn what you think you learned in school, but we don't technically we learn how to you regurgitate. What we should learn is how do you learn because if you know how to learn, you can figure out anything on your own, I could spend my time at home, diving deep into a brand new topic because I know skills on how I can start seeking this information and things like that. And that made me feel like it wasn't as daunting. And I think it's because the way that they phrase things and the way that they broke things down like digestive Lee to us. Podcast Host 26:11 Yeah, I think that's such an important thing. Actually, I was commenting on a, there was a Harvard program recently started by some students at Harvard, it was like students kind of making the future of school. And I said, one thing that schools should be doing is rewarding students for self learning, they should be kind of instead of saying you just have to stick to the curriculum, and then perform the exam, there should be something or students have the ability to learn something on their own presented, just different students teach different students if that's what they want to do, and then get graded on that potentially, like graded on how they put a curriculum or a topic together. Because I feel like self learning is going to be such a feature of the future of work, like you can't just learn one degree and then be fine for the next 20 years. Like you're going to need to constantly upskill but you've you've obviously gone from the advocacy to action. And I know you're still doing the advocacy part, which as you said is very, very important. But I'd love to talk a little bit about the action side of things and your organization's. So how many different things have you started? And what are they about? 27:11 I don't even know how many spin offs but I will tell you some of the key things because a lot of us iteration. And that's like a big theme I want to have, as I talked about this, too, you know, wrong, we're figuring things out, it's okay to iterate and figure out what you're passionate about and learn how to frame these things as part of it. Like for me, I'm technically still in my training stages. And I'm moving more into like the building stages of like things will actually start building soon hatchway. But a lot of it like for me is training right now. So just training, research and starting these different things, which is great that I have the opportunity to start young. But for me like some of the things, if you like looked at my website and stuff that are like key organizations, there's this teacher shot factory now, that started last December. And it was kind of a conversation that me and my friends had, where we were both really interested in social impact, specifically, like the policy side, so like SDG goals, the Sustainable Development Goals, and from the UN. And we think they're so awesome. But we have less than nine years now is like 10 years, then to actually hit these metrics. And we didn't see a ton of ton of action, tangibly just more talk about it. And like roadmaps. So we were like, We want to see more of this. So we create a future shot around the idea of moonshots. And then shots are like big ideas, like when went to the moon, for example. And this was all about thinking about these StG goals as these are moonshots for our future. And we only have nine years left to achieve them. So we got to start doing more. So we were hoping our organization would be able to help foster more people to start working on this work on some of our own projects, and the SDG goals, specifically partnering with companies or consulting. So either one of those was kind of the model we're going with and one that we stuck with. And also we want to inspire youth specifically, to feel like they're able to make an impact. And they're not too young, and even, like teach them tools that they can use and things like that. So a lot of it's evolved. And that's like a big theme I find with any project, so it's okay that it will evolve. I was reading some some yc resources recently. And and a big thing I found from those two, from all these, like founders who started these, like awesome startups is this, you don't need to have a great idea at first, it can be a good idea. What matters more is like the problem that you want to solve. really understanding that and being okay with the idea iterating because it will, like so many companies started off as one thing. And now they're like Amazon, right? Like it didn't start off at the same place that it is today. And that's totally okay. feature shot is something we're going to be iterating a lot. We're doing a new launch in January actually just kind of like solidifying more like the stuff we're doing, our new website will be going up and stuff like that. But essentially what we do is again, we partner with companies to work on SDG goals. So some of our partners are UN Women, IBM, and we're working on just main areas. And I think these are going to be like that what focus is we have since we can't work on every single one, but we want to inspire more people to be able to work on some of those other ones. But for us, it's climate action, health, education and equality, specifically gender equality has been what we've been focused on. But that's what future shot was all about. Another big one that came out this year, we do this moonshot company hackathon. You come up with kind of a crazy idea for the future that isn't possible yet, but the technology could work. So my friend nyla, and I, we were really interested in this whole problem with the food industry. Because the food industry, one of the biggest contributors to global warming, a big emphasis right now in the space is cellular agriculture, which is really cool. It's essentially lab grown meat. That's kind of like a solution to that. So definitely look into that, if you're interested. Interesting. Want to see what is another perspective we could take from it. I've been really interested in insect agriculture for a while. So we ended up going with that as like our main focus. Cardboard means carbon neutral carbon carnivores essentially. So you can still have protein from crickets or other insects, but it's more sustainable. We farmed, essentially. And that's what we went with for a while. So we started off like our website and all these different things as part of the hackathon. And we won the, the branding award for that. So the branding around like, you know, the cardboard, everything is really just cool. But we decided we wanted to pursue it more, because it is something that's not too far off. In second culture, people eat insects all around the world. Yes, I'm in different countries, just in North America, specifically, I don't know what it's like in Australia. But people have like this, like taboo thing about it here where it's gross to eat insects, I actually only got I have some very, I have cricket bars and stuff. They're so good. They taste really good, to be honest. So I have so many reasons why we should eat insects, in my opinion, but the whole thing kind of turned into a research project. And now we thought we might scale it into like a little startup where we can make inset projects. But instead, we just decided that we're doing a research project. And we're still working on it. Now. We got a grant from the Government of Canada, which was kind of cool, where we can order some insect products so that we can mess around with like different recipes of like, how can we make bug burgers and things like that? So that's when it's turned into. And we're still working on that now, which is kind of cool. Podcast Host 31:44 So cowboy, and future shot, like your two main things at the moment. So yeah, like I would love to kind of go to explore future shot a little bit more as to why did you formalize the organization as future shot? And what's the importance of having the sustainability development goals as part of your organization's stated purpose? 32:03 No, through the Sustainable Development Goal part, we actually that was kind of like the basis of why we wanted to create it. So that's why it's such a big part of it, we wanted to create it because we didn't see enough action in the StG goals. And we were hoping that we could have like more of a youth led organization that would call for action towards these, but also emphasize the importance of using technology and all these things that we're learning about as tools to do that, as well. And also hand in hand with policy. So these, like different beliefs that we learned about from our journeys. And that seems really important, but we didn't see a lot of, so that's kind of what we wanted to call for. And then from there, like kind of our model of sticking with those StG goals, because that's where it started with and what we wanted to work towards. And also, like, Okay, so we're gonna talk about one point, but depending on moving back a little bit, the Sustainable Development Goals as a whole, like, we thought of them as like moonshots themselves, for humanity, right, the moonshots for a more sustainable future, whether that be in like our health and the quality that we have on our planet, and like the environment aspect to right, even like with the climate change problem, it's the same time essentially, we have like, less than nine years to actually slow global warming aligns really well with the SDGs, before we hit this tipping point, that's really bad. And actually might speed up now, which is a little bit scary, to be honest to me. Yeah. So they were like, really big, like goals that we could kind of move towards as a whole, like our whole planet. So we thought that they're a really good model to just keep sticking with anyways, but just putting more emphasis on the action towards them, and the ways that we can do that. And working with organizations as our model, we thought would be good, because a lot of these big organizations, you know, they talk about it or, or they want to seek ways that they can make an impact as well. But maybe they don't know where to start. So we would reach out to some of them and be like, would you like to work on an SDG related project? Or do you want us to help you learn more about them, things like that. And we got some great responses. And sometimes it starts with just asking and seeing where people need help. And kind of my philosophy towards like reaching out to people and asking, even if you could like partner, or like have a meeting and stuff is what's the downside. And obviously, please be like, polite, please be authentic to it. And all these different things that are really important that I'm hoping they're a little bit more intuitive. But when you're asking if you could have a meeting, or whatever it is you want to do, I think, oftentimes like the way I think about it, people often ask me like how I do it, and don't find it super scary on my friends, you're like, I find it really scary to reach out to people. And I'm like, what's the downside? Because if you don't ask the answer is no. And but if you do ask the answer could still be no, but if you did it, then it would be no, but there could be a yes. If you did ask. So you have more of that probability of there being Yes. Right. So you might as well ask, and IBM could say, No, I don't want to work with you. But they said yes. Which was cool. And if we didn't ask then it would have been no for sure. So let's think about it. And I think it's really awesome that some of them do you want to work on these different problems and support us as well. Podcast Host 34:51 So what happens after you got the yes from IBM, 34:54 we started working on on one of our projects, and it's just kind of like we didn't know how to do a lot of this stuff. First, we were like this, but we want to do, but we don't know how the process will work. And they were like our first formal partnership. I'm so grateful for that. But we were figuring it out. We're like, so to me, should we create proposals should we, like do all these different things, it was kind of just a lot of like a learning experience to this past year. And now like, the past couple of months, we've formalized, like, kind of like our processes towards these things, things you want to carry on and, and we've learned a lot from like, trying it out for the first couple of months. So like having our first meeting, we kind of like, learn the tone of collaborating with them, like, what are they looking for. And then we even like talked about, like, what we're looking for and stuff. And out of that we learned a bunch of structures that could work for us. So like, for example, like something we typically go with as well, we do like a brainstorming like get to know session with the partnership, then we normally end up writing a proposal sending it to them. Sometimes we have another meeting to discuss that and get ideas or they just like it works, because it's something we talked about in that initial meeting, too. And then we do like action plans from there. So how can we actually make it happen and what steps and things we're going to be doing over time, a lot of it was figuring it out. But I think it's really important to train the skill of figuring it out. Because again, that's that, like, lifelong learning piece. Podcast Host 36:06 Absolutely. What I love that idea that you pitch to IBM, they said yes. And you're like, Huh, okay, so what do we do that type of thing, like you're learning about how to interact with these companies. I think that's a really key point that you don't necessarily need to knowing everything about what will happen next. Before you start reaching out, you will learn as you go. And I think a lot of times, you know, my life as well, like, I've stopped myself from doing things. Because I felt like I needed to know everything before I started, where like, you can't know everything before you start, because you will learn as you go. So it's kind of that paralysis by analysis type of thing, right? Where people overthink things, and then don't do anything because they're like, I just don't feel ready yet. Whereas like, he reached out to IBM, and you've been learning along with IBM, as to how to write proposals, and you know, the way that they want to conduct the relationship. Can I just ask how did you set that partnership up initially? Was it like a cold email to the IBM info line? Or, like, were you introduce to someone, how did you get started there, 37:09 a lot of partnerships were different. But for this one, it was having a connection through LinkedIn, and then asking Hey, to our connection, if we could have a meeting with them. And that's how this one started. And a lot of it again, is like having that network starting to build it now. Or like, you know, getting involved in an organization. So you get to know different people. And from there, you know, that can stem to something in the future, as well. And one thing I like to note too, is like, please don't be transactional. I know that can sometimes happen as like you're trading these things, but build these relationships, because you see how important it can be to build relationships, but also value them and what you can learn from out of having relationships as well and see what you can bring to like different teams that you want to work with as well. And I also wanted to add on, I love the point you had about like, you know, like you don't feel ready yet. I think that's like a big theme, especially with like, three is wanting to make action today, you're not never feel ready to do something, in my opinion, I think he's in that when you don't feel ready, sometimes you have to push yourself to do it. That's kind of like the whole like even seeking discomfort thing. I normally use it unless it's like something super risky. But if I don't want to do something like I don't want to speak at this conference, because I am scared like I want to back out of it. And then I'm like, that's a trigger that I should probably do it. Because it will help me a lot. If I tell myself, Oh, I'm really scared, I probably need to do this. So I can start training getting better at this or even like, knowing how to talk on podcast is scary to like, I still get so nervous before, like this, I was like, Oh, I'm nervous. But you have to do like your first couple of like, articles, whatever thing that you're working on in order to feel comfortable with it and start building it and you're never gonna feel ready at first, you just have to push yourself to take that first step. And it's okay to also not do it perfect at first, you're not going to show you know that and also not like, do it all at once the like with that thing I was talking about with curiosity earlier, I think oftentimes, we don't do things because we're like, I don't have four hours to spend like diving into this thing today. So I'm not going to do it. I'll do wait till I have a lot of time one day, but then can be like I do have 10 minutes every day. So why don't you just spend 10 minutes doing it every day like in small chunks. It doesn't need to be I have all the time now. And because I don't mean to push it off. Think about how can I make it possible to start? Podcast Host 39:11 Right? But what would be your advice for students who want to start learning a new skill who perhaps have never really gone above and beyond school to learn something on their own? I mean, you have by the sounds of things started to develop at least and it's an ongoing skill in and of itself, how to learn, right? When you don't necessarily have a teacher they're guiding you. So how do you approach it and what do you look for in resources? And how do you process that new information? 39:37 There's so many different things I get a lot of it will be figuring it out as you do it, which is something you'll also be training but I kind of like as a starting place when it when I'm trying to like understand something. So say I'm trying to learn genetic engineering for the first time. I think I normally go with just googling what is genetic engineering and it's so simple, but you watch a five minute video just hit the LIKE THE really simple like Justin And then from there, if there was like some concepts you didn't understand stuff, write those down and like start looking into those all individually when you have like the different pockets of time to do so. And then from there looking into different research papers and things, again, depends on the subject, but you could start seeing what are some new research papers that are coming up, try Google Scholar for that. And when you read your first research paper is gonna be so scary totally is you're not going to understand what this said, it's probably going to be like reading a different language and be like, What are all these strange words, about machine learning about genetics? What is this gene I don't understand. And like, highlight all the words you understand, because you're not going to understand most of it. But then every time you search one of the words, to try to understand this first paper, you're gonna learn a ton. And then as you keep reading a new paper, it's gonna be easier each time. And that's how you slowly kind of become more in depth with your knowledge in that area. And then it will lead you to do things or you'll find something interesting about one area and you'd be like, I want to learn more about specifically plant genetics, or I want to learn more about this health genetics for this application that will lead you down different trails to keep learning. And you just got to be like resourceful to thinking about where can I find more resources? Can I find some slack groups, but I think just start from the basics, if you can read some research papers, basic articles, just to get the gist of it. And then where you don't understand, try to bridge those knowledge gaps. And that will help what you have all the same resources that Elon Musk does on the internet, pretty much. Right? So there's so much there. I mean, it's hard to filter through all of it. But there's lots of great courses there, too. Like you could look up great machine learning courses. There's some great ones on Udacity for specific things to do self driving cars, or all these different like course platforms, right? Like Coursera and Udemy, Skillshare. Right. So whatever you want to learn, there's probably something out there that could help you. Podcast Host 41:36 I think you know that self learning is a journey that students should really start experiencing now. And then who knows, they might end up becoming an advocate once they learn a certain amount, and then they can start taking action based on their advocacy and continue to 41:49 be an advocate. Like if that's the thing that really drives you, and you're really good at it stick with it, too. But if you love problem solving, why'd you go with that as well? I think we need this like, whole like breadth of different changemakers. So that's really important to remember, too. Podcast Host 42:02 Yes, I can tell that you don't like me saying that actions better than advocacy. 42:07 I know I said it a lot before I've said it, like in the past a lot. And then I learned over time that like, you know, I think you need so many different kinds of changemakers and people to collaborate on things. It's not just one area. And I think advocacy without any action isn't good. That's something I believe to be true. But I think we need advocates. And we need action takers in different fields and stuff. It's not just one focus area. And I think we oftentimes forget that I forgot it a lot before. Podcast Host 42:34 Now you've kind of come full circle. And you're back to focusing on advocacy, or at least making that a part of who you are not just someone who's taking action all the time. But someone who's like sees advocacy as a really vital part of what it is you do. Yeah, final questions for you. adara, what is a failure that you're most proud of? 42:54 And I used to be so scared of doing presentations. And again, it's one of those things where if you don't force yourself to do it, then you obviously won't get better at it. And I think I can do better presentations. So I still can work on it. But my first technical presentation on genetic engineering was, I think it was about a year ago, it wasn't that long ago, which is, which is weird to say. But I've given presentations before that I gave, you know, presentations in school, it's a specific style. But given these technical presentations is a totally different thing than what you're taught to do in school, to have like this, you know, actually professional looking decks and, and like cohesively talk and not be reading from cue cards and things like that, right. And I was really excited to do it. But I was actually so nervous about it. And I went up there and I had all my content prepared really well. And my deck was nice and everything, I put a lot of effort into it. And then I started talking and did my first couple of sentences. I was shaking so much I paused for probably, I think it was like 20 seconds. And I forgot what I was saying. I was like, oh, like I just forgot what I was saying completely. A lot of feedback I got was you lips, so you look so nervous. And like watching that video over again. I was like shaking. I know, like some people's first presentation, it was pretty, pretty solid. But I was anxious. And the biggest piece I got from one of my mentors, he gave me some there was it's not even just sometimes about good content in preparing for the presentation. Some of the preparation is also mindset. And I didn't think about that I was just like, I'm gonna go make myself do it. I'm excited, this will be good. But I was so nervous. I just kept telling myself to ignore that. And he's like, it's so important to also prepare your mindset for all these different things to like, instead of just practicing everything and making the perfect content, take five minutes to figure out how can you get yourself in the zone and tell yourself that you can do this presentation or maybe do a five minute meditation or something. I never thought about that before but it's been a big learning for me. Now I try to always make sure that I am the right mental space to like give a presentation and not like get so nervous about it. Podcast Host 44:50 A great moment to learn from right and Yeah, I think so many of those early stage taking the labor, particularly when you're a student and particularly when you're a teenager is having that mindset declined to give you the confidence to kind of take that leap. And to get up on stage or to do whatever you want to do. So if students wanted to connect with you, what would be the best way to do it Twitter or LinkedIn, 45:10 maybe email me at astronautadara@gmail.com is a good one. But also connect with me on LinkedIn. It's just I don't respond, I think as often I'd like to also check it. And then Twitter, I love using Twitter. It's one of my favorites. But I mean, I think I respond quite quickly on Twitter. But I just don't get a lot of messages there sometimes. So yeah, but I love Twitter so much, definitely connect with me there. Podcast Host 45:34 So you're 17 you're finishing school soon, what happens next? 45:40 I don't know what the future holds. But I think the best way to predict the future is to create it. So thinking about the things that I'd like to do, and trying to go towards those things, and also being okay with it not being exactly that because I know that will change. So for me some of those things, like as a whole, you know, I'm really interested in creating sustainable cities, space on Earth, all those areas are really interesting to me. So, you know, working within those areas, I've been building my breath in different areas of this kind of like sustainability by focused on carbon sequestration on future food for a while, right now, I'm actually learning a lot about the energy space, because I want to understand as many of these areas water, food energy, that go into creating a sustainable system, so they can kind of help me in doing that in the future. And I'm also doing things like 3d modeling and, and learning more design things too. So I can design sustainable cities, which is what I would love to do. Podcast Host 46:30 Well, whatever the future holds, I'm sure that you will approach it with a very full toolkit of amazing skills and experiences and all these different ideas, which I think puts you in a fantastic position to take advantage of any opportunity that comes your way. Right. And yeah, I hope some of our listeners connect with you and follow along with your journey as you go to building future cities or to space or to doing other amazing things, whatever that may be. 46:56 Thank you so much for having me and please feel free to connect whenever. Podcast Host 46:59 Thanks for listening to top of the class. subscribe for future episodes, for show notes and to plan your best future head to Crimson education.org

Ep #25 Winning a Child Genius Show and Study Tips Worth Remembering!

🗓 JAN 9, 2021

See transcript

Outro 00:49 Hi, Mahesh. Welcome to the Top of the Class podcast. It's fantastic to have you on the show. Can you tell our listeners a little bit about yourself? Mahesh 00:56 My name is Mahesh. I'm 14 years old and I'm most well known for winning the second season of SBS Australia's Child Genius in 2019. I am from the north of Sri Lanka. That's where my parents are from and they migrated here in 2004 a couple years before I was born. Podcast Host 01:14 Fantastic. and talk to us a little bit about what exactly SBS Australia's Child Genius is like, for those people who haven't seen the competition, we've got listeners from all around the world. Can you explain a little bit for us? Mahesh 01:26 SBS Australia's child genius was essentially it's a show, 16 children are selected from a process that starts at about 1000. And it's basically children go through four days of competition to determine a winner. And there's different rounds in different subjects such as spelling, mathematics. And everyday there's also a memory and recall round, such as after the math round. On day two, we had to memorize a randomly shuffled deck of playing cards, Podcast Host 01:56 Right? But take me back to when you first entered the competition, like what made you want to be a part of this TV show? Mahesh 02:02 Well, my parents and I, we watched the first season in late 2019. And we we found it quite interesting. And we thought of it as a possible opportunity, but then sort of forgot about it. And then we read in the men's magazine, Australian men's magazine that auditions were going to be open. And we had a little chat with my parents. And I was sort of very apprehensive about entering because I thought I wasn't at the requisite level to enter in the show, let alone win. And so I was quite sort of what Yeah, I was really apprehensive about it. And I was not very keen on going. But my dad thought, you know, if he doesn't make it, it's not the end of the world. We'll just give it a shot. And so we we ended up flying out to Sydney for the auditions in March 2019, where there were about 900 people. And then that was eventually through the process of elimination whittled down to 16, who competed in the actual show. Podcast Host 03:02 And so what was the process of elimination? Like, because that's a very fierce competition 900 down to 16. I think you could probably work out the percentages faster than I can. But it's a very, very small amount of students that are actually chosen for the show, how do they get down to that? 16 people. Mahesh 03:18 So it's first like, right here in Melbourne, we did a Skype call with one of the producers who you know, asked me some basic questions just to get an idea of where my strengths are, and a few questions to determine my suitability for competing in terms of actually being on TV, or sort of the psychological side rather than the cognitive side of things. And then once we were told that we had been successful in this way, we're fine out to Sydney based off the written application and the interviews. And then we started taking sort of academic tests to do with, you know, maths, there was a moment there was spelling, and there was a science component. And these were, you know, just like standardized school tests, which were basically again to ascertain our ability and sort of pressurized situation. Then we also had interviews with the psychologists that SPS had hired for the purpose of child genius, and they took detailed notes on how will this student react to being on camera, and we sort of had little practice interviews. So 400 became 150, who are invited to the second day of auditions, which then became 50, then 25 and 16. Podcast Host 04:32 So what was the general bizarre vibe of that kind of place? 900 talented smart students from I'm going to guess all over Australia and not just Sydney, who have all kind of packed in to try and get on this show. was their match kind of chatting to other students on the day trying to gauge who else might be on the final kind of 16 at the end or were you all just kind of you know, sticking with your parents at the day. Mahesh 04:57 That was a big mix of things, you know, like they were some really great people there. Um, and it, it always feels great when you're talking to people who are have, you know, the same interests and same intellect as you because you, you bond quite quickly. And you know, we were we were chatting to each other about, like some of us had watched the last season. And you know, we were chatting about some of the other people on there and how, you know, one question can completely derail your chances sometimes. And so, you know, it was quite interesting. And there was a mix of people, you know, there were people who were 12 at the time, like me, and they were in the same room as little eight year olds, and they sort of just blew your mind, these little eight year olds are so smart and have such a high level. And yeah, it was, it was a really great experience in terms of the social aspect, because you got to meet new people who, especially with some of the older kids of the other 15, whom I competed with, who had phones and things like that. So we were able to communicate after the short and we maintain those links. Oh, that's awesome. Podcast Host 05:58 What strength did you go in to that show with because you said the producers were asking you about what your strengths were? And like, how did you know what your strengths were going in? Mahesh 06:08 On? Well, I knew that I hadn't been aptitude for memorizing things, because I sort of had this really, really weird talent when I was little where, because I would sit in my high chair, and right in front of it was a calendar. So I would be staring at that all the time. And so I was able to, you know, memorize dates and look at patterns. And if someone asked me, What date will June 26 2014 be like, I was able to tell them within 15 seconds. So that was something that unfortunately, I don't possess anymore. But it was sort of something that really sort of defined me as a person, whenever we saw people, my dad will be like, Oh, my son can do this. And so you know, it was it was quite interesting, because people liked it. Podcast Host 06:54 Certainly an impressive trick. And like, I struggled to figure out five days ahead of me, we know what date it will be. And that kind of thing, if you can figure out what it's going to be four years from now, or I know, used to be able to do that when you were perhaps a little younger. But yeah, the fact that you were able to do it when you were younger is probably even more impressive, to be honest. Mahesh 07:11 Like the way I did it was I sort of used patterns to analyze, like, I thought, you know, today is December the 18th. And it's a Friday. So next year, I know that next year is not a leap year, so it will be a Saturday. Podcast Host 07:24 So then you can just mentally do the math or the arithmetic and work it out pretty quickly. Mahesh 07:29 I knew I knew what the views were. And it was quite simple. And I took a lot of shortcuts to do it. So yeah. Podcast Host 07:35 Okay. And I'm also interested in I guess, how your ideas or understanding of intelligence has changed through this experience, because you came in with a set of skills, and you came in with a set of aptitude. But I'm sure you met a lot of other students through the process, like your friends to the competition, who have different skill sets, different aptitudes, etc. So what do you define? Or how do you understand intelligence? When people speak about, oh, someone's a genius? Like, is it an IQ score? Is it memorization? Is it you know, under pressure, being able to solve things on a TV show? Like, what's your understanding of intelligence? Mahesh 08:15 I think, you know, people who define intelligence purely based off things like an IQ score or test results, it's a bit of a tunnel vision, sort of, because there are other things that determine how well you perform in a certain situation. Obviously, if you are in an exam, how much you know, is an integral part. But as well as that, it's how well you deal with the pressure of being in an exam. And even if, you know, it's the sort of mental images that you have while doing the exam, because if you walk in, and you're like, I'm going to fail this exam, then your mind adjust to that sort of, I'm going to fail, I'm not going to pass. But if you come in with confidence, which is the confidence is aided, if you prepare well, then knowing you prepared well, you feel good about the exam, which then enables you to do well. So even if you know, even if you're not a straight A student, if you if you have those external factors, it can help you do well. So it's not it's not just Nike, yeah. Podcast Host 09:17 Right. Right. You know, it's a good way of thinking about it. And I'm sure like, your understanding of intelligence is changed as a result of the competition as well like saying, people who are really good at X or Y, or Z, or you know, whatever it might be that they've got a really good skill setting, and you're able to appreciate it even though you might not be at their level, you're like, yeah, they're really smart for that particular reason. They're really smart for that particular reason. like everyone's got their own kind of flavor of smart if you know what I mean. Yeah, Mahesh 09:42 and it can also it can depend on prior experiences, like I was good at that dates thing because I stayed in calendars all the time. And people who would have read a lot when they were younger, are naturally better at English and spelling, and things like that, because they've basically grown up around books and words, so You can see like, there was one guy on the shirt he was the name was Justin. I believe he was 10. And he was ridiculously good anagrams and anagrams were, in my opinion, the hardest part of charging is I didn't get a single one, right. And so there were 11 letter words, and he was getting the anagrams within five seconds. He was amazingly good at it. And I asked him and I said, How are you this good at anagrams? Did you just do a lot of practice on these? or What did you do? And he said, I used to read a lot when I was little. And I had a set of jigsaw puzzles with the 26 letters on them. And I would make words and imri, arrange them and make more words and things like that. So there's that kind of experience, which helps you to be better at something in the future. Yeah, Podcast Host 10:43 it's interesting, I think, in terms of that kind of early concept of what makes a genius, right, like when I was in primary school, and I think this might be a situation for you as well, not too long ago, it was about the times table races, and whoever is like dominating the times table races who just cannot be beaten, everyone's like, Oh, my God, who is that kid. And usually like, they've got the times table on the back of the bathroom door, or like back of their bedroom door. And they just say it all the time, they come across it all the time. And as a result, like it's just, you know, the recall is a lot easier for them. But it is interesting, like how a kind of very specific, almost trivial type of skill, like solving anagrams or memorizing a deck, I mean, memorizing a deck of cards is actually pretty impressive. And I'm interested to ask like how your brain processes that kind of information. But it's like a trivial skill down at a really high level can take a student, especially when they're kind of eight to 12 years old, from being just a normal student up to like genius level, because they do it super super well, like 10 times better than any other student. And even if it's like a fairly basic skill, everyone's going to be looking at that student being like, Oh my god, they're a genius, even though they just grew up around that one particular skill. Do you see that that kind of thing is an aspect of child genius, where they might not necessarily be an all rounder, like super smart student, but they've just got a particular skill they're really good at. Mahesh 12:07 I should have mentioned this before, but how other people perceive you can also impact how you perceive yourself. And so if people are walking around looking at you and saying, That kid is a genius, and makes you feel good, and it makes you feel confident. And in this day and age of technology, times, tables and things, it's all about beating everyone at mathletics, and things like that. So Oh, that's what it was when I was in, prep a new one. So you know that that sort of also impacts how you go about things. And even if it's just one skill, that one skill could be anything and everything amazes people. And so, you know, when when people are that sort of all struck by you, it makes you feel good, too. Podcast Host 12:48 Yeah, well, let's get into that whole kind of perception thing, because I'm really interested in that. You've been crowned Australia's child genius. Since that time, how well or not well has that title set with you. Because obviously, like some people might say that that adds pressure, because I saw the trophy that you want, it's half your size, it's massive. So I mean, having that kind of trophy, having that kind of title, it might give you confidence when you go into school, or go into different interactions with different people. But yeah, how was that title set with you over the last year or so? Mahesh 13:19 It gives me a bit of pride to know that people recognize me for that. But on the other end, you know, I don't necessarily approve of the fact that that's all that people know me for. Like, sometimes if I introduce myself to people like, Oh, you want this TV show. And like, there's things there's other things about me, I feel like they see it as the only part of my personality. And that irks me a little bit, but I'm still super happy that they do know that because, you know, it's like odd that they have heard of me, they've watched this show. So it's like, it makes you in that sense, feel good. But you know, I don't necessarily agree with the fact that it should be all people know me for and my friends have been very supportive before as well. So that is also something that I very much appreciate. Like they while it was airing, they were very supportive of me. And one offered to buy my trophy for 100 bucks. So, you know, there's that sort of pay support, which is also great. So there's two sides of the coin. Podcast Host 14:22 Well, I mean, offering to buy the trophy for $400 is a bit of a odd side of the coin, but I guess you know, yeah, it's a pretty impressive trophy. So I don't really blame that friend of yours for wanting to buy it off you do you feel the weight of expectations when you go into an exam or you get up there and you know you're doing times tables in primary school, whatever it might be. Did you feel the weight of expectations that like everyone was trying to beat you? Mahesh is like the child genius. And if you slip like a Mako to everyone be like oh, like Mahesh 14:54 everyone loves a bit of friendly competition. And no one's perfect and being child genius. Doesn't get guarantee that I'm going to ace every exam, or be the darks of my school or things like that. I do feel sometimes that pressure that comes from it, but I try not to let it get to me. Because, obviously, yeah, this is a big achievement. But it's, as I said before, it's not everything about me, I can do other things. And so I try to keep it out of my head, and which is also, you know, something that helped me during the competition, because I was being looked at as one of the top people in that pool of 16. And, you know, I just kept doing my thing and paid off, so you can get into that circle of letting it get to you. And then it sort of makes you crumble a little bit or, you know, you can push it away, and I try my best to keep it out of a shot. Podcast Host 15:46 Well, I think it's really the difference between healthy competition and unhealthy competition. And if students are kind of getting towards that unhealthy competition, where they're getting anxiety around exams, where they're like, feeling like one Mark slipped is like a big issue, then that's starting to get unhealthy. Would you agree with that? Mahesh 16:03 Yeah, I think so you know, that there's a line that needs to be drawn sometimes, like, sometimes, you know, my parents, if I dropped a few marks in an exam, which I know that I shouldn't have, then you know, it's like, it's good. Because I get encouragement from my parents, it's like, you know, I know you can do better not you should be doing better. I know, you can do better that sort of constructive criticism versus not so constructive criticism. And you know, sometimes my friends joke with me like your child Janie's you should be icing it, I take that lightly. And because after all, you know that they're just my peers. They're not like, you know, minority finger or anything. So I enjoy the sort of banter that comes with it. But I agree that there is a line that needs to be drawn, Podcast Host 16:49 I really respect that you have reflected on the title and how you interact with it, right? Like, I feel like it's not a title that's owning you and changing the way you see the world. Like, it's just something that you know, is there and it's kind of ever present. But you don't let it get to you, which I think, yeah, pretty impressive. And it's something that I think a lot of students struggle with early on to kind of have that maturity around a title. Now, you're at a great school here in Australia, and you're also part of the Crimson rise as well. But what do you like to learn? And how do you keep yourself interested and engaged and you know, wanting to learn more. Mahesh 17:28 So I, I do a fair bit of extension I did a lot in primary school, I still do a fair bit here and there. And my secondary school, I think there's also external factors, like, obviously, you can't be doing all work and no play. And I feel like, again, having really great peers around me has helped me to, you know, stay focused, because when I want to, I can relax a little bit, that helps me to stay switched on when I need to, and keeps me motivated to learn. Because I know that whenever I step into a classroom, I've always got great people around me. And so it makes me you know, look forward to going to school and things like that. Podcast Host 18:08 Now, if you had an hours free, or say a day free, and you were in the mood to learn something, what would you spend your day learning? Mahesh 18:16 It's a good question. I've always been interested in making music electronically, using digital audio workstations, things like GarageBand Logic Pro, and I've always enjoyed doing it at school, and I've bought a MIDI keyboard, which I use at home, to make music. And I've always wanted to learn how to really properly do it, like the professional says, probably something that I would go through first. Podcast Host 18:41 Nice. Well, it's interesting, I've come across a lot of students, as a result of being the host of the top of the class podcast, who are doing their own learning in a lot of different areas. hadn't heard that one before. So I think Go for it, you know, like, yeah, it'd be interesting to kind of see where that ends up. And, you know, it's interesting to kind of, I think, apply yourself to research projects and all this other kind of cool extension. So if you are wanting to get out of the school bubble a little bit, where would you go? Would it be Instagram? Would it be going on Google YouTube? Like, if you wanted to learn something that was a bit of left of center and to engage in a different field completely? Where would you go? Mahesh 19:20 If I wanted to learn something for free, obviously, YouTube is the first place you'd go, because there's tons of how to videos on nearly every area. Udemy is good. If you've got a little bit of money to spend. I wanted to take a course in a in a programming language, then I would head straight there. So I wanted to learn all about the aerospace industry in half an hour, then I'm going to YouTube but if I wanted to learn how to program and I bought, then I would go to Udemy. Okay, no, that's Podcast Host 19:50 a good differentiation. I like that. Talk to me about the deck of cards memorization because that seems to be an impressive part of what about what you did on the child genius program. What was the challenge if you could explain it, I mean, sounds pretty obvious memorize a deck of cards. But how did you perform on the program in doing that, and then I think it would be great to kind of learn a little bit about how your brain processes like a lot of information very quickly, and like seeing patterns or whatever you might do. Mahesh 20:17 By that stage of the competition, there were 12 competitors remaining. And we had 45 minutes to memorize a randomly shuffled deck of cards that had been shuffled and then bound with a key chain thing. So basically, you had to memorize those and come out and recite them in front of the host, the two panelists and the crowd. And so I had a very, very, very strange technique to do this, because I knew that I would have 45 minutes, I chose a technique, which was sort of would take more time, like some people, were memorizing them in 10 minutes, and then just practicing practicing practicing for the remaining 35. But, you know, because I knew that I had that time, what I did was, I was an avid FIFA player at the time of the competition. And so I had a bunch of, you know, lineups of different teams memorized. And so I assigned each assigned four teams to each suit. And so what I did from there was I knew their starting lineups, like by heart, and so each card was assigned to assign him so one was the goalkeeper 235 with defenders, six through eight were midfielders nine through the jack were attackers, queen to substitute goalkeeper and kings a head coach. And so I would go through the card, and we had paper to write the notes down. And so I've got one, this is this player from this team. And once I was done with that, I flipped the paper over and start writing a short story based on it would read like commentary by the end of it is this guy passes to this guy. And if it was a goalkeeper coming next then and I had a striker beforehand, I had a little jacket, this guy shoots and scores past him. If that makes sense. Yes. And so I went through this with the full 52 cards, then I would read it through twice. And then I by then I will be able to recite it. And it works for me, I got all 52 cards, and I recited them pretty quickly, one minute and 15 seconds, which is good. Podcast Host 22:16 That is crazy. What an awesome technique a I think that it actually combines a lot of like, I've done some interesting research into memorization and techniques for that bit like that whole kind of story concept, or attaching what is I guess an arbitrary figure, like the jack of spades or whatever, to something that you're more familiar with? Which is exactly what you did? So is this are these like practice skills for you? Did you know that you were going to do that as you came in? Or as the challenge came up? You're like, Okay, I've got to memorize things. What do I know Really? Well, I know FIFA lineups. Mahesh 22:49 Well, in this in the case, specifically of the memorizing cards, I'd seen it happened last year. So I knew, you know, that's a sort of unique thing. They're not going to get rid of that for next year. So when the time came to apply, I knew beforehand that I was going to need to do this. And so I watched three sports, mainly I watch a lot of cricket, basketball and soccer. And the one that stood out and I thought I would be best at was the soccer lineups. And so I went through it with my parents and we we practiced, it must have been about 20 times. And so with that level of practice, you know, I was feeling pretty good heading in. And as I said, a while back, that confidence also plays a part in how you perform. And because I was feeling good about myself, I think that helped me just sort of sit down and I was getting straight into it. Podcast Host 23:40 Yeah. So does that kind of technique of memorization carry over into any other aspects of academia? Like if you're going into an exam? Do you also have FIFA players and lineups on your mind? Or is it just specific to memorizing cards? Mahesh 23:56 I wouldn't use that technique if I needed to memorize things like dates. But because it's a bit long and convoluted, and it was unique to that situation where I knew I would have that time. Unless you already know beforehand. I wouldn't use it because it's it takes too long. It's very unique to that situation. Podcast Host 24:18 But is that how you generally approach learning new things is like, Okay, I've got this new piece of information or I need to be able to reproduce what I'm saying he he then kind of like sifting through what techniques might be best for that given situation? Mahesh 24:34 Yes, sometimes, you know, like in in another round of child genius we were given a table with so it was related to creatures of the ocean. And we had the English name, the scientific name, the depth, they found out that diets their size, their lifespan, and interesting facts about them and where they found in the world. And so that was a giant table of information. for which it was sort of best to split it up. And we again had a lot of notes. So the first sort of step I had was making connections between the English and scientific names, like a sample question might be, provide the scientific name for the great white shark or something like that, like, I might try and make a connection between the English and scientific name, that one will sort of just sit down and memorize it. Like there was no clear cut technique which I use to go with that. Podcast Host 25:31 Right. But I think what I'm saying from you, though, is that when you see a set of information, whether it be cards or deep sea animals, those kinds of things, it's like, how can I make a bit of a pattern out of whatever I'm saying, How can I make this easy for myself? Can I pair things up? Can I, you know, relate it to something I already know. So it's not 100 pieces of information, it's 50 pairs of information. Mahesh 25:52 A sort of good analogy that I sort of just popped into my mind is, when you're using a vacuum cleaner to clean your house, it's not going to pick everything up in one word, which is why you go back to the start and go again. After that, it does pick it up. And it's the same with information. Like when I first got this table of information, I would scan it, and sort of pick up information. Obviously, I can't memorize everything by reading it in one go. And so and I go back and go through it again, and again, and again, and again. And so I would split it up into pages in the same way that you vacuum different rooms at different times. And so that was sort of something that helped me instead of trying to memorize the whole thing in one go, we had one hour for the memory round, and it was 583 pages. So you know, I take about 12 minutes, approximately first six minutes is memorizing everything on that page, then next six minutes is, you know, sort of trying to recite to myself, what's on there? Podcast Host 26:50 Okay, you know, it's interesting techniques. Mahesh 26:52 My techniques are a little unorthodox, but you know, they worked for me, they might not work for everyone, but they helped me a lot. And so it's sort of just from my personal experience. Podcast Host 27:03 Okay, well, let's break it down for perhaps the general audience out there. If there was one or two pieces of advice that you would give for students to approach memorization as a technique, or kind of like figuring out what works best for them. What advice would you give? Mahesh 27:18 I think the best advice I can give them is, don't dismiss anything as that's not gonna work for me always give it a shot, no matter how weird or wacky it is. Because that FIFA technique which I use for cards, it was idea that came from my dad, he said, Is there anything you're interested in that you can link to these cards? And I said, I like I like playing FIFA. And he said, What have you thinking, and then I came up with this lineup idea. And I thought it was really weird. But then when I tried it, it works really well. And so don't be quick to dismiss anything. Or I guess don't judge the book by its cover. Yeah, just give everything a shot. And it also depends on the situation. If you're getting something a couple of weeks before the exam, try the sort of vacuum cleaner thing, study one day, take as much as you can, then test yourself on what you've attended taking the previous day, and then fill in those gaps. I hope that makes sense. Podcast Host 28:11 Yeah, no, it does. I think it makes even more sense. When I think back to the exams that I did in the past. I don't do any exams these days, luckily. But you know, when I was going through exams, I didn't really have any techniques. I was just kind of like studying my notes. And I think it was kind of haphazard as to what I would remember. And what I would forget. However, seeing it one of the guys when we're doing Australian history exam. It's pretty funny. We're walking into the exam. And he was so nervous. He was sweating heaps, and he had written quotes down on the palm of his hand because he couldn't remember them. And his hand was all sweaty. So they're all smudging. And I'm like, bro, you did not prepare too Well, did you hear? And he was like, dude, I'm so stressed. I hate this. So it's like that exam anxiety. And I think, I think if you can say to yourself, honestly, that you prepared and planned for the exam and you had certain techniques in preparation, it will just give you so much more confidence going in, right? Like, you must go into an exam pretty confident, because you have been applying techniques to the way you study, not just putting in hours into study. And I think that's a quite a big difference when you think about it. Like it's studying smarter. Everyone says, you know, you got to study smart. And I think one of the things that you must be able to do by now is definitely study smart. Mahesh 29:28 Yeah, like work smart. Not hard. Yeah, it's at the end of the day, everyone has their own preferences, things work for people that might not work for other people. You know, someone after listening to this might throw out a deck of cards and try the FIFA method, but it might not work. You need to build up a healthy fear for addiction to get to get to that point. So it's unique to everyone. But again, like don't dismiss anything as too weird or too wacky because there is no technique which is completely useless to the situation. Podcast Host 30:00 Fantastic. Just a few more questions for you, Mahesh, what's your mentor group or what's your, they say you're the average of the five people you spend the most time with. And people who are encouraging you, you mentioned your friends have been fantastic support. But I'm going to guess your parents have also been a great support sounds like your dad's been really integral to kind of helping you develop, but then there's the young Mensa community, you've got your friends now that you've met through the child genius program. So I guess who these days do you see is like your core group that helps you to keep pushing along and doing great things. Mahesh 30:32 Obviously, you know, the most integral people to that are my, all my family, my parents, obviously, they're responsible for who I am, like the 50% of who I am today is that and they made decisions when raising me which have come out to be the right decision. So obviously, I would like to them and what they've done for me and the sacrifices they made, you know, fleeing a war in Sri Lanka to come to come here so that I can have a better life is something that I don't take take for granted. Because it's allowed me to have a much better education and set myself up much better for the future. And then after that, you know, is my friends, they were like a great support for me, you know, the very few who knew that I was doing child genius. And then by the time it was airing, you know, everyone knew the sort of the banter and jokes about it has been, you know, it's been good. And I also, you know, sort of indebted to them for the support that they've given me throughout this time. And then I've got a 10 year old little brother, who made a fleeting 32nd appearance on child genius, which he was very proud of. And he's also, you know, an integral part because, as opposed to if I was an only child, the personality changes a lot. And so he's been there for me a lot as well, which is really great. Podcast Host 31:52 And then what kind of role does young mentor typically play? Because I know there's a lot of students out there who probably know of mentor but might not know that there is a young mentor community. But would you recommend pretty highly intelligent students to look into joining something like young Mensa? Mahesh 32:08 Yes, 100%, they've No, I don't always get the chance to go to their events, because I've got a pretty busy schedule, but they're a really great opportunity for everyone to connect with other people who have the same level as you. And that's something that shouldn't be taken lightly. And, you know, it's, it's like joining young Mensa, obviously, there is a requisite level. But even if you don't feel like you're at that level, just give it a shot. Because, you know, I I didn't think that I was at the requisite level for child genius, but look where I am now. So it's a really great opportunity and do not pass up on it. Podcast Host 32:47 Good recommendation, I think it is a fantastic organization to be a part of like international organization of smart people work. Why would you miss out on that? Right? And that's a pretty, pretty key way of summing it up. And what's next for you? So you just wrapped up your aid? What do you see you kind of progressing through school? And potentially, if you had a crystal ball, what would you want to do after school as well? Mahesh 33:11 Well, obviously, the aim is I would like to get into a top American University be that, you know, some, like one of the Ivy League universities or MIT, Stanford, etc. And that's sort of like the ultimate dream. And I'm hoping that at least as a nation, America is a bit more stable by then. But that's the ultimate dream. And I've seen people in my family and my parents, friends, they've dreamt it, and I've done it. So it's, I'll always look at that as something that I'd like to do. And then after that, I'd love to work at one of the big tech companies like Facebook, Google, Microsoft, or Apple, because Google CEO, being from a community that speaks the same language as me is a role model to me. And I look up to him because he grew up in India, in South India, in a middle class family in this, you know, apartment in Chennai. And so the way that he's able to been able to drag himself up from that is really inspiring. And he's sort of the reason why I like to go to America study work. Podcast Host 34:20 Yeah. Actually visited Stanford in January. I don't know if you've ever been to the end of the US campuses, but did a tour there. And I visited Brown, Harvard, MIT, Yale, Columbia, NYU, Stanford, UCLA, UCSD and UC Berkeley as well. It was a very busy two weeks for me when I was going over there, I had no kind of conceptions as to which university I would really love. And you know, I'm not going to go to university again anytime soon. But it was the NYU campus and I was like, Oh, this really feels like home for me. Whereas the other students who I was taking on the tour, they all felt like they would fall in love with Harvard, but a lot of them were Like, oh, Brown University is amazing, or UC Berkeley was the one for me type of thing. You know, like every student felt a connection to a different campus, depending on the field, and depending on the location, the vibe, and it was at a time when like, there was not really many students on campus, but we're actually meeting students who were kind of on holidays, and they were coming on campus just to show us around. But it's really interesting to kind of get a different vibe, just by being on campus and feeling do I belong here? Or do I not, but it was really interesting. So if you said right now, which University you'd like to be at most? Mahesh 35:32 Well, Harvard's the ultimate dream. I think that's always it's always been that way. Because Harvard is the most famous sort of American University. When when someone says American University, you think immediately Harvard, but we'll have to see what happens with that. Podcast Host 35:49 And if students wanted to get in touch with you, how would they do that? Mahesh 35:51 I have an Instagram, which will probably be in the description of the podcast, and you can get in touch with me, I'll respond as quickly as I can I check in quite frequently. So yeah, feel free, Podcast Host 36:02 Awesome well Mahesh, it's been awesome to chat with you. It's been so good to hear about your techniques for memorization, to get rid of an insight into what it was like being on child genius. And to get a bit of a prediction about where we might find you in a couple years time. wishing you all the best, and I look forward to following your journey on Instagram. Mahesh 36:19 All right. Thank you, Alex. Podcast Host 36:20 Cheers Mahesh. Thanks for listening to Top of the Class. subscribe for future episodes. For show notes and to plan your best future head to crimsoneducation.org

Ep #24 TIME's Kid of the Year, Gitanjali Rao, on Science, Education and a Problem Solving Mindset

🗓 JAN 6, 2021

See transcript

Podcast Host 00:00 Hello, and welcome to the Top of the Class podcast. I'm your host Alex Cork, and in this episode, I chat with none other than the first ever TIME Magazine Kid of the Year, Gitanjali Rao. Out of 5000 amazing young people, Gitanjali was judged to be Kid of the Year for her STEM innovations, community focused apps and efforts to inspire others. We chat about how she approaches global problems, her views on how education needs to change and what she hopes to do after school. Let's chat with Gitanjali Rao. Hello, good afternoon, Gitanjali. Gitanjali Rao 00:48 Hi, thank you for having me. Podcast Host 00:50 Oh, no, it's my pleasure to have you here and be on the Top of the Class podcast. I'm going to guess this isn't your first podcast recording? Gitanjali Rao 00:57 It is not, no. Podcast Host 00:58 Well, is it your first interview with an Australian though? Gitanjali Rao 01:01 It is actually yeah. Podcast Host 01:03 There you go, first one, fantastic. Well, I feel like I know a fair bit about your story already. Given that there is quite a lot of interviews out there. I'm looking forward to chatting and hearing more about everything that you've done. And obviously like, congratulations on being TIME Magazine Kid of the Year. That was a really nice photoshoot that they did for you. Gitanjali Rao 01:21 Yeah, it was actually a five hour photo shoot before I even knew I was Kid of the Year. So I was like, 'Why are there 25 people here? And why is the photoshoot five hours?', but there was a good reason. And it was worth it at the end. Podcast Host 01:34 Yeah, absolutely. Well, we can get into it then if that's okay. Gitanjali Rao 01:38 Yeah, absolutely. Podcast Host 01:39 Can you tell our listeners a little bit about yourself? Gitanjali Rao 01:41 First of all, thank you so much for having me. I'm Gitanjali Rao, I am 15 years old. And I'm an author, innovator and promoter of STEM. So I essentially use science and technology as a catalyst for social change. But recently, a lot of my work has also moved to global outreach. So helping other youth and students just like me understand, you know, their inner passion for innovation and making a difference in society. Podcast Host 02:03 An author, innovator and promoter of STEM. When did you settle on that title? Gitanjali Rao 02:08 I guess, like literally like a week ago, because everything is constantly changing. So, um, yeah, that's my title now, I guess. Podcast Host 02:18 Yeah, it's a great way to think of yourself. And I guess it gives you that breadth and flexibility to do what you want to do and explore a whole lot of different areas, because I know there's a lot of different strings to your bow that you've developed apps, and you have developed technology, Tethys, as well. And you have written a book, and now you're learning to fly as I saw by your Twitter feed yesterday. So there's a lot of different things going on. Is there a story perhaps that encapsulates your love of science? Like if you were to go back through your, you know, how Gitanjali found her love of STEM, what would be the one story that comes to mind? Gitanjali Rao 02:53 I guess it would be a combination of a lot of different things. But if I had to stick with one, it would actually be my uncle got me to science kit. When I was four years old, I actually asked for like a Barbie dream house, which I didn't end up getting. It honestly changed my life forever and projected that I realized that the, I guess the way science can be incorporated in the world around me. And even though it was like, how can you make a volcano out of baking soda and vinegar, it still kind of gave me that, you know, an idea of what science is and how it can be used to solve real problems. Podcast Host 03:25 And you are solving real problems, which I'm excited to chat to you about. But before we get to those real problems, I think that there's a lot of interesting skill sets that you have, and a lot of interesting knowledge that you already have. What do you see as being some of the most important things that you now know, that helps you to become a promoter and innovator, and advocate of STEM? So there's obviously coding, I'm going to guess you know that because you do some app development. There's like how carbon nanotubes bond to fluoride and lead and all those kinds of things as well. So yes, I've done a little bit of research about what you do, which is awesome. But yeah, is there any particular kind of body of knowledge or skill set that you think has enabled you to step forward and become like such a great innovator in STEM? Gitanjali Rao 04:06 Yeah, I think honestly, beyond all the technology skills that I've kind of personally developed over the years, it's also a strong sense of community and realizing the reason for innovation and the reasons behind innovating and coming up with ideas. Like obviously, there is an aspect to, you know, creating a device or coding something. But I think beyond that, it's more important to understand how coding something can lead to an impact on the world. So most of all, it's just my curiosity and being aware of what's going on around me because I can fully tell you that you can create an idea without knowing how to code or without knowing complicated cam concepts. But I think the more important thing is developing a curious skill set in which you can, you know, continue to maintain your passion, just the power that you put in everything you do. Podcast Host 04:52 Yeah. Which is an interesting point I was going to ask you about whether you think it's mindset or skill set that enables you to do what you do. I think a lot of people kind of look at your story and say, Oh, she's a genius and kind of dismiss it as like you being a freak of nature type of thing, when in actual fact, it's probably due to more of like a mindset and how you see the world. So how you look at a problem like say contaminated water in Flint, Michigan, and look at yourself and think that you are the best person and well placed to make a difference in this problem, right? A lot of students will look at this problem and be like, that is beyond me. You know, there's people working in government, there's people working in private companies, etc, who are working on this problem. How does like a 12 or 13 year old Gitanjali Rao help in this situation? But you did. And you created Tethys, which is awesome. So what was your mindset at that time that enabled you to think that you were able to help in that situation? Gitanjali Rao 05:45 Yeah, I think beyond anything, it was the idea of like, going into some sort of problem like this. It's basically like you were talking about that mindset of looking at the world in a different perspective than you normally would. Like, it's easy to just let the news play in the background. But I think it's another thing to try and pick up what's going on in society. So like, I heard about the water crisis in Flint, and it honestly kept me up. I think, just like knowing how many people were affected by that problem. And when something is that has an impact on your life more than anything, if no one else is going to do it, I realized that I needed to do something. And that didn't have to be through an innovative approach. It could have been through activism through raising my voice through other people to make it happen. But I chose to go that path. And I think that's the mindset you need to keep in mind when innovating and coming up with ideas or when even identifying a problem. It's the idea that what if I look at this from a different perspective, what if I pick it up, as you know, something that I can do instead of waiting for someone else to do it? Podcast Host 06:45 Well, I am interested in your quote, actually, which we could probably bring back to this Tethys project that you worked on, which was and I got quoted a fair bit after your interview with Angelina Jolie, which was observe, brainstorm, research, building communicate, as like your process in how you approach these problems. And I think it's a really good way of thinking about things. And for students who are listening to the podcast, I think this is a really interesting way that you see a problem and you don't look at the entirety of the problem, you break it down into these steps. So can you perhaps take those steps and apply it to a project that you've done? It could be Tetris, but actually take us through, like, what was it that you observed? How did you brainstorm How did you razors? How did you build and how you communicate? understanding that this could be a long answer? Gitanjali Rao 07:30 Yeah, so the idea of this whole process is actually something I developed, just by doing it over and over again. So the whole concept of observe, brainstorm, research, build, communicate, it's always been this thing that I have, you know, stuck with, and I didn't know it at the time. But now I've basically been able to flesh it out into words. And I think that's the really exciting portion of it is, this is something that I have used, but more importantly, anyone can use. So this whole concept of this process that I've created, essentially just a prescriptive process towards innovation, it's my take on it. And I think that's really what differentiates it from our guests. Let's see what have we learned until the scientific process like the scientific method, it's like, come up with a hypothesis, test out your hypothesis, analyze your data and come up with a conclusion. If it doesn't work, do it again. And that's obviously so straightforward. And then we have the engineering design process, which is fairly similar, but it's more of like, I need to basically build something. And if that building thing doesn't work, then I need to tear it down and build it again. So the thing about innovation is it can really be taken in your own way, you can make innovation, whatever you want it to be. And that's really why I stuck with it. Knowing that I wouldn't get bored of it because of the different ways that I can innovate. So an innovation can take anywhere from what two days to three years, it just depends on how you want to spend your time and how you want to work your way through the process. So this process essentially just came about, by me doing it over and over and over again. And now I'm basically just sharing what worked for me with so many other people around the world. Podcast Host 09:08 Well, it's good that you are sharing these lessons with a lot of other people. And I know that you've been a TED speaker and a lot of other things getting on the stage quite a lot and sharing your message. When you do get up on a stage. What do you think students? Like if you're talking to a high school audience? What do you want them to take away from your talks? Gitanjali Rao 09:25 Yeah, I think the biggest thing is, anyone can do it. Yeah, I see that all the time. And people don't believe it. Like you were talking about how a lot of people think I was born like a freak of nature. And it's, I guarantee you I was not I like was basically like, I still am like every other kid out there. I just basically take that energy and passion that I have for the things I love to do and put it into the real world. And if you're doing great things for the world, that's all that matters. All this recognition. While it is fantastic for my own motivation, it's almost like a side effect that happens. And I think that that's what everyone needs to understand is that if you are doing great things in the world, if you are putting in the effort to do what you love, the secondary things will come automatically. Like my dad actually recently told me that, like, we were talking about it, we're like, oh, if this hadn't happened, this wouldn't have happened. Like, if I didn't win Kid of the Year, then I probably wouldn't be doing all these interviews now. And I think we both have to take a second and reflect and be like, well, if someone is doing real world, or real work for the world, they will be recognized in some sort of manner. And I think that that's just what I want to put out there to everyone. And hopefully, that's what people take away from my talks is if I can do it, and you can do it, anyone can do it. And I said that to Angelina... Jolie. I can't be on first name basis. That's so weird for me. But no, yeah, I did tell her that. And I think she felt moved by it. Because it's so true. Like, I'm basically just a kid doing what she loves. And I think it's so important to put it out there that I no, by all means am not a freak of nature. I am just a kid, like anyone else out there doing what, you know, creating an impact for the world. Podcast Host 11:06 Yeah, that's a really great way of thinking about it. And I love that response. I have been thinking about that quote, though, in that mindset of if I can do it, anyone can do it. And my challenge to that one is then what is stopping a whole legion of Gitanjali Raos, you know, young innovators, etc. coming out into the world, I know, there's like, I mean, through just the Top of the Class podcast, I've met some amazing people. And I challenge anyone to have a more inspiring follow list on Twitter than I do. But it's interesting to kind of think if there's, you know, any kind of barrier or limitation that students are potentially experiencing, that is kind of stopping them or preventing them from unleashing their potential and unleashing their innovations on the world, whether that be a mindset, I think the common one being like, Oh, I'm just a student, what could I do maybe something else, or, you know, when I'm 20, or 30, I'll make a difference. Or it could be, you know, that idea that a lot of students are just saying, focusing on school, like getting a good score, and doing those kinds of things and staying within the limitations of the school curriculum. But yeah, I'd love to get your take on that in terms of like, what do you see is the common limitations that are stopping students from achieving at that kind of heights that you may have set and understanding that the heights that you said, are fairly dizzying heights? Gitanjali Rao 12:23 Yeah, absolutely. And I think that it's first important to address that the education system has stayed the same for what, like 50 years, and we haven't changed a thing about it until now, like the whole virtual aspect idea. But I think the thing that needs to change is the fact that we shouldn't be judged on our ability to get an A in math class, instead of should be our ability to solve problems use it for real world situations. So I do get that because I am a high school student. And I do want to get an A in the class while doing the things that I love. So I think the reason that's stopping all of these high school students is one, they don't know where to start. Second, they don't know if they can do it. At third, it's almost like I have to do the bare minimum for school, and then be done with it. And I get that feeling. And I know how hard it is to try and balance everything. So like to address all those problems. Why for not knowing where to start, that's exactly why I'm putting out this process for anyone to use, why I'm sharing my story is to show the importance that people can anyone can do it. Secondly, balance your time has always been a hard thing for me too. And I think it's the idea of being able to combine what you love to do with school. So I was recently doing an interview and something that I really liked that I said was, when you go to school, you don't say I learned math, or today I'm going to learn math, English, science, you know, history, art, music, whatever you say, I'm going to school. And I think it needs to be that same sort of concept as I am, you know, I'm innovating for better. And that could be using things you learn in school, like using that a in math class for something better. And that's just what people need to understand. And it's so hard to kind of pick that up as well. But and it was hard for me to pick that up. And it's still hard for me to pick that up. And then lastly, the idea of taking it beyond an assignment. I think like the idea for tennis actually started out as a science fair project, it started out as something I wanted to do for like, it was an idea I came up with. And I was like, Hmm, maybe I get submitted into this challenge. And you know, I did end up winning, and I like the young scientist challenge and things like that. But I realized that I didn't want to stop there. Like it motivated me to go further. But I think that's where people are finding that holting point is when you see you know, you have a solution, you have an idea, and you get it so far. And then you compete and you forget about the whole thing. I honestly say take it beyond a classroom assignment, take it beyond a science fair because you can't do so much more with it. So those are basically some of my ideas of why there aren't more of me out there. And I think we really need to clear that up. And whether that's the way switching up how the education system works or whether that's in a way, you're just putting out the message to anyone can do it, I think it does need to be changed. And it's a valid question that kids are still asking. Podcast Host 15:12 Yeah, I can see that you are very passionate about this, which is awesome. I think it's that idea that the endpoint is the assignment grade, whereas like, maybe teachers instead of, you know, writing '''A" Great Job', they should be writing like '"A" Keep going, I'm looking forward to seeing what happens next with this project', like giving students the option or giving students the the in to say, hey, look, you've done great on that project, keep working on it, you know, I'd love to see it continue and evolve. And not just over the course of say, a couple of weeks, which is what most science projects are at school, but over the course of a couple months, and maybe even a year or two, for a student really to play out the full story or the full potential of these projects. Which actually leads me to one of my other questions, in terms of like Tethys to these kinds of things. I know that you develop them within a fairly short frame of time, you know, it was only a couple of months, in some instances, I was chatting to the Google Science Fair winner from 2019 Fionn, who's lovely. And one of the things he said, which I thought was really interesting was that, surprisingly enough, if you're going to be an expert in a field, it doesn't take years and like a PhD to be an expert in that field. Sometimes it can take like a couple Google searches, reading Google Scholar, reading some articles watching some YouTube videos. And very quickly, you can be in the top like three or 4% of people in that field. Is that something you experienced? And if so, like, what are your shortcuts? Gitanjali Rao 16:36 He's totally right. And I think that that's the important thing is the idea that we have almost made this reality that you can only be an expert, if you do like, you know, your four years of high school, and then four years of college and then a PhD, and then take up full time research and build, it's not true. And while you know, you probably do need that to master like all of biology, like say, for one specific topic that you want to use out there, a couple Google searches is all it takes, I actually have a whole chapter in my book about the idea of you don't need to know all the things in the world. Like when I was learning about nanotubes, sensor technology, I was at the time. And I was kind of scared at the beginning, because I did not want to memorize the periodic table. And I went and told my mentor who was talking to you at that time, like we have to memorize the periodic table. And she's like, no, for what why? Why would you need to do that. And I think that we that's what I've grown up with is understanding that if I need to master something, I need to know everything about it. So if you want to learn about nanotubes, sensor technology, learn about nanotubes, just everything you need to know about nanotubes don't learn anything beyond that I cannot recite the full periodic table by heart, but I can tell you everything there is to know about carbon nanotubes. And I think that that's what we need to put out there is you do not need years of school to be an expert in the field, and you do not need years of research to come up with an idea, you know, the bare minimum sometimes helps out the most. Podcast Host 18:02 Yeah, exactly. And it kind of allows you to cut to the chase and say, you know, and then meet experts and kind of feel like you know what you're talking about, right. And I feel like there's probably that speed bump a lot of students faces, they feel like they know a topic, but they feel like they don't know enough yet to go out there and actually start approaching professors and that kind of thing. But I think a lot of students would probably surprise themselves like after, you know, a couple weeks of research that probably be able to hold a fairly sensible, you know, intelligent conversation with nurses in the field, just because they've gone deep into one particular topic, which is really good advice. Now I'm going to ask you some kind of practical questions, because I feel like this is an interesting side of young scientists in particular, what does your room look like? So I'm going to guess that you do a lot of like playing around with different experiments and ideas, etc. Do you have like books lying around? If so what books like you have a beaker lying around? I don't know. Like, can you give us a bit of a mental picture of what your room might look like? Gitanjali Rao 18:55 Yeah, I mean, it's usually messy, because I'm kind of chaotic all the time. But um, it's, it looks like basically every other teenagers room by the LED strips and have one for Christmas, but it's fine. Um, but I think that the whole idea, it basically looks like every other teenager's room, but obviously there are like, all sorts of books in there. I'm an avid reader, but I think the books aren't exactly what you're thinking. There's like the whole Percy Jackson series and the Hero's Olympus series. And that's it, basically. And I think that that's such an exciting question too, because you would expect it to be more than that. But oh, I basically just like every other tanger term, because I am like every other teenager, and I feel a lot of my research on a computer. But most of the time that I spend working on my stuff is in the lab at the University of Colorado, Denver. So that's where my whole lab desk and table and stuff like that is but my room is fairly simple. There's not really much going on. Podcast Host 19:53 That's okay. I mean, I think that's heartening to know that I think students if they thought well, I got to, you know, have a whole kind of lab set at home, while you've got the great situation of having a lab set at a university, what's it been like working at a university when you are 15 years old? Gitanjali Rao 20:09 Yeah, it's definitely a new new experience, just to. And it's almost humbling to because you go there and you realize, like, Whoa, these people know a lot. And I have learned so much over the past couple of years, I've been at the cell biology lab at MIT. And specifically, there's so much you can get out of every single person there. And whether it's like literally going down to grab lunch with someone, there's always something new to learn. I remember the expensive emails and forums that I had to sign just to get a 13 year old into the lab. But it has been so important guys getting into lab, the second thing was trying to get a key card into the lab, which another like two months. But I think the exciting thing is, I have the opportunity to do that. But I take advantage of it every second of the day. And I think, yeah, that's the biggest thing is I am so fortunate to have that opportunity. And I love working at that lot. And while it does benefit me in my project, I also spend a lot of time, you know, helping out at the lab, like running DNA gels, just, you know, doing the normal because there's always something to learn. Podcast Host 21:17 Yeah, I'm not sure like doing DNA gels is like doing the normal, but maybe for not many 15 year olds, maybe it is for you. But that's very cool. That's great to hear. And what are some of the goals of TIME magazine's Kid of the Year? Gitanjali Rao 21:30 I was telling someone the other day, I was like, I hope I haven't hit peak. Like, I'd be like, I don't know what could get better than the cover of TIME. But I think it's almost like a go with the flow situation. And I guess we'll just see what's in store for me in 2021. I guess the biggest thing is, I do want to keep coming up with ideas. whatever I'm doing, I want to keep innovating. I will obviously still be a high school student. I'll keep innovating, coming up with ideas, breaking up the lab, just to see where the world takes me. Podcast Host 21:57 Yeah. And obviously, like University is something that is in the sights. And I'm sure like, I know, actually, you've been an avid reader of some of MIT's publications in the past, which is awesome. Which universities are you potentially aiming for? Gitanjali Rao 22:11 Yeah. So there's a lot actually. And I do course, I'm still looking and I do change my mind a lot based on the different programs. But I think obviously, the bigger schools like MIT and Stanford are long shots for everyone. And I think, but I love their programs. And I love the campus as a whole. I've visited MIT a couple times, actually. And I love it there. And yeah, I'd love to go there one day, but I'm also really loving, like, local stuff like the Colorado School of Mines has a fantastic bio engineering program. And I've worked with a lot of people there as well, let's just see you better. Like I like it's fun for me to go in every day. And I could definitely see a future there is about I honestly don't know, I think it ranges a lot right now. And I do have a couple more years. So I'll probably just end up picking it out. But hopefully around this time next year, I'll have a closer idea. Podcast Host 23:05 Well, who knows? I mean, Stanford, MIT, you can't go wrong with these kinds of schools. And I'm sure like the Colorado School of Mines, and a lot of these other great universities are fantastic as well. But for someone who's already done so much, and is like already working at labs, what value do you see in a college degree? Gitanjali Rao 23:20 Yeah, I think so many things are important about higher education, I think it's just so hard to pick out. But the biggest thing about you know how higher education will involve is, I think, you have that opportunity to be able to do research full time while working on school. And that's the kind of lifestyle that I would love to live is using what I learn in class for real world experience. So like, I don't know, doing a unit on like genetics one day, like gene editing one and then going to the lab after class and, you know, trying it out. And I think that sounds so fun to me. But it also sounds so important for our future is being able to use what we learn in school for the real world. So I think that's the most important thing about higher education that prepares you to go out there and do whatever you're going to do after college. Podcast Host 24:11 Fantastic. My last question for you, Gitanjali, is, what do you think the world or educational science will look like in 2050? Gitanjali Rao 24:19 Oh, in 2050, I know, that's definitely. It's so far out too. So it's kind of hard to think about. But hopefully, we basically sorted out the education idea like we're going for more problem based learning approach. And I think I definitely want to see education for everyone. I know we're really struggling with that right now, especially in third world countries. So I don't think education should have a price put to it. So hopefully, we see education widely distributed. And apart from that, I hope we're living in a much safer and cleaner world. Like, I guess just contamination of natural resources is the thing of the past. And of course, everyone is just looking together towards one common goal, because I think that's what we need right now is just people who are all passionate about making change coming together for something bigger. Podcast Host 25:11 I love that. I love that. Well, Gitanjali it's been awesome to have you on the show. And thank you so much for sharing your insights. I know you got another interview to go to. And I know you've been doing some multitasking on the side there, which I'm very impressed by, by the way, it's been awesome having you on the show. And I really hope students connect with you on LinkedIn or Twitter or where could they find you? Gitanjali Rao 25:31 Oh, yeah, so you can find me on LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram. Um, both my twitter and instagram are @gitanjaliarao. And my LinkedIn is just at Gitanjali Rao and you can come check me out there. And yeah, feel free to talk to me. Podcast Host 25:46 Awesome. Well, thanks so much. It's been great to chat and enjoy the rest of your afternoon there in Colorado. Gitanjali Rao 25:50 Thank you. Thank you so much for having me. Podcast Host 25:52 No worries. Talk to you again soon.

Ep #23 Pitching to Investors and Developing Biotechnology in High School

🗓 JAN 2, 2021

See transcript

Podcast Host 00:17 Hello, and welcome to the Top of the Class podcast. I'm your host Alex Cork. And in this episode, I chat with 16 year old biotech entrepreneur, Neil Mitra. This episode is packed with tips based on Neil getting seed funding for his patented invention to help the visually impaired. We chat about how his idea evolved, pitching to investors, been a finalist at my table and checks. And he's recommended books for students to dive into entrepreneurship. Let's chat with Neil Mitra. Neil, welcome to the Top of the Class podcast, it's awesome to have you on the show. Can you tell our listeners a little bit about yourself? Neil 00:52 Sure. My name is Neil Mitra. I'm currently the founder and chief executive officer of EyeCane, which is a socially assistive robotics company, which is aiming to help the vision impaired individuals navigate I'm currently in grade 11. And really interested in biotechnology and entrepreneurship. Podcast Host 01:07 Okay, so yeah, it's a it's a big topic and makes me think that I'm talking to someone who's possibly twice your age, you've got a company specializing in eye care to help visually impaired navigate. When you say navigate, do you mean, like, navigate by walking or navigate by driving? Or how do you mean? Neil 01:24 Yeah, so pretty much like navigating by walking is the primary. Podcast Host 01:28 Okay, and so is it an app or is it something else? Neil 01:31 Yeah. So essentially, what we do is try to replace the current hatch technology systems that are currently on the market. So right now, the way that visually impaired individuals navigate it, like they use these things known as white canes, or tactile pavings. And the problem with the system is that tactile paving costs upwards of around $30 million to implement in a city such as Toronto, here in Canada. And that's in US figures. So it's quite a lot of money. At the same time. Like really, for visually impaired individuals, it's quite hard for them to navigate using tactile paving. And additionally, haptic navigation systems such as the ones which are made by our competitors, like we walk, or Sona dot, and stuff like that, what they do is they pretty much detect obstructions around the visual impairment visual, but do not actually guide the visually impaired individual. So what our solution is, essentially, we're creating a robotic version of a guide dog, essentially, we're taking a regular guide dog and creating a robot version of it completely minimal transport layer, a autonomous vehicle that a visually impaired individual can interact with. And it pretty much guides the visually impaired individual to any location that they need. So they connect a leash onto the device, and the device is just able to guide them through it. It has motors and everything to help visually impaired individuals navigate any location, regardless of the environment they are in, or in any setting. If it's outdoor or indoor, they can use it everywhere that they go. Podcast Host 02:59 So you've created a robotic guide dog effectively, that you can program to navigate to anywhere in a city. Neil 03:05 Yeah, essentially. And we currently have a proof of concept ready. We are right now going into the MVP stages. So our first MVP prototype is built. And our second one, which is the mass producible version is what we're currently working on. Podcast Host 03:18 Awesome. Talk to me about the timeline for all of this. I mean, how old are you now? You're what, 15, 16? Neil 03:25 I'm currently 16 years old. Podcast Host 03:27 Okay, so you're 16 years old, and the same time as being in your 11. At school? You are also creating a robotic guide dog. It seems like there's a lot going on. Is the timeline for this, like over a couple of years. Like when did you first get into this kind of interest of helping the vision impaired? Yeah, so it sort of started back in grade seven. So I think I was like, around 12 years old. Yep, around this time. And what happened was in our school, we had the science fair, and my own grandmother was visually impaired. So I wanted to do something that could help her actually navigate and she lives in India. And it's quite difficult to get any classical technology there in India. So it was a matter of like, understanding what I can do to really help my grandmother and essentially impact around 250 billion individuals just like yourself all across the globe. So really, I just began researching, understanding the basic principles of how visually impaired individuals navigate currently, what the current devices are on the market, understanding their current policies and what they're unable to do. And pretty much understanding a way how to improve on that. And how can I invent something that nobody else has done before to really help them? So that's when I kept on thinking about what can we do for this tactile paving problem. So the initial idea was to replace these tactile paving with 10 black lines. So these tend to be classic paint lines, which effectively get rid of the infrastructure cost and save around like $29.9 million, right for these governments. And you would just have a robot able to read these lines and have a cane attached to it so that the visually impaired individual can navigate from any location in the city. So that was my first initial idea. And I patented the invention back when I was in seventh. So filed a provisional patent. And then I went away to compete at the science fair, I was fortunate enough to in silver at the Canada wide science fair, which is pretty much our national science fair here in Canada. And then from there, throughout grade eight, and grade nine, I just kept on like really developing the device, mostly through grade eight, a lot of RNG work was done in terms of implementing a GPS app trying to implement obstacle avoidance. So our first obstacle avoidance feature became fully working in around June of 2018. So that is when our first stages of our autonomous transfer start to happen. And currently, right now what we're doing is like removing the paint line, use an entirely so making it completely autonomous advocate. We have a prototype of that right now. So throughout grade eight, it was pretty much developing that initial phase. And then in grade nine, I decided found a startup. So this was, I think I was I don't, yeah, I was like 14 or 14 years old. And I decided to go ahead and found the startup. And it was a great experience. So what happened was, I entered this competition called MIT logics, clubs. So it's pretty much like this huge High School startup competition among 1000 High School startups all across the globe. And they compete to become a global finalist. So only 20 Global finals, global finalists are selected to pitch in front of investors at MIT, and Boston, Massachusetts. So our team, we were lucky enough to be selected as one of those 20 pitches there. And after that, it really sort of our progress sort of skyrocketed. In terms of the business side, we got lots of connections, lots of leads to investors. And we just kept on continuing with the RMD. Really, we really focused on the RNG, we started to get like potential partnerships, the Canadian National Institute for the blind, which has over like 100,000 visually impaired individuals and their client base, which was a huge opportunity for us in terms of the business side. And then when I was in grade 10, we just kept on developing that out and grade 11. And about august of 2020, we got officially c funded and incorporated out of the state of Nevada. So that's pretty much like a rundown of where we're currently are. Well, thank you for that comprehensive rundown, and what a journey you've been on from starting at trying to help you grandma. And by doing a science fair to now getting seed funding in Nevada. That's a lot to unpack. And let's start by kind of going back to where all of this research and r&d took place. Were you doing this all from home? were you doing this at your school lab? We're going to universities like, how are you actually building robots conducting r&d? And you know, where does all this take place for you? 07:52 Yes. So before August, I'm funny, it was all pretty much self funded. I've worked on it in my home, in my own room, and just like going out there and just like building the robots through hand. So it's very much like all in my room. Podcast Host 08:09 What are we using to build the robot, we use the like, things you're buying online, or? 08:15 Yeah, so pretty much like literally just find the soldering irons, finding all the like circuitry board spine, like going to the library entry to printing, I didn't have a 3d printer back when I was actually like developing the encasing and stuff like that I soon did, except there was at a point where I just kept on building these prototypes, and there had to be a more effective method. So 3d printing was a huge win in terms of like getting all the encapsulations done for a device, and like building all the chances and stuff like that, at the same time really just like buying most of like the core parts from Amazon. And then just like hard coding them, and soldering them all together using a soldering iron, and just really building it in the garage. Podcast Host 08:56 Sounds like such an Iron Man thing to do, right? Like instead of building like a suit of armor, you're building like a guide dog or a robotic God, though, was that always the concept that you had in mind? Like after the after the black strips that you were going to do? Was that the next iteration? The robotic guide dog? 09:14 Yeah, absolutely. It was like the next big step. And it was pretty much like this, this long journey. This is like the long term vision that I had. And I decide to like, you know, start executing it and see where we go. Because really, back then what what happened was like there was a there was a lack of computation when it came to creating like this small layered autonomous vehicles back in like 2017, or back then and really going out now like technologists, progressive and more, and through really clean and smart coding, you can really utilize those computational powers that our president like just generic microchips to do something which is autonomous. So it does require a lot of c++ and hard coding to get that done. And a little bit of Python curious to make sure that this machine learning models work alongside Ross, which is the robot operating system, which is a pretty well known open source system that most robotic manufacturers also use. And and it's really a great experience in terms of going out there coding and building it. And it's a long and tedious process, especially when it comes to hardware. So unlike software where you can just have a quick push of a code, and it's there, the bug is fixed and hardware, you have to do a lot of iterations until you figure out really what's going wrong. Because even if your code is 100%, working, your robot may not work as well as intended to work. So there's a huge mechanical engineering principle, which that play alongside a software engineering problem. So both of those together create a very interesting and and unique problem in the engineering side, which is quite, which is quite fun to solve. Podcast Host 10:51 Yeah, yeah. Well, it sounds like you need to really want to do this and need to have a lot of motivation to see all these challenges through and we'll get to those challenges in a sec. But I'm interested in like, what is your superpower? Like? What is the thing that sets you apart from other students? Is it the fact that you are able to self learn really quickly? Or you are a learner or ideation? Like, do you come up with ideas? Or are you great at delegating? Like, what would you say is one or two or three of your really core skills that has enabled you to go from a science fair back in year seven, to now being in year 11, with a biotech startup? 11:27 Yeah, so really, I would say, to summarize it in one word, it would be like to drive. So it's pretty much a combination of passion, and really just hunger more than anything. So you have to be really, really passionate for what you do. And you have to work hard. That's also a really key component, you have to be willing to make sacrifices, and you have to be willing to give up a lot of things for your specific passion. And I think my superpower code on code is really having that drive. So no matter what consequences there are, no matter what setbacks there are, I'll still figure out a way to go through them. And I'm really tenacious in that sense, especially when it comes to engineering, or when it comes to business sense in terms of getting investors because I know what I build is right. And I know, in my long term vision, I am willing to work hard to make that future better for others. So really, having that mindset, and then mentality of focusing on that passion is what gets me through. Podcast Host 12:22 Okay, that's awesome. Let's unpack that a little bit further. Because I think that's a really interesting thing. A lot of students obviously struggle to find something that they're passionate about, it's always been a challenge for students, they say, Oh, you know, everyone tells students to just do something you're passionate about, right? Like, just follow your heart. It's such a generic advice that a lot of students receive, but so many students are like, Oh, yeah, well, I'm passionate about the environment. And it's kind of like this vague concept that they haven't really delved into that file, or they haven't really felt that visceral or emotional reaction to making a difference in the environment. So the passion, it's more, it's more of an interest phase, rather than a passion. So what caused you to develop a drive and like an intense passion for this particular project? Is that the helping people who are visually impaired? Is it the entrepreneurship side? Is that the kind of idea of building a business in high school like what gets you out of bed and says, yep, this is the thing that I am really super excited to be doing every single day. 13:21 Yeah, well, it's pretty much the simple logic that the fact that there are 250 million visually impaired individuals, which virtually have no hope of navigation, in a very, like generic sense, for just like an average individual, how they would navigate, they do not have that luxury. So really, the fact that there that I put it into my mentality that like there are 250 million people out there who need this device. So getting that gang my passion into that key area is like understanding the fact that what would I do day in and day out? If I had unlimited time, unlimited resources, what would I be doing, and really just, it would be doing what I'm doing now. So that's working on ik, and really developing these devices out, is something that really drives me. So creating something which is better for humankind in the long run is something which is truly inspiring for me. And if I had to give advice to general students, when it comes to finding their passion, it would probably be to imagine a scenario where, again, you have unlimited resources, unlimited time, what would you do? What problem or what area would you be working on, day in and day out? Imagine if you could regenerate automatically without any sleep, what will you do day in and day out? And go ahead and attempt to do it and see if you like it? I create like a shortlist of what you think would those top five things be and then go out there and do it and narrow it down to maybe one or two and pursue those and then eventually just go down to one. Podcast Host 14:47 Exactly. Well, yeah, process of elimination, right? Well, I think it's super interesting, though, that you have obviously addressed a number of large I'm going to guess knowledge gaps along the way, right. You've got you know what you learn at school. And I'm sure there's some students listening to this been like, did he learn how to like soldeu stuff and buy stuff off of Amazon and create a company and hard code these things? Did you learn all that at school? Or do you learn a lot of it outside of school? Neil 15:13 So I would think, first of all, all the engineering stuff I had to learn outside of school, because pretty much I would have to wait until maybe University until I got into that hardcore engineering principles there. And additionally, coding and stuff, they don't teach you in school. So I had to learn coding, self taught myself how to do coding and everything. And yeah, so really, like outside of school, most of my learning was done, when it came to, you know, the physics aspect of the device, the mechanistic principles behind why the device really works. And the software engineering portion, the coding portion, the computer science portion, all that was done pretty much through my own passion, and like really learning that, and self teaching myself, what I would say that school really helped me in was an English class. So and art class, actually those two classes really helped. Which is, which is something that Podcast Host 16:03 Surprises people. Yes, I could imagine. Yeah, Neil 16:06 yeah, exactly. And here in Canada, we also have to take like these course electives. And one of the like, the most popular one is Introduction to Business. So I also took that and all those courses, they're they're also like very language heavy. And like a bit arts focus, if you could say, this is more like the application portion. But in terms of English and art, what do you really develop is the art of like, explaining to other people what you are working on? Yeah. And like pitching to investors and stuff like that really articulating your language of your thought process. And how you work is truly something that stems out of those English and art classes, art classes really help when it comes to marketing. There's a lot of science behind art. And if you're able to exploit that, when it comes to your marketing for your business, it has a huge advantage over your competitors. And additionally, when it comes to like the actual business principles, in Introduction to Business, I learned really a lot about just core basics. And the first principles when it comes to business. Because I never came from a business background. My parents never came from a business background, I was always more in terms of the science side. So science and math and engineering side. So like really coming into that business side was a was a true experience. Because at the end of the day, science and engineering and r&d is excellent. But if you cannot apply it to the real world, there is virtually no point in doing r&d. So that's one of the biggest eye openers for business that anybody can have. Podcast Host 17:33 So what were your go to resources when you were trying to self learn all of these things? I'm going to guess there was like a young Neil Mitra, who was on Google being like how to code right? You know? Is that where you started? Neil 17:46 Yeah, so really like my first coding experience, actually, I think it was like back in grade five. So we did have like, so the reason why I didn't say like any coding languages was taught because like, in grade five, they did teach us a bit of HTML. So HTML is a markup markup language that isn't necessarily a programming language, it's just to go very technical on that. But yeah, so really from HTML. In grade five, I didn't like it too much. But then grade six, I started like it. And then grade seven, I knew I had to learn some other stuff in order to do what I was trying to build. So my, my first major programming language was JavaScript. So learning the basics of it, and then going ahead and learning, literally jumping straight to C and c++, because those were really core computer science principles, a lot of algorithms or data structures. And I like those a bit more, because they were fun to do. And it wasn't so much of memorizing syntax as it was as like really understanding, like the problems more. And at the end of the day. That's what I required more when it came to creating algorithms, which were computationally efficient for my current startup and the current robotics portion of it. So really, from there just sort of exponentially started to learn Java on I started to learn Python, and all those other programming languages, all the major programming languages. And from there, I started building those Android apps and really like that the key source to all this was YouTube, and YouTube has like great free resources. And really, you can learn anything from YouTube, at least when it comes to computer science. You don't necessarily need to even go to like computer science boot camp or anything like that. You don't have to pay for anything. YouTube has tons of great resources. They're like World Class instructors teaching there for free, and I would highly recommend anybody if they don't know where to start. Just do a simple YouTube search and you will find like a perfect choice and stick to that tutorial. The hardest thing about any learning anything new is sticking to it. You'll be really excited at first but then halfway down, like you're probably get demotivated, do not lose that momentum. Keep on going through, keep on learning it. And I promise you won't regret it. At the end of the day. Podcast Host 19:47 Yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, that's the real challenge, right? When you ever learn something new and then it's hard and then you don't want to let it anymore because it's hard, but I guess when you know where it's going to be used with the applicant. They're all that's when it can be like that motivation to keep you learning, which is really good. Yeah, it seems like coding is like the new superpower in terms of like talking about superpowers, again, for young tech startups, how important has it been for you to kind of get a solid base in coding and computer science? Neil 20:20 Yes. So coding is very important. When it comes to like when it comes to deep tech, so really, our our startups up in itself as a hard tech startup. And we have a deep tech component, when we're like implementing this AI software stuff like that's really when it comes to the software engineering side, if you want to run something, you have no code. And you can have like other people besides like, the initial startup founder to begin with, who who knows code or like, you can have other people who do know code and make them your technical co founder, because at the end of the day, like, sometimes there might be a time constraint. And if you're going to build a startup, in my opinion, it should be something which is really r&d intensive, because those startups are the ones that really innovate. And creating something like, besides just software is truly something that the world requires right now. So biotech industry is a great example of it, it's very hard, it's very hard to get something out to the market in the biotech industry, because of its hard r&d that is required. So really, to innovate, really, to survive in the competition, you have to create something which is innovative. And essentially, you were putting science into action. There. So you're combining science and engineering with entrepreneurship, and making it happen. Podcast Host 21:31 So but wouldn't it app be innovative? Like, do you need to create something like an actual product, something tangible that you can hold? For it to be considered our end date? Neil 21:42 Yeah, I mean, like, it depends on what you're actually building, right. So if if your company aims to build like, you know, another, like AI company, which is able to analyze marketing records, or is able to analyze consumer preferences, there's tons of competition out there, there is no way that you can, like, even get an addressable market size, for that type of company anymore. It's almost become like a small business, those type of startups, if I'm being like, realistic about it, and, and VCs, they always keep on turning down software startups, because of that reason, there are a couple of which survive, because they're actually good. And they actually have like, reasonable traction. And if you're going to create a software startup company, you have to have traction. And speaking to a lot of investors speaking to a lot of advisors, they've also mentioned this, like without traction, a software startup company is or like any startup company is essentially worthless. And for startups, for software startups, especially they need that traction, they need to have daily active users, they need to have even better like, possibly revenue already. So that that's something that really is required for a software startup. But there is also you can have a hard tech component when it comes to the softer side. So for example, like if you've watched, like the famous show Silicon Valley, if you're trying to create something like lossless compression algorithms, or anything, which is to do with very computationally complex projects, such as blockchain, and decentralized machine learning, or anything like that, then that would be considered something which is, you know, has a high degree of engineering difficulty. But like, the best way to assess it is that if it's there on the market, what a lot of people purchase that product? And if the answer to that is yes, then go out there and build it. But probably that solution is going to be very difficult to solve. Because at the end of the day, if a solution is that great, somebody else has to be doing it already. So that that's what it looks like the time crunches there, especially when it comes to a software related journal. Podcast Host 23:42 Yeah. So what I'm getting from what you're saying there is that like, if you have got the two parts in front of you of r&d, or creating something like a robot, or going down the path of purely software development, you're probably much more likely to go forth with the robot just because there's not as much competition and like it's so I think there's so many people building apps because it sounds I guess, low cost, I don't really know, I've never built an app myself. But essentially, like you could code an app yourself and put it out in the marketplace. And hopefully it gets picked up. But a lot of them as you say don't and just don't get any traction and they disappear. Whereas if you've got a robot that you're working on, that's a true innovation that can really revolutionize how people live. That's when you're you've got the you hit the nail on the head, so to speak. Neil 24:29 Yeah, absolutely. And it's important to have traction both ways. Like, really, for hard tech startups such as ours, one of the key like metrics is having institutional partnerships and letter of intense. So having ello eyes or Letter of Intent really helps create like a attraction value against the dollar amount to potentially how many people want to purchase it. So like traction is important both ways. But especially for hard tech, the application to the bigger world might be much much greater in the long term than that of software. Podcast Host 24:59 Right. So when you Letter of Intent, don't really know that. Maybe it's just a Canadian thing. It's probably here in Australia too. But can you explain to our listeners a little bit more about what exactly that is? And it sounds a little bit like a GoFundMe page, right? Or like a, you know, like Kickstarter or something like that, where you've created a product, and you're asking people to pre purchase the product. But you're saying like, from an organizational standpoint, it's more of like a letter of intent. Neil 25:24 Yeah, exactly. But essentially, for letter of intent, when it comes to our process, like a letter of intent is essentially like a non legally binding document. So it's non binding. However, investors really like ello eyes, because it gives a sort of, it gives almost like a psychological sort of factor to the individual who is signing that Li, that they want to purchase it. So it's giving your intent that, okay, I want to purchase this device, if it's available in the market, and this date, or whatever. And especially if you get institutions on board, institutions, usually always keep their promises. So that increases your valuation. And a good example of this is the company called boom, supersonic. So they are a startup company, which is developing supersonic airplanes, and commercially available supersonic airplanes. And they had their first prototype as a cardboard prototype. And they were able to get ello eyes from Boeing, Airbus and all these huge players. And that really skyrocketed their evaluation and they were able to close like over 10s of millions of dollars funding, because they had those ello eyes. So ello eyes are really important for a hard tech startup, because it validates that people actually want if it's on the market, Podcast Host 26:37 right? So okay, there's a student sitting out there somewhere who's like, okay, Neil's obviously had a couple of decision very, very important decision processes, like forks in the road, so to speak. Yeah. Is there any, like two or three momentous forks in the road that you've had? And what were your choices in that moment? And why did you choose what you chose? Neil 26:58 Yeah, so the biggest part was participating in science fair. So that's one of the first major one because without it, I don't think I Kane would have really existed. Because with that, like it, it really got my inner passion starting to work when it came to the field of biotech. And I was the major one, the second major one was definitely like, it was entering that competition, entering MIT launch x. So over here in Waterloo, they had a chapter here in Waterloo, and it was pretty much this club called flow boat, which was high schools, which was like Waterloo, his first high school startup accelerator. And it was like their second year running it. So I decided to join it. And they were running their MIT launch program for the second year, we were lucky enough to make it as previously mentioned. So that was like our, one of the biggest moments because we got so many investor leads through that. And probably like, the third biggest is probably like, having a like building that network. So having the skill of communication and having the skill of networking, which is a huge part of getting in contact with individuals that have leads to other investors, and ensuring the fact that your company gets like Podcast Host 28:06 funded into future rounds, and make sure that you have like a clientele base is also very important. You definitely could be that kind of solo scientist sitting in the room, you know, soldering couple things, tapping away at code, and still creating a great robot, but a robot that might not actually get to anyone, because there's no money or backing or network. So that is your decision. You're like, Okay, I need to open my project to the world and really put myself out there. What was your process for preparing yourself to do that kind of thing, right? Because you obviously had the passion and the drive, but then learning how to, as you said, you know, English class was perhaps helpful for this, right? Where you have to kind of say, all right, I've done all the coding, and I've done all the soldering and whatnot. But people probably aren't that interested in that. They want to know, the actual benefit to people who are visually impaired. They want to know how much it's going to cost. They want to know, obstacle avoidance, all these kinds of things. Right. So what was that whole process like for you, when you were first starting to pitch it to different people? And I'm sure they were throwing questions at you. They were like, Oh, damn, I haven't really thought about that yet. Like, that must have been a pretty intimidating process and have quite a steep learning curve. Neil 29:14 Yeah, so really, like that portion start to happen right after like, we won that competition and MIT lunch x. So immediately after that, I like I would recommend anybody to read books. So the best way to get good at business to get good at networking is to read books. So the first book that I read in that business world, was How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie. amazing book. Yeah, an absolutely amazing book. And I recommend it to anyone. It teaches you the art of networking, and it's really beneficial, especially when you talk to investors and stuff like that. And the second part, the second book that I read was Pitch Perfect. So the book based on like how to pitch to investors, I forget the author's name, but it's a really, really good book, especially if you want to know how to pitch presentations. And that book is great because like, it will help you a lot an investor pitches and making sure that the investor gets what we're talking about. And that I started to read, it went down to like the hardcore economic basis, if you will. So I started reading Rich Dad, Poor Dad, like in around when I was in great tech, so it wasn't too long ago. And I also read one up on Wall Street by Peter Lynch, which is an excellent book, if you were interested in terms of the stock market, understanding, like how the, like, the market works, really. And then I read zero to one by Peter teal, which is a phenomenal book, it pretty much goes to the entire process of understanding if your company is going to be like the next big tech really like you making sure that your company becomes successful in the future, and assessing that if your startup idea is really worth pursuing. So definitely recommend zero to one by Peter teal to anyone. And another book, just to add into the business stuff is deep work by Cal Newport, that's a great book in terms of productivity, if you ever need motivation, or anything like that, I read that book, and really, just through reading books is probably like the only, I would say, fastest and cheapest way to learn business really well is by you know, reading books, and there's tons of like, free resources that you can get or even go to your local library and borrow those books from the library and read them and you will be able to understand really the side basics of business, which a lot of people a lot of startup founders aren't aware of. And if you're aware of that, investors will appreciate you way, way more than any other founder. So that's something to keep in mind. Podcast Host 31:40 Yeah, yeah. Well, take me to, I guess one of your latest investment pitches where you're talking to VCs as a 16 year old, that must be interesting process, right? where you're like, you know, you're obviously come across very articulate, and you know, your stuff. But I'm sure that there is that kind of like, Oh, this kid's only 16 type of thing, you know, when you go into the meeting, so yeah, what is that whole scenario? Like? How does that typical meeting playout? Neil 32:08 Yes. So really, when it comes to an investor meeting, like you have to be prepared, you have to know in and out of your device, you have to know in and out every competition? If you fail, one question, there are going to be there's going to have like doubts being raised all over the place. So you have to know what you're talking about. Because at the end of the day, like think about it, if you yourself, had your own hard earned money, would you invest it into the thing that you're building? Yeah. And what do you invest it into the pitch that you just did that, like you just hypothetically gave to yourself. So really, putting yourself into that scenario helps you create really good pitches. And it's a really iterative process to get a perfect pitch done. But once you have that perfect pitch, or like a pitch, which is close to perfection, no page is absolutely perfect. But making sure that it goes to that point of perfection, you have something ground solid done. And and for me really hitting those questions really hard in terms of the technical knowledge. At the same time, the business knowledge was something that really I would say, quote, unquote, impressed a lot of these VCs and angel investors, and all that's really impressing them is something that is a key point to keep in mind. And when it came to the issue of my age, like when I'm 16 years old, currently in high school is like I would say, if you have already, like filed so many patents of non provisional patents and all that, and you've invested so much time and energy already, and you've like taken it from a very small, like starting point to what it is now and really pursuing it, investors will see that. So it doesn't really matter in your age, but you have to like you have to like it, like you can't do entrepreneurship for the sake of getting into a university or you can't do entrepreneurship for just the sake of making money, or anything like that, like you have to really like it. Otherwise VCs or angel investors, they won't invest in you. because nobody's just going to give money to a person who just wants to go to university with a startup or just wants to make more money. Nobody's gonna give you money for that. So you really have to like it. Podcast Host 34:02 And when you're going to a VC or an angel investor how much I don't know if you can tell me this but how much are you generally asking for? Is it kind of like a shark tank scenario where you go in there and give them your pitch? And you know, say I am offering 5% of my company for this amount of money that type of thing or like what's the kind of deal you trying to broker? Neil 34:22 Yeah, so I unfortunately cannot like get the exact full disclosure. Podcast Host 34:26 Yeah, rough kind of estimates. Neil 34:30 Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. So like our funding rounds like currently seed funding rounds ready startup goes from around 50 K to like 100 K and us figures to raise their initial round. So we have raised our initial round, then like a series A which is right after this. The seed round can range between anywhere between like one to 10 to $15 million. When it comes to series A and Series B can can be anywhere between 20 to 30 million. Series C can be anywhere between 40 to 50. And series D is like four series C Series D is like anywhere between like 70 to $100 million plus in funding. But obviously that's like, once you have all the traction and stuff, do you only go to Series B, C, and D and so forth till IPO? So that's when you go on to the stock market. But yeah, like, really, when it comes to those investor pitches, there are two things that have to keep in mind one, which is the amount of investment amount that you want. And two, what is your post money valuation? So in Shark Tank, they say that, oh, give me $100,000 for I don't know, 1%? Yeah, this company, right? What you would say in investor pitch would be like $100,000, at a $10 million post money valuation. So $100,000, a $10 million post money valuation basically means that once they've invested that $100,000, your company is valued at $10 million. So if you do $100,000, divided by 10 million, you get your 1%. So really, through that, like that's what generally, what people do, when it comes to like that investor meetings, so just having that initial funding amount, and then your post money valuation, which is essentially like, just like restating that, oh, I want $100,000 for 1% of my startup. So yeah, in terms of investor pitches, you just really need to know what you're talking about, be prepared, and be likable. That's a huge part of it, just be really likable. And a lot of it when it comes to the early seed stage, when you don't have too much traction. It's a lot investors in vest a lot based on your emotions, if they like the founder or not, is the person something that they would love to work with? And all those emotional factors really run around? So like really targeting those emotional factors is really important, especially in the seed stage. Podcast Host 36:46 What do you think students should have lined up prior to reaching out to VCs or angel investors? Like, should they have a registered company? Should they have a patent? Should they have like, a pitch? You know, ready to go? Exactly? well rehearsed? And we'll practice it, can you give them like a couple of tips to avoid? I'm sure I'm sure there was probably, I don't know, you might want to share a little bit of an insight into perhaps a pitch that didn't go so well. Perhaps the lessons you learned from that, and what other students might be able to avoid if they were going, you know, down this path Neil 37:19 as well. Yeah, so like know your deck very well, like the pitch deck that you're gonna present. So what time which happened was a funny thing that happened, like one of the worst pitches that that I ever gave for EyeCane back when we were trying to raise our seed funding round was that, like, we recently updated a pitch deck. And we finished the update, literally 10 minutes before an investor meeting. So it was like, I didn't have enough time to rehearse it. So it wasn't the finest fish that ever gave. So having that rehearsal done, is very, very important. Like, yes, extremely important to having that we are still done. And make sure you have to some degree proof that you are working on it. Essentially, don't be like piranhas. That's Yes, advice. Podcast Host 38:04 I just listened. I just listened to bad blood actually the audible so yeah, there knows. If you're interested in VCs and startups, that kind of thing. Yeah, bad bloods a very interesting book to read or listen to. But yes, make sure that you're actually producing something that can be reproducible, and that you can sell to market, which they didn't really have. So that's good advice. That's tip number two, is there any other tips that you give, Neil 38:26 besides like creating something. So that's like creating something would be like having those partnerships having those like agreements and those pre orders and having the patent setup and stuff like that, showing that you've really worked on creating your initial prototype, and people want it and really like, the third part is just having having a likeability. So be charismatic, be really like, don't be super professional, try to make your pitch like a conversation. And in most cases, sometimes you've pitched without any pitch decks. And it worked really well, like the investor, they first did, like our first major investor for our seed round. So like the current investors invested in us, the current venture capital, firm, solid growth, LLC, we pitched them on the phone. And that was our first meeting. So we had no slide deck, nothing. It was just me talking. And my team just like listening and answering a couple of questions. And they have wanted a second phone meeting. And then finally a third one, which is where they said they want to do that. So that like, we never really had to even show our pitch deck for the investor that actually invested in us. Right. So that's the very funny part about raising your initial round. A lot of it is showing off your likability factor showing that you're really passionate about what you do, because that is when investors will invest. Because at the end of the day, if you're not honest with yourself as to why you're doing it, you cannot show that same level of honesty to others. So that is why it's very important to make sure that you have that passion. Podcast Host 39:51 Yeah, I know. Enthusiasm is priceless commodity, particularly in this kind of industry. And I, I think I think in particularly in r&d and tech startup Age isn't as much of a factor in some respects, like, as long as they say that you're capable that you know your stuff, and that you're innovating. They're like, okay, you're 16. Who cares? Let's get to the numbers of what's actually happening here and how we can invest in the product, right? Neil 40:16 Yeah, absolutely. Like, at the end of the day, VCs and angel investors, they don't care what your ages, as long as they can see an opportunity, they'll judge like a 20 year old, or like a 30 year old with an MBA from Harvard, as much as they'll judge a 16 year old is very, very unbiased. They just look at the business. And that's it. Podcast Host 40:34 Yep. And in terms of like, finding these investors and finding Angel funds, do you just kind of like Google investment funds nearby? And kind of like, I don't know, this is what I would probably do. If I was trying to find investments. I know you got a great network from being part of MIT and Jags. And I'm sure it's like, primarily referral based. But is there sometimes the odd cold email or like cold call and be like, hey, look, I've got a new great invention that I'm working on. I've had some patents done. Would I be able to pitch to you guys sometime next week? Or, you know, what's the process to getting those meetings happening? Neil 41:08 Yeah, so like, ironically, the thing is, like, for the investors that also like, that'd be fun, Miss Jen invested us. They weren't from any other referral or any investor lead that we previously had, we were just like searching and hunting through. Like really a Google, Google is not like the finest place to start. It's best if you start building out that network. But we were just searching for like this consultancy and like these angel investment funds and all of these areas, and we came across a consultancy firm and Ben like we just had to cold email them. And it worked. So cold emailing isn't a bad idea at all, especially when you're but be good at cold emailing have some really good practices when it comes to cold emailing, there's great articles online, that you can read all about cold emailing. And that's frankly, where we also learned it from. And it works cold emailing sometimes works like occasionally, like you'll probably have a 25% success rate on average, if you're really good at it. And I don't say that to demotivate anyone, I'm sure. Like, if you're willing to learn it, you can definitely do it. Podcast Host 42:06 There's nothing that you can't learn. It's interesting what you're looking at cold emailing as like a learned skill, right? It's not just finding the email and just typing away and sending anything, right like there's a certain formula and a certain art to sending a very, very good cold email that tries to elicit a response. Because the end of the day, like that's all you wanted to get as a response. And that starts a conversation. But I think you might have a couple of tips, which is like, keep it short and sweet. Try and set up phone conversation, like a pretty simple call to action, right? Those kinds of things can make a pretty solid cold email. But certainly like as you said, there's a lot of resources out there. So students should before blasting VCs and angel investors with all these cold emails, take the time to learn what a good email actually looks like. Can you talk to me about how the team grew? And how long they've been involved? Is it mainly students? Do you have some adults involved and how you got them on board? Neil 42:59 Yeah, so our entire like team initially started off like full of high school students. So six high school students like starting from late 2018, we had a lot of team changes. In fact, from that original team, only one person still remains from that very original team, who's currently in University at the time, he was in grade 11. So now he's in university. And he's currently studying Software Engineering at the University of Waterloo. And he's a great, he's our chief technology officer in software engineering. And he's a great person, his name is Eric. Shout out to him. And he's a great guy. And he's a really smart engineer. And yeah, so like, I work with him a lot in terms of the software side, and implementing everything in in our, in our software, transfer layers and stuff like that. And right now, our team consists of five other students. So snake Shah, who's our chief development officer, Cynthia Murphy, who's our chief financial officer. And we also have shift Patel, who's our chief technology officer. In our hardware design. We have Richard Wang, who's our chief marketing officer. And we also have REM Betty who's also our co Chief Marketing Officer, and their grades go from grade 12, which is Snee grade 11, who's myself, Richard, and Schiff, and Sophia and a TED, which is Aryan. So we have a pretty diverse range of people who are working on the problem. And they're quite motivated to solve the problem that we're aiming. So Podcast Host 44:25 there must be times where people kind of doubt themselves or is there none of that? Do people just have like, complete confidence in themselves in the product in the team and they're like, ah, regardless, we can make a difference to the world. Neil 44:38 I think like in a perfect scenario, like you should always have that mindset that regardless of your age, you can still do it. But obviously, like, if a setback comes you have to remember why you're doing it in the first place. Like you have to look back at like really just calm down your nerves and think on a logical basis of why you're doing it. And business is like a huge thing which is always repeated. Don't let emotions run you Always make sure that your logic always really operates you are more than your emotions do. So that's something to keep in mind, when it comes to business, I'm not gonna say entrepreneurship is to really have that mindset in place, think logically, don't go on to like a sort of unproductive Street, just because something isn't working, you should try to solve that problem. And at the end of the day, like, there will always be harder problems to solve. So always realize the fact that problem that you have cannot be the hardest problem that you are currently facing, there will always be a harder and harder and harder challenge. And simply accepting the fact that there is no perfect result is something to keep in mind. When it comes to business. Like there's no perfect result in terms of like an engineering problem, it will obviously pop up once again, and again and again. And there will always be improvements to be made. Podcast Host 45:51 That's good advice. Now, besides the books and your experiences in different competitions, I'm still going to talk about in my table objects, we're going to get to that eventually. But I'm interested in who your mentors are who the people around you where that might be, I don't know, I don't want to be age discriminatory or keep talking about it. But I'm sure there was a couple people who were, you know, maybe 1020 years, your senior, perhaps your parents, teachers, other people who have been entrepreneurs before an entrepreneurship community. Like Yeah, who did you kind of go to for advice during this whole process that you were starting a business and, you know, pitching to investors and that kind of thing? Neil 46:27 Yeah, so I never really had like it as a reason I should not my parents are never into, like, they're not interested, like the business side. My, my dad's like, my dad's a professor at the University of Waterloo. And he's very much in terms of like the literally like in the sense of mechanical engineering and all that area. So I got, like, advice in terms of the r&d portion, I understood how to make R&D very well, because from a very young age, like beginning from like, grade three, grade four, I started doing like all the hardcore, mechanical engineering principle stuff, yes. And all that and learning how to apply, like really just the end of the day, it's pretty basic math, until you start getting into the calculus stuff, which I'm not going to go into too much. But, yeah, like, really had that base already there. So I knew I could do the science work and everything like that. But the business side of it, I didn't know too much. So really just networking and outreaching. And just simply ask questions, because people know where you are, as a starting entrepreneur, people know that you need to build that network. And the right people will always be open to doing that for you. But there'll be open to help you, they'll be open to connect you to leads obviously have to keep in mind that people are busy, and they won't respond to your emails 100% of the time. But yeah, like keep that in terms of mind. That to reach out to people, you have to be likeable. And you have to build that network for an early age. So for me, it was really just participating in MIT launch x, getting in contact with those mentors, attending events is a huge part. So obviously now during COVID-19, once this pandemic ends, I would highly recommend entrepreneurs to go out and network at these networking events at huge conferences and get in contact with a lot of people friend network as much as you can, because you'll start to meet many great people who really want to help you. Podcast Host 48:14 Yeah, absolutely. Well, MIT Launch X. Let's talk about it. Talk me through that experience. How you prepared you were finalists, did you win anything at the competition? or? Neil 48:24 Yeah, so the competition is pretty much like if you become finalists, you get a priceless asset, which is like all these investor connections, and everything like that. And I'd recommend like, especially for like really hard tech startups, it's very worth it. Because most of the investors there and leads there are like pure heart tech investors. So like hardcore microbiology, startups, or material science startups, they should go ahead and like really, really participate in that. Because like those investors Podcast Host 48:50 Not like a software app taught kind of startup, it's more for people who are creating things. Neil 48:54 Yeah, for sure. But if you are trying to do software, like I know for a fact that the competition is much more like hardcore there, like I believe, out of the 20 startups that were finalists, I think there's like only three or four, which were actually like software based. So it's definitely much more difficult to take the software because the investors they also know that software is becoming riskier and riskier each day, but a bit of an exaggeration, but yeah, and really the experience of like the launch x, I'd recommend it to anybody back then, like we participated in MIT launch x clubs, which is the global competition. Unfortunately, MIT logics clubs as they no longer have that competition anymore, but MIT law Jax is still running. So that's like now that I think they made it into a summer program. So you pretty much create a startup and you can spin off a startup from there almost like an incubator program. There's a demand for high school students. So I would definitely recommend anybody do it. It's a great learning experience. And if you're interested in entrepreneurship, Podcast Host 49:52 do it for sure. So in terms of competing in the actual competition side of things, what are they wanting to say is it just like pitch deck and that kind of Shark Tank style, or is it more in depth, they want to see your numbers or that kind of stuff as well. Neil 50:07 So really, you have to go in there like an investor pitch. So you have to show your prototype, you have to show like your numbers and everything NSH like isn't in a stadium, so, or like not in a stadium, but like in a large lecture hall. And there's about 100 to 150 people that you're pitching to. So don't let your nerves get on you. Yes, huge part and making sure that you have that public speaking skill. And be fearless when you're on on the actual stage itself is something to keep in mind. So constantly rehearse, you can never get enough practice. So keep on practicing and practicing and practicing, and do really good practicing, and make sure you're good at it. And then of that, once you feel that you're satisfied, you know that it's good, then you can make sure that any investor invest in, in that deck. Because if you yourself intrinsically know, in your soul, at that pitch, what you're doing is true, anybody will go ahead and invest in it eventually. So that's something to really keep in mind to keep your mindset up there is you have to be satisfied with your own work that you create. Podcast Host 51:11 Yeah, so pretty much you are going to get to the finals. If you are a like a brilliant speaker, be you have a great pitch deck, see you have a great prototype. And they like they can see that your product is meeting a need or solving a problem like actually realistically has application in the real world. Neil 51:30 That's the really the final pitch that you have to do. So once you're a global finalists, when you're pitching at MIT's literally like that, but like submitting to MIT Launch X as well, you have to make a five minute video pitch. So we actually really good in terms of video pitching as well. So yeah, again, same skills apply, you have to show off your prototype, you have to show your numbers, you have to show that you're a great speaker. And if you don't do that, like unfortunately, you will get selected. Podcast Host 51:54 So it seems like there's a lot of different things. I mean, it's such an interesting competition, right? Because there's no right or wrong answer. Like it's purely based on the skill set. And the product and every everyone's going to have very different products, right. Like you're they're addressing, you know, product vision impaired, and there's probably people out there who also, you know, doing completely something different to what you're doing. And yet the judges, they are trying to compare the two even though they're apples and oranges in terms of like, actual problem that they're trying to solve. So is there any, like one or two tips that you would give to students who are interested in something like Mr. Table objects, or a similar type of competition, obviously, like the public speaking side is super, super important. The video pitching side super, super important, but is there any kind of message or tip that you think students should be including in their presentations that would help elevate their project? Neil 52:44 I would say like really read the book, How to Win Friends and Influence People. Yes, like tynax, any presentation, any pitch deck or anything like that? And really just practice those by two best advices that I can give anyone? Yep, there's no shortcut way. There's only a lot going on. Yep. Which is just hardcore practice. There's no secret trick or anything. Everybody follows the same path. You have to work smart. And you have to work hard. Podcast Host 53:10 Yeah, yeah, exactly. Exactly. Yeah. So my next question is, how do you balance all this with school? Are you running the economics classes now? Where you are running the tech classes? Or, you know, how are you making this all work alongside your schoolwork? Neil 53:26 Well, firstly, I wish I was running the classes in person. Yeah, but yeah, it's pretty good. So far, like I'm currently studying for my AP exams. And yeah, because like, I really like taking exams a test. Like for me, I find tests to be a perfect way to show up what you know. And really, like, understand, and realize the fact that if you know what you're talking about, and if you know, like, these things, which are quite important, at the end of the day, I feel like school students, they have a very negative outlook, when it comes to tests and quizzes and stuff like that, I treated those as positive. And having that positive mentality is very important. Otherwise, you simply won't be able to like, balance all these things. So one thing that helps is you have to have a passion for like your entrepreneurship side. And whatever thing you're getting in terms of your extracurriculars, and you also have a passion for school, you pretty much really have to be at or about learning new things. And that's not a bad thing. A really just having that passion is very important. And having the skill to talk to people is also very important. Podcast Host 54:31 100% and what's next for you? What's the future hold for Neil as well as Metro biotechs and ik and and everything like, I'm sure you've got next steps planned out already. Neil 54:42 Yeah. So Mitra Biotechnologies is currently like another startup that I'm founding and that one like it's currently in stealth mode, so I can't reveal too much about it. But it's to do with medical diagnostics. And that one's like really hardcore, really strong microbiology, material science area, and that It's very exciting. So really, for me, I would say the future is like, what expect happens to EyeCane is that we're most likely going to like after we have sold our products, which have CRB products and stuff like that, we hope to sell the company eventually, to a larger player who can really, really develop out our company. Because at the end of the day, what we're developing requires a high capital cost and high r&d and high manufacturing costs, and high maintenance. So through that system, we need somebody who has those in built resources already. Because at the end of the day, in the long term, it does become like a low maintenance job. But you need that very high, almost like 100 $250 million total in funding to have those factories, jobs and supply chains built up, so probably slotted to some company, which already has that set up and ensure that they are able to sell it. And at the end of the day, get it into the hands of the visually impaired all across the world. That's what's going for EyeCane what I see in the next two or three years. And for Mitra Biotechnologies I don't know too much. It's too early to tell right now. But I'll definitely keep you updated. Podcast Host 56:08 Yeah, absolutely. Well, I think students would love to follow along with your story. And these the best place to do that LinkedIn. Neil 56:14 Yeah. So LinkedIn, I also have Twitter. My my Twitter ad is pretty much Neil neitra underscore. Yeah, those are probably the best places to reach out to me to network with me. And yes, but Podcast Host 56:24 awesome. Awesome. Well, thank you so much, Neil, for joining the top of the class. It's been a fascinating insight into the world of a 16 year old pitching devices, making a massive difference in the area of biomedical technology and hopefully helping vision impaired people around the world. And I'm sure you're going to go on to do some pretty awesome things. So thanks so much for joining us, and I look forward to sharing the episode far and wide.

Ep #22 Getting a Scholarship to Oxford and the Importance of the Arts

🗓 DEC 30, 2020

See transcript

Podcast Host 00:00 Hello, and welcome to the Top of the Class podcast. I'm your host Alex Cork. And in this episode, I chat with Faith Lee, who will soon be heading to Oxford on the prestigious Singapore based PSC open scholarship, Faith studied at the Singapore School of the Arts. And she talks about how she aims to blend her love for art in experimental psychology at Oxford. And of course, Faith also shares her advice for aspiring UK University Africans. Let's chat with Faith Lee. Welcome to the show Faith, it's awesome to have you on. Can you tell our listeners a little bit about yourself? Faith 00:50 So yeah, I'm Faith. And I'm currently living on a tropical island in Singapore. Last year, I graduated from the School of the Arts, having specialized in Visual Arts. And I suppose I'm someone who has quite a big passion for both the arts, creativity and people. And I'm currently on a gap year. Next year, I'll be flying over to the UK to go study experimental psychology Oxford scholarship. Awesome. So how old are you now? I'm 1919 years old. So you're just doing a gap year at the moment that you must be looking forward to get into the cool calm weather of well not necessarily calm the cool drizzly weather of Oxford next year, what are you looking forward to most about going to a university like that? Oh, I think one of them would be the collegiate life there. Because it will be such a different environment, Singapore, it's really going to be a whole new culture, new people, even new food and an environment. And I think I'm looking forward to seeing the kind of people they have the the teaching style, as well as because Oxford specializes so much in the tutorial system, which is something so unique about the program. Yeah. So I think that's something that I'm really looking forward to experiencing. Can we fly over? Yeah, I bet. Well, I hopefully, you know, the Coronavirus is not affecting your travel plans. Do you know what date at the moment you plan to head over? Or is it just like a month in general that you've got in mind? Tom starts October. So likely in September next year, I actually thought that I'll be flying over this year, and I was making plans like booking all the hotels and everything for the same home notice. And last night, I found out that because of the virus things got a bit complicated. And so last minute, I had to change my plan. So that was a bit of a letdown. Podcast Host 02:26 Oh, well, you'll get there eventually you get there. And then you'll have an amazing time. But for our listeners who don't know what the tutorial system is, can you explain that to them a little bit. Faith 02:35 So Oxford has mainly two different systems of teaching. One would be mass lectures. So those are the most standard or the middle, we have a bunch of students off on the same subject together, and then there'll be a lecture teacher. And on the other hand, is also the tutorial system. So that's a much more personalized small group setting. So usually, each target has about two to four students paired with one professor. And there will be someone who is an expert in their field. And they will really go have really in depth conversations beyond just normal lecture content. And that's where you can refresh your ideas, have good conversations and learn on a more personalized level. Podcast Host 03:12 Often those tutes led by someone who really knows what they're talking about in their field. So it's a really discussion based learning experience. And I've heard Oxford students say that it's the best and worst thing about studying at Oxford, because if you've done your homework, and you've done your readings, it's awesome. Like you can go in there and have an amazing discussion. But like, if you're not really feeling that well, and you try and go into that discussion group, it's not so good. Because you can get found out there's nowhere to hide when there's like three or four people, right, like you'll get found out pretty quickly. And while we're discussing all things Oxford, could you potentially give a few tips and advice on the application process and how you successfully gained admission? Faith 03:51 I think Oxford is really looking for things beyond just what you might score for IB or A-levels. Because there have been cases where students have gotten perfect score 45 for IB, but the school actually chose someone who got a lower score over them. And I think the thing that distinguishes such people is that ability to think critically. And I think something that is quite consoling to think off when you go for the interview is that the interviewers aren't really looking to see how much you know, the content itself. Rather, they're looking at your ability to think on the spot, because they know that you haven't had those years of study such that an undergraduate might have or a professor, but they're looking for that ability that you might have to consider is just something respectives have a logical and creative thinking and to evaluate evidence that they give you right on the spot. So I think it's a lot more of these soft skills that they're looking for, that will really stand you apart, rather than just a number on the people, you get an exam. It's a lot more of a holistic consideration. So I think that's something to consider. And I think another thing would be to keep in mind, what is your motive for applying to this particular University I think that's always something to be, that's something that's good to be conscious of. Because this awareness gives you so much more confidence when you actually do go stand before interviewers, or as you're writing your personal statement, because then you have this conviction that comes behind every single word that you see. And even if you might make mistakes, I'll say something accidental, you know where you're coming from. And that helps to give the sense of security and assurance, even as you talk to your interviewers. And, in fact, I think it's nice to think of the interview more of like, as a conversation. And I think that was something that I experienced in one of my interviews, which was really nice, because as you were talking, anybody involved more into just a discussion with me and the tutors rather than me feeling as if I was being interrogated or anything like that. So it made the whole process so much more enjoyable to think of it from their perspective. Podcast Host 05:53 Yeah. Do you think students can prepare for the interview? Faith 05:56 I think definitely, yeah. So while the tutors might not be looking for hard and fast on this, I think that being aware of what content is in your course, would definitely be helpful. So for me, before I went to my interview, I went online to go read up a lot more about psychology because I hadn't studied it in, in soda. And I also went up and read different research papers, like current research that was being done in the field. So I could kind of get a better idea of what experimental methods were out there. And how concepts were being used in the world, I suppose. So I think it was quite fortunate, because one of the articles that I was reading its content actually came up on the very day of the interview itself. And I just been reading about it a few hours before. So that was really fortunate. That was lucky. Yeah, yeah, definitely. So when I got posed that question, I was like, Wow, there you go. I read that just a couple hours before it was so apt. Podcast Host 06:51 Yeah, speaking to other students who have been admitted to Oxford, they say, like, try and read as much content as you can relevant to what you want to study. Because if you can draw on a couple of examples or anecdotes during your interview, then it will put you in a lot better standing than someone who's only, you know, studied the school content, and not really anything beyond that. But you're studying experimental psychology. What's that all about? Because I actually am not familiar with that degree. Faith 07:17 Okay. So experimental psychology, it covers different topics such as perception, cognition, neuroscience, developmental science. So it's really all these different aspects of human behavior. But we look at it from a very scientific standpoint, and I think the focus at Oxford is on actually conducting your own research and experiments as well. So it's not just the conceptual part while we actually get some hands on experience, which is a really nice part of the course. Podcast Host 07:43 Okay, so how many branches of psychology are there? Is that like, the main one that Oxford offers? Or are there a lot of other ones and you decided to go down the experimental route? Faith 07:54 So at Oxford, there's two main psychology focused ones. One would be et, which is experimental psychology. The other would be PBL, which is philosophy, psychology and linguistics. Yeah. Okay. So that one's a bit more diverse. Podcast Host 08:08 Yeah, right. Right. Right. Okay. I thought you were about to say, pp there. But that doesn't have much to do with psychology. That's politics, philosophy and economics. And so that ppl one was it? Faith 08:20 Yeah, PV das, or psychology, philosophy and linguistics? Podcast Host 08:24 Right. And how did you choose experimental psychology versus ppl? Faith 08:29 I think, because I'm both who really loves biology. I really like that science aspect of it. And so I felt that in EP we do to focus more on stuff like neuroscience, which is something that I really enjoy. And as far as the biological aspect of the brain, I think that PVR it also covers more of like the social dimension. So that's a bit more of a focus compared to EP Podcast Host 08:52 and what has given you that kind of background to be ready for something like studying AP, because listeners may not know this yet, but you have quite an extensive background in him. And you mentioned at the start, you graduated from the School of Fine Arts, is that right? Yeah. So you've got a background in arts. And when I think Fine Arts like, Look, don't get me wrong. I don't know a huge man about the arts and like the programs, not schools, but I tend to think it's like looking at old paintings and deciding what was the artist trying to say when they painted the hand this way versus this way? That type of thing? Like, was that your arts experience? And if not, please correct me. Faith 09:31 I think a question I get a lot when people hear that came from scarfy artists. Do you guys just study all day, every day? Right? Yeah. But actually, what we do is that arts is kind of like our RCC, like a specialization we do. But we also have academic subjects besides that, so I didn't have to go study like math, science English, like Chinese is like a language as well. So it's a whole range arts is kind of like our extra clinical subject that we do and we do a very heavy for Isn't it, but it's a lot more than just looking at dusty old paintings in a museum Podcast Host 10:04 Was there a bit of that though? Faith 10:06 We did do a bit of art history series and about Renaissance art. But they also had more of like a modern focus as well. So we learned all the way from like historical caveman style, to our modern art, like Dadaism surrealism. And we also had a lot of hands on work as well that we did in the studio, creating our own craft that one practice and putting into education, all the techniques that we've been learning over the years. Podcast Host 10:31 Well, I'm glad you've cleared that up for me and our audience, that it's not just looking at dusty old paintings all day, there must be a fairly significant proportion of those students who then go into arts related programs at university. What made you go down towards the psychology route more so? Faith 10:50 Well, I think that most of my life, I actually had thought that I was going on a purely Fine Arts route. And so when I was while I was doing that, becoming an artist, saying Fine Arts at a university level, but I was just thinking about it quite recently, like just last year itself. And I thought, considering things on a slightly more practical standpoint, because I think that in Singapore's art scene is still quite natural, and like, it's not as developed as other Western countries. And Singapore does focus a lot more on, I guess, the stem parts of education. And I felt, perhaps that I would want to go into something that was a bit more of Applied Arts rather than finance. So I started like searching a bit online, and talking to people about what kind of jobs were available. And something that I came across once either of you. And a few that was on, it really appealed to me, because it really projects the two things I love in life, which is like a passion for the arts as well as helping people. And I felt art therapy would do both of these. And because I already have an arts background, I felt that to complement that I should go ahead and study psychology. And it's something that I am really interested in at the same time. So everything just seemed to fall into place. And last year, I decided to shift like the course of what I was going for. Podcast Host 12:05 Awesome. So yeah, it's been a bit of a journey with I know art therapy is like very interesting field kind of emerging field. And psychology does, I guess relate to that, and it is an interesting fit. But you did mention that Singapore does have a very strong stem focus. And I think a lot of places around the world at that kind of high academic level. It's like the computer science, maths, science students, they're kind of celebrated, you know, all the parents are like you're doing the great thing, you're going to be a doctor, you're going to be an engineer, you're going to be, you know, computer scientists, whatever it might be, did you feel any pressure being at a fine art school to push the arts side of things aside, so you could focus on, you know, something other than just purely Fine Arts. Faith 12:49 I don't think that pressure ever was there. In my case, I think for one, I'm really glad that I have very supportive parents who don't have such a traditional mindset. And they really encouraged me to just go there and fulfill what I was interested in. And I think being in in soda, I was surrounded by so many like minded individuals who are also so talented at what they did. And just going and watching my friends performances and showcases and exhibitions, I think we really could feed off this passion from one another. And it was such a lovely community to be in such that we really encourage one another's passions and interests. And I think that school also helped to balance between like the arts and our other academic subjects. So they had a heavy focus on both of them. They didn't push one of them aside to the detriment of the other, but they really encouraged us to do both our academy. And in parallel, it really helps me in my own focus, as the first thing is all. Podcast Host 13:43 What advice would you give to students who are having to make that decision or feel as though they have to make that decision between doing the thing they love, which might be the art versus doing the thing that everybody around them is telling them will be the future of work? Right? Like, it's interesting, from your perspective that it sounds as if you had a very supportive community at the fine art school. So going down that track of of studying the arts would have still been really supportive, because there was still a really great community. But I think a lot of kids who are not at a dedicated at school might love Fine Arts might love music might love the kind of performance side of things, but at the same time might feel that everyone else at the school is going into either finance or going into STEM fields and not really pursuing that interest in the arts. I think it's interesting from your perspective that you are able to see the arts having a place in another area like therapy, right? So you're able to see a career path in that. But what advice would you give to students who are in that situation or kind of like I'm looking at picking my subjects for next year, I'm looking at trying to specialize in particular path in my school, and it just doesn't feel as though the arts is the place where I should be despite that being my passion Faith 15:00 I think there are several things to consider here. So one would be the dilemma between choosing something that you might consider more practical for something that you're passionate in. I think one thing that obsessions could keep in mind is that if you were to actually pursue something that's your passion, if you encounter any challenges along the way, are difficulties, because of the underlying passion that is driving you, you're not likely to give up as easily as if you were to consider another fuel that you weren't as interested in, but just felt pressured to go into. Because in the long run, it's more likely that you're going to be burning out if you don't have that intrinsic drive that is fueling you throughout your whole journey. On the other hand, also known as this practicality you think of such as like how sustainable your job would be in the future, and what that career progression could be like. So maybe another thing they could consider is, if they do have a passion for the arts, it's not necessarily that that passion has to become the mean career. In fact, it's something that can be pursued, really, in your own time as a hobby, or as like a side passion. You could have like a day job, but still keep up this passion alongside in parallel. Podcast Host 16:06 Yeah, I think it's worth considering for students not to feel as though pursuing one area means you have to give up something that you love. Now, you can still do both. I think that's really good. Is there any particular skills that you learned from your fine art school that you think will be really applicable to Experimental Psychology at Oxford? Hmm, Faith 16:25 is it being able to think in a creative way, and watch a problem or experiment from various perspectives would be really useful? Because what we did in my fine art school astragal was very project based. So usually, we were given like a certain theme, and based on that theme, good springboard, and come up with our own concept. and visualize exactly what what we wanted to convey or create, and what was the message that you wanted to bring out there to the audience. And you know, having that general theme, it's really so broad, you can approach it from so many various perspectives. And I think a skill that is learned from there is having this really kind of open minded thinking of approaching this problem that you're given, and looking at it from as many multiple perspectives as you possibly can. And from there, slowly reading out exactly, and clarifying what path you want to take to move forward. So I guess a model that I kind of learned along the way, was this diverging and then converging model. So what happens is that you're given the problem at first select a single point, and from there, it's like, it's like a graph that diverges. And you try to look at as many possible viewpoints that you can possibly think of. And from there, you begin to converge against these select off a more probable solution. So you can come up with our ideas that you think would be interesting to really pursue. And I think having this kind of framework is something that's applicable no matter what course you're in, doesn't have to be financial, or humanities, but it's really any problem that you face in life, it could even be personal issues. And this same framework is applicable to everything that you learn. Podcast Host 17:56 Yeah. And I think that's a good way of looking at it. Do you find that when you are talking to like a hardcore stem friend, like us, you know, a friend of yours that may be, you know, maths and science to the bone? Do you feel as though you are talking to someone from another planet? Or do you still feel as though they essentially have a similar way of approaching things and similar ideas, they're just more maths and science based? Faith 18:21 I think that it's probably similar. The only difference is exactly the focus of your field. Because I have this one friend who is really into finance and math and physics, which seems was a part from the outset. But talking to him, I really feel as if we can connect over the way that we approach our subjects and passions. He loves that discovery, of understanding these fundamental truths about the world that physics has to offer. Yes. And I think even in psychology, there's also that parallel there in which we're trying to discover truth about humanity, like the way that the mind works. And I really love this whole investigative process along the way, and these interests that people bring to their own field. I think that even though such subjects might seem to be was a pipe, there is that similar sense of drive that all people carry out no matter what field you're in? Podcast Host 19:08 Yeah. Now with your Oxford admission, it wasn't just an Oxford admission, you are also a scholarship recipient. So can you explain to our listeners a little bit about what the name of the scholarship is, and what it entitles you to? Faith 19:23 So I'm currently under the Singapore PSC open scholarship, where PSE stands for Public Service Commission. So what this scholarship does, it's it's government scholarship. So when I go over to the UK, they are going to cover 100% of the fees. So tuition fees, that's awesome. Yeah, housing, even like accommodation and allowance as well. So that's really amazing. Podcast Host 19:45 The Singapore government is paying you to study at Oxford. Yeah, that's, that is like the ideal situation. So do they give out many of these scholarships? Faith 19:54 I think it varies from year to year. So this year, the intake was cut down quite significantly to about I think 35 it really varies on the circumstances and exactly on what kind of scholars the government needs for the future. So beyond just them covering a lot of the school fees, there's also of course, a bond that comes along with the scholarship. So for PSE scholars, if you go overseas, it's going to be a six year bond, when you come back to Singapore, Podcast Host 20:18 I 60 bond, what does that mean? Faith 20:20 Well, for me, under the open scholarship, within the six years, every two to three years, I'll be rotated around to different ministries in public service, to really give back and work on different stuff like policymaking, these kind of issues. Podcast Host 20:33 Ah, so it's as if the Singapore government is investing in the bright young minds of the future. And they're saying, hey, we'll help you if you help us. But that's great. They're like, you've got a ready made job as well, as, you know, free ride to full ride, I should say to Oxford, is it just oxford university that they have this relationship with? Faith 20:55 No, it's actually pretty much whatever University you want to apply to. So they do send scholars over to the UK, US, Australia, even other countries like Germany, China, France, Russia, and they do support local scholars as well who want to just study in Singapore. So it's really quite a lot of options for people to pursue. And I think another good thing is that PLC is rather open to letting scholars study a very vast range of subjects. So you don't have to just study politics or international relations in order to get the scholarship. But they actually actively encourage people to study outside of this view, so that you learn various soft skills, and you bring different perspectives to the table in future when you do so. Podcast Host 21:35 So did you have to apply for this scholarship? or How did you get identified for the PSA? Faith 21:41 So for me, as well to nominated students in my cohort, so I think the identifiers based on our academic and character check record, overall, six years in school for six years? Yep, it's from a secondary to like a high school level, I'm not sure what the equivalent is for us, from 13 to 18 years old. Podcast Host 22:01 So character and academic track record. So I mean, like, Is that part of the candidacy? Right, that you just have to be like, a really lovely person? Is that part of the whole winning a PSA, Faith 22:14 I think we will definitely look at your motive for wanting to apply for the scholarship. Because I think that going to the public service, they were looking for people who want to contribute back to society, not just you're in it for themselves, or that kind of mentality. So I think for PRC, they want people who do have a heart for those around them. Because ultimately, these are going to be, I guess, the future leaders of the country who I guess the motive should be for your fellow countrymen around you, rather than just trying to be in it for any financial gain or selfish reasons. Podcast Host 22:46 Absolutely. So what would be your advice about crafting that overall candidacy over the couple of years, you know, the six years that you had to do that throughout high school? Faith 22:56 Well, for me, over the past six years, I wasn't really working towards a scholarship or towards a PAC scholarship in particular, I was just kind of on following my own passions and causes that I was passionate about, I suppose. So I think that when considering your scholarship applications, and writing your own personal statement and everything, I think that the message that you bring forth really has to come from your heart, it has to be something that you yourself, believe in. It's not just about giving the interviewers, what do you want to hear, because I think that if you were to do that, and to get in, perhaps further down the road, you might realize that this organization might not be as suited to your own personality, as you might think. So I think that really presenting forth your most authentic thoughts, struggles and your whole thinking process would be so crucial. And I suppose in that sense, you can trust the process of application. Because I suppose that an alternative way to look at it would be that if you don't get in, maybe it's for a better reason, because it's something better for you down the road that would be more suited to your own inclinations and talents. Whereas if you do get in, and you're just speaking completely, genuinely, you know that that's where you're meant to be. And it's something that exactly suits who you are as a person. And it's a cost that you do believe in, Podcast Host 24:11 kind of like trust the application system that it won't see wrong, even if you feel like you really want to go to x y Zed like if you end up going somewhere else. It will be ultimately for the right reason at the end of the day. Is there any kind of centerpiece that you worked on throughout high school, any kind of like capstone project, I guess is the term some people might use that it would say Faith is the so and so person who created an organization or raise this money or something like that, is there any kind of centerpiece project that you had throughout high school? Faith 24:43 Firstly, it wasn't so much something that ran through all six years, but we did have various service learning and projects along the way. So I did go for this overseas service learning project to Cambodia. And while we were there, we helped to teach these children from different rural villages. Stuff like English science, hygiene through the arts. And my role in the team was both in logistics, a bit of like the team, team identity, as well as like the actual teaching and physical construction that we did on the site as well. Podcast Host 25:16 How long did that last for? Faith 25:18 For the first year, we went there for I think, two weeks. And then the following year, I applied again, and we got in, and I got in. So I went to visit that same area again for another two weeks. But the planning for that whole project lasted like several months for each time before we actually flew over Podcast Host 25:34 there. Yeah, it's quite an important project to you. And I think obviously, like that idea of using arts to help communities, right, and that kind of carried through. And now you're looking at doing experimental psychology, which is very, very cool. Now, what comes first? Is it the Oxford admission or the scholarship? Faith 25:52 So I sent in my application for the scholarship in June, because that was in the early application. The also application was further on somewhere, I think, in October, if I remember correctly, yes. And after that, my Oxford interview came somewhere in December. And then my PC interview came in January. So it was kind of running concurrently and staggered along the way. Because there were a lot of different applications features to get through for both applications. Podcast Host 26:17 So did you know that you were a Oxford student first, or did you know that you were a PSC student first, like what kind of letter came in the mail first been like, hey, congratulations, Faith, we really want you to be a Oxford student or PSC. Which letter came first? Faith 26:34 I think it was my offer first, for Oxford first. So you said that was based on what my IV score would be. So I had a general sensing of that. And after the PSE interview that she got back really fast, in just a couple of days told me that, well, I actually, I should get it. So I was also grateful for that opportunity. And a while after that, that's when I got my IV score, which then confirmed my place in Oxford. Podcast Host 26:58 So that's awesome. So you got the Oxford and then like, That must have been great. But I know that for a lot of people, it also like, Oh, yeah, great. That's also super expensive. But yeah, we're going to Oxford, right? And it's like, Hey, Mom, Dad, guess what, and then like getting the PSA must've been like an amazing moment. And not just for you, but for your family been like that, you know, life changing, right? That's not just a moment for you. That's a moment for everybody in the family, because it not only gives you the opportunity to study overseas for free, but it also sets you up with a great job when you get back for a couple of years, which is awesome. Did it really take time for that whole? You know, Oxford PSC, double victory for Faith. Did it take that a little bit of time to sink in? Faith 27:44 Definitely. I think when I first got the new hours over the moon, I really jumping for join showing the join my family and friends. Because part of me really never imagined that I would actually get the opportunity to go to Oxford sounds like there's such a prestigious school on the other side of the wall, let alone that and the scholarship. So yeah, it was, it was such a wonderful time to go through, I think and it was really beyond what I ever imagined. Yeah, and I must be a huge moment. Podcast Host 28:10 Is there anything that you're a little bit nervous about by sending, you know, a place I've Oxford, Faith 28:15 I guess one would be how everything there is going to be so different. And I'm going to have to reveal my communities from scratch back to like square one. So I hope that that will be a good time, you know, where I can make really meaningful good friendships and that I hope Africa to cope with the academic rigor as well. Because for my course, talking to some seniors, they said that we usually have the right, perhaps a one to two essays every single week for like, every single term. So that's like a huge commitment to, I guess, balance. Also, because I don't want my life to just revolve around Academy or, like, the whole reason why I want to go overseas was also to experience a different culture. So I think another thing would be considering how I condense you know, that hectic school lot as I still going out there and seeing the world while I'm overseas. Podcast Host 29:05 Yeah. Have you ever been to Oxford? Your vein on campus? Faith 29:08 Not to Oxford itself? Because I've been to was London School. scholarship A while back? Podcast Host 29:15 Yeah, I visited Oxford in September. Oh, Faith 29:18 how was it? Podcast Host 29:20 The whole town pretty much revolves around Oxford. But like, I think the thing that struck me about Oxford is just, it was similar in a way to New York, in that if you walk around the streets of New York, every corner you go to is that oh my god. I remember this building was in that movie. And I know this building because that story is from this particular building, and like just so much history. And I think that's the same kind of thing with Oxford like you go, and you can say why JRR Tolkien wrote The Lord of the Rings and he was an Oxford student. And so the all souls college is got how many towers, two towers and when he was in the library, writing the book of the things called the Redmond reading room might be wrong. please correct me if I'm wrong. Yeah. So out the window, he could see the two towers. And that's what he called the second book. And just near that CS Lewis wrote Narnia, and there is a door there with the Atlanta lion on the door. And then up above it is the little fawn tumnus. I don't know if you've ever read Narnia. But yeah, I love it. Yeah. So there's the Lions Head and aslin. Right, up above right is like a little 400. And then just next to it is the lamppost. So when they open the door to Narnia, first thing they say is the lamppost, that lamppost is there. And I was like, This is so cool, right? You know, like these, these amazing authors are coming up with these amazing ideas and stories. Some of these amazing authors, were just looking around the campus of Oxford, just saying what they say and turning it into into words in a book. So yeah, there's a lot of like, really cool students, a lot of really cool stories do the Oxford tour, it'd be my suggestion, like just trying to learn and appreciate the history. Faith 31:04 I think it's so amazing to see his show was coming alive right before your eyes. And the fact that also was a savage? What, over 900 years ago in Yeah, well, 1096, or something that's insane to think, Oh, yeah. And you're walking along the same pavements as these great minds that have been in history, it's such a wild thought Podcast Host 31:23 it is, I think it's a great place to to certainly mix with a very high caliber of students from all around the world, in terms of the role of visual arts, in a world that is increasingly focused on STEM, what do you think is the role of Fine Arts, the arts in general, in the future of work? Faith 31:42 I think that it's something that makes the world a lot more colorful. And it's one of the things that gives mankind so much about humanity, you know, I believe that arts, it kind of helps to capture a snapshot of the time that we are in, whether it's like a moment in history, or even our current situation, because I think that the study shows that concession society will situations and issues that people are going through, and the toll from such a human lens. So for example, you will compare, for example, like a painting, or a sculpture that was made during this era, it will have these certain connotations, and this whole rich culture that is behind the story and concept that the artist comes up with, as well as his own personal touch, through his own interpretations, and even his physical presence that has been upon the work. I think that is something that is so powerful, it really captures that whole moment in history for something that generations down the road can look back on, and 32. And I think that arts is all of these things that are so universal, it doesn't matter what language you might speak, or what cultural background you come from, it's it's almost like a language all in itself that anyone can look to, and relate and find their own personal connections to. And I think that's really something that is so valuable. And it's something that is so important, even as time passes. And even as society changes so much. I think that the art City Hall is such an important space in our world. And it's not something that should ever be given up. Podcast Host 33:11 Got the passion going there, I could see that that's something that's like really near and dear to you. That was like getting on the pulpit type of thing and pre preaching the benefit of arts, which I think is awesome. Like, I think, yeah, there's definitely a place for arts and I think a lot of students need to be reassured if they are passionate about art, that that is, you know, they do have a role in the future, whether it be in a career, it might not necessarily be the career path, they thought maybe it's a a, you know, addition, like you're doing like psychology plus arts or something like that. Or it could just be arts in general, but either way, like, I feel like they need to hear a voice like yours, to reassure them that no, like, if you love arts keep doing it because it is so important. It does have a place in our society and a very, very important one at that. Is there any way that students would be able to follow along with your journey to Oxford? Faith 34:06 I guess I'm one place that I might be updating is over Instagram, if you want to. I guess you can follow my Instagram but I'm Faith Lee that's Faith Leyy. Podcast Host 34:16 We might put that in the show notes then. But Faith. It's been awesome chatting. Faith 34:20 I really thankful for letting me come on to the show. Yeah, I think it's Yeah, it's really nice to have been able to meet with you and talk with you. Podcast Host 34:27 It's been my pleasure, Faith. Enjoy the trip to Oxford, and we look forward to hearing more from you soon.

Wrapping up 2020! Jamie and Alex on Lessons Learned and College Admissions

🗓 DEC 24, 2020

See transcript

Alex Cork 00:00 Hello, and welcome to the Top of the Class podcast. I'm your host Alex cork and today I chat with my co host, Jamie Beaton. It's almost the end of the year, we're wrapping up a great 25 to 30 interviews that we've conducted so far with the top of the class. And we're just kind of going through what we learned was one of the things that stood out to us, and obviously chatting about the recent college admissions as well. I hope you've enjoyed the episode so far. Hope you've been getting a lot out of it. Make sure to subscribe, make sure to share it with your friends. And we look forward to having more fantastic episodes in 2021. Let's get to the chat between myself and Jamie Beaton. Hey, Jamie, how you doing? Jamie Beaton 00:55 Good, good. Wow, almost Christmas time crazy to see how the years flown by just getting some final presents wrapped up under the tree. What about you? Alex Cork 01:03 Doing the same thing. I mean, Melbourne is coming out of the COVID lockdown, and we're doing pretty well here. And I think it's the first time we've had a Christmas tree in a while as well, to be honest. So looking forward to Christmas. I know it's been a really long year for everyone. But obviously like the Top of the Class has been a really interesting learning process for me in particular. And I know you've been working with like high achieving students for a long time. But you got the opportunity to chat with Ben Zhang as well. And you who else did you interview? Jamie Beaton 01:32 I also spoke with Soumil as well. Yeah, and John Key as well, yeah, that was really fun, I'm getting that you hit insights, I think kicking things off was really good, because, you know, he went from basically a stay at home, you know, what kind of government funded home with a single mother and when he was very young, and then he went to a public school, and then ended up being of course, Prime Minister of New Zealand and you know, making 10s of millions on Wall Street. And so that story of kind of, you know, the end to end impact of education was very inspiring. Alex Cork 02:05 Yeah, I think it's always good to get some perspective and where like that education journey can take you. But I know from my side, chatting to a lot of the students, I've probably done like 25-30 interviews now with some amazing students from around the world. And it's really challenged, I guess, my views and my perceptions of what high achievers quote unquote, actually are, and and what kind of drives them. And I think one of the things that I'm starting to see is like, there's common threads from my side, it's a big thing, from your perspective, what you see is common threads with all the students that you've worked with, in terms of US and UK applications, but some of the common threads that I tend to save from the students is particularly self learning, and the ability to kind of like go above and beyond the school curriculum, like they find an interest. And they follow that down a significantly long rabbit hole, right. And, you know, they're, they're not just kind of like googling how to something rather, they're like going into Google Scholar, and they're kind of reading research papers, and they're talking to people finding communities, and they're doing that all have their own back. And I feel like that's one of the big differences between one of these big common threads that makes these students so far and above what I guess the common student would be, and instead of just found a passion, Jamie Beaton 03:19 I couldn't agree more. And it really feels to me like there are students who have an interest, but then kind of hit a wall, so to speak, and to stop exploring, versus students who know how to keep digging to the next level, whether that be you know, hopping into the regeneron science competition, or whether it be doing the Olympiad, or whether it just be joining an interesting slack community that, you know, enables you to really probe deeper into a topic, I think the thing that always I come back to honestly, is you can go pretty far by yourself, but you can go so much further with even just two or three other like minded people helping you, you know, I guess shine a light on the path forwards. So I think about, for example, Bintang who bribed and the chemistry Olympiad, in the biology Olympiad. And, you know, he was able to push well beyond what anyone had done, you know, within his high school in New Zealand, and he, you know, really, I think, exemplified that idea of, you know, pushing the pushing the pushing deeper. And I think it's also an important trait, you know, we've sent more than 40 kids to Stanford through crimson, of course, and a number of them, you know, they really do demonstrate this intellectual vitality without pushing to explore things you can only access in the high school. And so an admissions officer will see the student and I'll think, Wow, like, this person's obviously got a clear passion for this, because they've just they've just really gone so far beyond what you normally expect of a high school student. So I couldn't agree more. And I think the other thing I'd add to that is, you don't just get, you know, that's coming through through, you know, through academics, but it's this little characteristic that helps to build entrepreneurs because entrepreneurs inevitably have to keep overturning wars and obstacles to keep getting to the next hurdle. That's unsurprising to me that many of these students are also doing quite entrepreneurial projects as well outside of academics. Alex Cork 05:01 Yeah, I think it's what you said about that support networks having like two or three people to help them out. That's really interesting. And I've been talking to students about like, what role their parents play, or who is the five people, they spend the most time with that kind of quote about you being the average of the five people you spend the most time with. And I think in the majority of cases, students have said that their parents have been super supportive of their extracurriculars and their other passions. I think that's a really big tip for students, as well as parents is that, you know, while school is really important, and getting a grade, and a score is really important, when you see that your child has that kind of all, as a student, if you've got that passion, it's worth pursuing. And if it's about having that conversation with your parents, I know some of our students, and some of the guests on the show, have said that they've had like that sit down conversation with mom and dad to say, hey, look, this is what I'm interested in. It's not necessarily related to a score at school, right, it's not going to help me get a better SAT score, or a better ATAR score or whatever it might be. But it will kind of make me a more interesting person and make me more interested in what I'm learning at school. And I think a lot of the students that we've had on the show, they can see that what they're doing outside of school and their extracurriculars is making them a better student within the school walls as well. And I think once they explain that to their parents, their parents are willing truly on board. Jamie Beaton 06:19 I think kind of building on that. The other thing that I've noticed on lots of these students is some initial success can really give the students a lot of confidence that propels them forwards and quite a big way. So I think about the student who doesn't who's just kind of averaged everything at school, and doesn't really have an identity built around any one thing. But I see some of these students for examples on a call recently with a girl who was in the Forbes 30, under 30, in Asia Pacific, when she was 18. And I think she's 14 now, but then a big one just fueled her confidence and pushed it into all kinds of deeper things within, you know, the tech world, building apps, etc. And I think it's really important for youngsters who are ambitious to find some niche, they can dominate and doesn't, it doesn't need to be math Olympiad, it could be, you know, quite an obscure activity, but just go with the process of competing, you know, developing your skills in the area, you know, winning, it just kind of puts you in a, I think, a high for mental state than somebody who's never experienced that kind of challenge and what it feels like to go all the way. So I think for many of our listeners, I'd really challenge you hitting into 2021 to think about, you know, what is one niche? You know, what can you dominate? What, what, what activity can you pick up, you can really be best in your country, or even higher. Alex Cork 07:31 I totally agree. Actually, I was chatting to Mahesh, whose episode hasn't come out yet. But he won the child genius Australia, and he's a Crimson student as well. And he memorized an entire deck of cards in 30 minutes, and was able to recite the entire deck in less than two minutes. And he did it with a really interesting method involving FIFA and soccer players, and all this kind of thing, which is all going to be in the episode. But it was really interesting that he said, one of the most common questions that he gets from students and other people is like, how did you do that deck of card things, right. And I was like, it's interesting how we use the word genius, a lot of the time, and a lot of the students that we have had on the show have been labeled as a genius by their friends and peers and whatnot. And he's like, Well, you know, sometimes it's about having a really native skill. I mean, IMO, like international Maths Olympiad. That's like a really general one. And a lot of students know about it. Obviously, winning gold is an amazing thing. And I know, we're going to have a couple of gold medalists on the show next year. But it's interesting how like, you could solve a Rubik's Cube really fast. Or you can be really good at memorizing a deck of cards, or some kind of like pretty niche thing that you might be all of a sudden, as you say, the best in the country or the best in the world in and everyone's like, Oh my gosh, genius. And then it's about how you kind of cope with that title, like how that title sits with you, whether it negatively impacts your schooling and puts pressure on you, or whether it gives you confidence to do more and better things in different areas as well. I think it's really interesting to say how a lot of the students that we have on the show have gone really deep into one particular area, and have been, as you said, like us that confidence to get better in a lot of other areas as well. Jamie Beaton 09:12 I think it's really well said and once you have found that particular niche area, I think it also tends to propel you into leadership roles and schools. Well, you know, because that initial success often gets you you know, up on stage and assembly, you know, a lot of peer respect. And that inevitably means when you create clubs, other things, you've got a bit of, you know, legitimacy behind you, and that I can turn into you know, being head boy head go. I think of the student, Helen Wu, who actually I think of quite a lot when I meet younger students because she joined us when she was about 13 or 14 and your backbencher goes through the head girl of a school but she was quite new to leadership at that point. She hadn't had much experience. And I think about kind of the set of activities she went through. You know, she got some wins getting into, for example, Harvard and Yale Model UN and other types of activities, and then she ended up being the head girl and now she's at Stanford doing computer science. And I think that's also really exciting. I think when you can get wins when you're 13, 14, 15. And that hit you up before other kids sort of taking high school that seriously in many parts of the world. Alex Cork 10:13 Yeah, yeah, absolutely. One thing I've also been interested in, and I think I'm going to throw this question to you as well. But it's really challenged my perceptions of what student achievement is. And some of the students that we've interviewed, and Ellen, in Episode Two comes to mind, jack Byrne, and his charity fundraising comes to mind and a couple other students as well, who are working on real world problems. And I often ask them the question of like, Do you ever feel kind of out of place? If you're like a 1415 year old tackling this world problem? Do you ever feel like there's must be other people who are older and more experienced than you working on this problem as well, who probably have already kind of thought of what you're thinking of that type of thing? And it's interesting, I remember Kara said, this is well, Kara, one, the 3M Young Scientists Challenge. She said, well, I hadn't seen it, you know, in store yet, I hadn't actually seen it physically, she created a nano silver liquid bandage. It's like I hadn't seen it that day before. And then if someone else was working on it, then it's a race, right? Like, I don't care if the other person who's working on it is like twice my age, it's a race to get it out there. And so she just kind of set a mind to working on it. But it was also that mindset of like, a lot of the students believe that they are the right person at the right time to work at this problem. And I think a lot of students kind of get stuck in that. Well, I'm just a teenager kind of mindset where I think a lot of the students we have on the show, are not really burdened with that mindset. They're like, I've got a great skill set, I've got an interest in this area, Why won't I be the person to solve it? Like, you look at Fionn, right, who won the Google Science Fair, extracting microplastics from water? And he was like, why can't it be made to help solve this problem? So and I think they also kind of look at it as not necessarily trying to come up with a solution to a global problem, but just being a part of the solution. So they're not trying to kind of burden themselves with that, oh, I need to kind of solve everything that just say no, I'm just going to contribute to the solution as well. So I think that that mindset of like, understanding that you as a student have like a very real, very useful skill set, and that you don't need to solve everything you just need to contribute to the solution can really help you go like very far beyond what you're doing at school and really help you contribute to society on a global scale. And is that something that you see in some of the students that you know we have through Crimson is that kind of like students who who are really going above and beyond the student mindset, and see themselves as being able to contribute at a, at a really big scale? Jamie Beaton 12:44 I would be just taking a step back for a second kind of, from my own experience, building Crimson around the world, I think what you're describing is so important to any entrepreneur, because whenever you start a problem, and you have vision, you can never achieve the vision, you know, quickly, it's the problem is always too big, too challenging. So you need to break that up into you know, a sliver of a sliver of sliver, and hit that problem. And society rewards you for, you know, validation of a part of a strategy, right. So in our case, we first of all started helping ambitious high schools in Auckland, and then we got some good results, and they were able to raise some investment, money and move to more markets. The same thing is true for high school students, when they you know, they can't solve global poverty, but they can do an interesting social impact initiative within their backyard and get some quick wins, you know, get some media coverage for that correction. We theme as a bit of a leader, wasn't their community, recruit more members get the ball rolling? I think the ability to slice up the problem and then and then really figure out what strand is most approachable is a, you know, mission critical skill, for sure. And on your question about, you know, I guess Crimson, I do definitely see this characteristic across many of our students, I think it's very important for students who are aiming for these ambitious goals like Harvard, Stanford, etc, to, you know, find some leadership initiatives, they can commit to early to find the social impact problem they're really passionate about that really motivates them. And I see time and time again, that those that find those passions quickly, and find sort of a way to attack the problem, you know, get a lot more momentum, and those sort of sort of a bit lost in the dark. Alex Cork 14:12 Yeah, well, just on passions, because I know that students everywhere get told to quote unquote, find your passion. And I chatted about this with Hannah, about like, how to find your post school career pathway type of thing. And it's that idea that passions don't arrive overnight. It's one of those things that if you start looking into something you're curious about, and something that you're interested in and spend some time with it, it will over the course of six months, nine months, maybe a year or so become a proper passion of yours like that will become your niche that will become your area of expertise. I think a lot of students kind of look at them sells, you know, in the mirror and they say what am I passionate about, but they haven't yet found anything that they're really interested or curious about, or they've got something they're interested or curious about, but they've kind of stopped at that level. Right. They're like, Oh, I'm good at maths, I guess that's what I'm interested in. And they haven't really kind of gone above and beyond that, and said, Well, how can I use this skill in other areas to solve other problems or whatever it might be? But yeah, I think that whole kind of concept of students needing to have a passion is a challenging one for a lot of students. And I think one of the things that I've seen on the the guests that we've had on the top of the class is that they've been able to kind of find their area of interest, first, the area of curiosity first, and then after six months, nine months, a year or more, it becomes that passion. So I think that's like a very key takeaway from me so far from being the host, or co host, I should say, is that there's a lot of students who feel like because they don't have a passion that they must somehow be value or whatnot, but sometimes it's just starting with your interest or curiosity. That's the best place to start. Jamie Beaton 15:50 Yeah, and I think this is very well said, I also feel like when you don't have that clear passion, yet, there's students who proactively go and try and find one. Yeah, and there are students who kind of wait for them to come in and sort of smack them, you know, like, smack themselves in the face, accidentally. So in the first note, what I often recommend students to do is go out there and think, Okay, what are the 10 things the 10, most likely things that you could potentially be interested in. And it's very rare students got an idea, often they know what they don't like. And then you go see that cause of different people could be Crimson mentors, you know, an owl in our community around the world could be people in the community, the parents know, whatever. And that helps to do more filtering, and helps to tune out some things and get us into what actually could be quite exciting. And so I'm a really big advocate of active discovery. You also can seek active discovery through certain books, like for example, if you understand artificial intelligence, you could read AI superpowers, figure out if you really like it. You know, if you're interested in finance, you could read, you know, Ray Dalio, his book principles, somebody who has figured out what you like, I would say those haven't found a passion yet. That's all good. But you know, you should begin the active discovery process rather than just kind of passively waiting. Because the faster you have a bit of a niche, you know, the more momentum you can get quickly. Alex Cork 17:00 Yeah, 100% 100%? Well, I think it's been very interesting to say kids, who I shouldn't say kids that they are young people, but they do come across as much older, more mature, many. But it's interesting that they've often found their interest and curiosity and build upon that, through meeting people networking, and that kind of mentoring side of things. And a lot of students I found are on LinkedIn. And it's been a fascinating, well, obviously, possibly, they're, they're mostly on LinkedIn, because I'm finding most of our guests on LinkedIn. That's where I'm going to define a lot of our student guests. But it's been really interesting for me to see how many students are on the platform, how the demographic of that platform has changed a lot. And also, as you mentioned, as well, like slack as a community group, where a lot of students are getting on there. I mean, five years ago, all students who were you know, talented, and doing really great things were meeting on Facebook groups, like getting outside of the school bubble and meeting on there and chatting on there. But it does seem like there's been a pretty seismic shift to both LinkedIn and then slack slash discord, to try and kind of find these global communities of students. And that really helps them get outside of their bubble and really helps them deepen their passion or interest and learn cool things like AI and machine learning, coding, these kinds of things that they probably won't see at school in a typical day, really helps them get outside of their bubble and find those communities. So yeah, I think that that whole kind of shift, like if listeners are there thinking, Well, how do these students get started? And how do these students find like minded people? It's probably because they're not on tik tok? Yeah, like, you know, some of the students I've interviewed, they're like, Yeah, no, 100%, I'm not on Tik Tok, but they are doing things like Slack, LinkedIn, and to a lesser extent, Instagram, and they're networking through there as well. So I feel like that's an interesting kind of angle to take in terms of finding a community. Jamie Beaton 18:48 Yeah, totally. What I'd say to that is, I also do see some people that probably spend more time, quote, unquote, networking and doing it's a fine balance, for example, take in Dang, he probably didn't spend much time at all on many of the social media channels, he put his head down, figure out as nation just really worked hard at it and had a couple of people two or three around the world he'd go back and forth with. So I think you don't have to necessarily be spending all the time on these platforms. Sometimes a lot of young people, they make the mistake of sort of like overselling kind of, you know, some pretty basic activities, they've done spending a lot of time promoting that online. And when they could use that time to further their, you know, their actual achievement. So I think it's a balance, you know, you don't want to be sort of spending all your, you know, free time on these things. But you also, you know, don't sort of operate in a silo in your room. So I think this delicate balance, you probably want to find one or two online communities. Great. And you can really give to and get back from and then yeah, then you can go hard with with the niche you've found. Alex Cork 19:42 Yeah, absolutely. I think there's an interesting balance between advocacy and action. And I was talking about that with another student Adara, who's going to be on the show in a couple of weeks when her episode comes out. But yeah, she was like, advocacy and action work really well together. But she was in that kind of fight. Where she felt like advocacy was, you know, which was networking and education was very beneficial. But she didn't feel like there was no action behind that. And then she went totally the other way and did all action, and kind of drop the advocacy part. And she was like, Oh, hang on a sec, they actually do work well together. So that students are in that kind of phase where they are doing more networking and kind of education around whatever they're interested in, that's great. But there is also certainly a room for you to take action and start an organization and start raising money or start actually having some tangible results around what you're interested in. And I think that's what we're seeing from a lot of the guests on the show that they've gone beyond the initial education side of things. And they're actually seeing that they can take action. And then they might combine them a little bit later on as well. So yeah, it's really interesting to kind of see how these students come to be on the show, and like their profiles that they have pretty amazing, but usually involves some kind of action that they've taken along the way, which is pretty impressive. It's admission season at the moment. We've got I mean, people think it's Christmas season, but for many kids around the world, their biggest present. Yeah, it's admission season, the biggest present, they're going to get as an acceptance note from these top universities from around the world. Is there any kind of trends or you know, things to note that you've seen from university admissions in the early decision round? That is notable or different? I know, obviously, this year, there was a lot of students who applied because there was no requirement for testing due to COVID. Like they dropped the SAT and a lot of these universities, has that been a factor in affecting admissions at all? Jamie Beaton 21:32 Well, I guess Firstly, I'd say I'm pretty proud of the Crimson team here. We've landed offers from basically all the top schools that have come out so far Harvard, Stanford, MIT, Caltech, Dartmouth, Columbia, brown, you can The list goes on. And so we've really, I think, had a great year for our Crimson kids around the woods. We're very proud of them. This is this is Christmas present around here. Yeah, as far as key trends, what I've seen basically is, as you mentioned, there's been a rise of between 3010. Some cases, given the number of applicants, many of those haven't, for example, so the early admission rate plans from you know, basically around 20% or so back in 2014. To Simpson or so. And the earlier on this year, off the back of the pack, there are so many more applicants applying. What that has meant is that many schools sort of don't know what they're going to expect to the regular outs, they're being quite conservative in the early round, taking less students who haven't had way more applicants, but actually took less students this year than they normally do in the early round. The other thing is, some people were debating whether or not test optional would change, who gets accepted. And it kind of has because 25% of people that got into some of the Ivy's didn't have any standardized tests. And generally those applicants have some potentially, you know, disadvantaged background, or there's some context behind why they couldn't take the kids. And so a lot of schools have been celebrating their recruitment in those areas, which is definitely something to be applauded. But on a go forward basis. There's an interesting question as to, you know, the role of standardized testing. In general, it's still a good idea to take because basically, if you don't take it, and you'll know you're from a community or school in which most people do, they'll raise questions about why you haven't done it. But that's an interesting trend to note. So a lot of our students are really happy with the early results, you know, others are writing their applications ready for the regular round. But it's definitely a very exciting and unique year for the college admissions season. I also had briefly touched on we we had a company or hence a couple days ago, and we had a really talented student of ours from Brazil. He was on a scholarship through crimson and had gotten to Stanford, which is pretty life changing for music came from pretty low income community. And he had done the full first year of Stanford remote online. And it was fascinating to hear him talk about that experience Stanford and run a really impressive remote first year, lots of interesting online collaboration tools, the book many great friendships. But it was interesting to hear about those kids that had sort of had the first year of college through COVID. I fortunately, I suspect, fingers crossed lots of achievers just got an early cycle, you know, we'll be able to go in person come 2021 timber, given the printer, the exact things and everything. But definitely an interesting time in the college admissions world for those that have gotten in, and also those who are now applying and even current college students. Alex Cork 24:11 Yeah. And it's a super interesting time. And I know that a lot of the students that we have on the show, they might be 14 or 15 years old, but they already kind of have a rough idea of which universities they want to go to or what they might want to study after school. My main thing on that is don't necessarily buy into the question of what you want to be when you grow up. If you're a student out there, like if you hear that kind of question, just kind of respond with Well, this is what I'm actually doing now. Like don't actually wait to grow up before you start, you know, working on environmental science or working on coding or machine learning. Like that's a another big thing that I've seen from top of the class guess is that they don't wait until after school to start doing the things that they see themselves doing in the future. They kind of make a start now. And a really kind of having a one eye on the future and seeing where could their profile take them potentially Jamie Beaton 25:00 Well said Alex, and I got to say, you know, have a Merry Christmas to the family. Have a great time. You know, I think it's been really fun building this out with you over the last little while. Many, many families have found this to be a really inspiring, you know, voice of direction for them during a very challenging time. And I think it's only going to get more exciting for top of the class and a wonderful student community around the world in 2021. Alex Cork 25:23 Yeah, well, we're interviewing the Times Magazine, kid of the year Gitanjali Rao on Monday, my time and Sunday, her time. And then we've got amazing interviews coming up in January as well, with some global kind of student celebrities. I think a lot of students would be familiar with their stories. So we really look forward to sharing those episodes in the coming months. But yeah, Jamie, you stay safe there. I hope all our listeners are staying safe and well over the Christmas period. I know it's going to be really challenging one for a lot of people. But yeah, just maintain that kind of positivity and, you know, stay safe and keep well. Jamie Beaton 25:55 Chat soon Alex, have a good one.

Ep #21 How to Learn 14 Coding Languages and Run a Global Blog

🗓 DEC 23, 2020

See transcript

Podcast Host 00:17 Hello, and welcome to the top of the class podcast. I'm your host Alex Cork, and in this episode I chat with 16 year old, Satvik Tripathi. Satvik is passionate about computer science and artificial intelligence. We chat about learning 14 different coding languages, being a Google Developer and leading a global student led organization with a mission to bring AI and tech to the world. Let's chat with Satvik Tripathi. Hi, Satvik welcome to the Top of the Class podcast, it's fantastic to have you on the show. Can you tell our listeners who are all around the world a little bit about yourself? Satvik 00:51 First of all, thank you so much for having me here. I'm Satvik. I'm from Lucknow, India, and I'm a high school senior. And I am very passionate about computer science, artificial intelligence. I have my own nonprofit international organization. I am the head and founder of fit. And I am into research and artificial intelligence app development. And I really look forward to working in some research lab in future as they get into college and hopefully contributing to this world. Podcast Host 01:24 Well, yeah, are you already are doing some great contributions to the world? And we'll get into that. But how old are you just for our reference? Satvik 01:30 I'm 16. Podcast Host 01:31 16 years old, and you're interested in AI and all these amazing things that I don't know too much about? Because I didn't really do that kind of thing. Well, that kind of thing wasn't really around when I was at school. So that's kind of showing my age a little bit. But we want to talk about you and you're interested in AI. Where did it all start from? Satvik 01:48 It's a very funny story. I am a huge Marvel fan. Podcast Host 01:51 Me too. Satvik 01:51 Oh, that's great. Yeah. Iron Man 3000. Podcast Host 01:55 Yeah, that's right. Satvik 01:56 So coming from that I am a huge Jarvis fan. I used to sit down for them to TV, and thinking wishing that I could have that Jarvis with me, and bringing the whole possibilities and areas of things I could do with him. And then I've thought of actually, you know, anything you pops into your mind, you just Google it. So I googled how to create jobs. And I got these, you know, long fandom pages. And then, you know, found theories. But that's not what I was looking for. I was looking for something more technical. And then at that point of time, I came across this word artificial intelligence. So this was something which, you know, was my first interaction with artificial intelligence. I tried to, you know, search more about it, learn more about it. And then it was like, a lot of mathematics. Like the first research paper I read, I only got to understand the top four words or five words of the abstract, right. Other than that, I had no clue what was going on. So it took me a lot of time to understand the complexities and topics within AI. I'm currently actually working on a real life job. It's like it's my current project. And it's awesome. It's like on the base level, like, the base level is done, almost done. Maybe in a year or two, it would be like on a basic working. Podcast Host 03:17 If you were to read that abstract again, how much of them would you understand? Satvik 03:21 I wrote a similar abstract and a year ago. Podcast Host 03:24 So yeah, you're not just reading abstracts, you're writing abstracts, and you feel like you've got a real handle on on everything that's involved in AI. But it's I know, it's a super fast developing field. And I feel like teenagers could be on a level playing field compared to someone who is, you know, 30, or 40 years old, because AI is so new, like you've grown up in the age of AI, and a 30, or 40 year old, probably hasn't really grown up and has had to learn it from scratch, and you've learned it from scratch as well. Do you feel like when you interact with the wider community, that you are at a similar kind of level as other people who might be a bit older than you in the field of AI? Satvik 04:05 That really depends on like, what person I'm talking to you. Like, in general, as a fighter in the world. Everybody knows what artificial intelligence is. Like, one of the most basic definitions like I've got, you heard from like, a layman, who is not a researcher working in artificial intelligence is that anything which computers and humans can do, artificial intelligence can do in a simpler way? Right. So this is what like a simple perception of like most people for artificial intelligence, but as a researcher, or winner as a project manager, when I speak to people, we speak on a whole new level, we speak about algorithms, the, you know, how the data set is formed and how the data is distributed. It's a different world. It's a completely different world. It's more into mathematics. The statics, you know, you sometimes have to think about even the humanities fault, like how is the machine Thinking you have to think about the psychology of it. Because at the very origin, which is something Stanford has, even right now, it's called the symbolic system, which was the combination of artificial intelligence, psychology, linguistic cognitive science to actually understand about how the machine is learning. So yeah, it's really up to the knowledge of the other person. But yeah, on a broader terms, you can obviously explain it to them. Podcast Host 05:26 What kind of maths is involved in this? I mean, when you say like, it's got a lot of maths and is it something that you would learn at school? Or is it a completely different kind of maths than what you learned at school? Satvik 05:36 It's a whole lot of math, it's more than calculus, and even calculus, like mostly without any numbers, they are dealing with, like only variables. And like there's a key data. And there's three dimensions of data sets, you know, in n dimension. And then we are finding out about like, the relations between those points. And like, it's a complex mix of the poor mathematics, and the statistics, like understanding the distribution of the data, Podcast Host 06:05 right? So just slow down a little bit on that one. For me, I've actually never seen an algorithm. I know that sounds like a silly question to us. But what does an algorithm actually look like? Is it one line of code? Or one formula that you apply to a large data set? Or is it you know, a large set of coding data, like I described for me what an algorithm looks like. Satvik 06:29 I'll walk you through it. Podcast Host 06:31 Thank you Satvik 06:31 Think about a data set. It contains a number of data. And the data points are set in a way that you have an x AI, which will give you an output in Y, if you put the P of x is the function P of inside. If you put exci then you will get an output Why am I right? Yes, that's you have a data set D which has all these points, till n and number of points. So now, your job is to do what you have to do is that we now take up a new point, say x comma y. And we asked you that if we put the same this new eggs into the old function, where this why would like, so what we do is that we try to understand the pattern in the previous data sets like how x i and Y are related, right? So say if the you put x equals to one and the y is equals to two, then you put x equals two x two equals two and y two becomes four, x three equals to three, y two, y three becomes eight. Yes. So basically, you're seeing that it's growing exponentially. And it's like two to the power n, that becomes a formula for this data set. So you assume that if x equals to n, then if you put a new number that is x in the data set in this function, then possibly the answer of why would lie into the power x, and we just do it in a whole new complex level. Like this is one of the simplest examples, you will never seen data science, right, Podcast Host 08:05 Right. So the algorithms, I'm going to guess for the kind of things that are like when people talk about algorithms, changing the world or big data sets, I'm going to guess the formula is extensive and has like a lot of variables and a lot of different things that it's trying to calculate. And if done successfully, or inputted correctly, then the better it can predict the outcome, right of particular behaviour or whatever you're trying to predict. Satvik 08:32 Exactly. The classified data. Podcast Host 08:34 Yes. Okay. Okay. Well, I'm glad I understood that. But when you were, you know, 13, and you were looking up how to create Jarvis, and you saw that abstract and you didn't really know what was going on? How did you then start to try and figure out what was going on? Like, where do you start when you're 13? And, you know, obviously, the internet is a source of many resources, but many of them are dead ends, many of them are not the level of, you know, 13 year old set, because as I'm sure you are pretty smart, then as you are now, but where did you go to for the places that you wanted to learn how to code and create something like Jarvis? Satvik 09:10 Oh, okay. So it contains various parts, like I come from, like an education system where computer science is not, you know, we just start from an early level, like in most American schools, you have your coding classes, right from your like ninth or 10th grade, I guess. We didn't have that in our school. Like we have computer science in our grade 11. slang for junior year. Yes. And that, too, is not a very competitive class. It's barely you could do anything with that. So when I started, I was at the end of my, you know, freshman year, and was going to enter my sophomore year in high school. And I wanted to create this app. So I had to do three things. I first need to understand coding languages because I had no experience in that. Second, I need to understand the mathematics behind it and turn x Understand, what are these terms that we are frequently using like machine learning, or data science or data points like we are using these terms. So what actually these legends mean? So I started with a course, which is like very close to my heart, and I respect it like even till now, that is CS 50 by Harvard, I guess is one of the largest taking course. So, I mean, Professor David J. Milan, I adore him so much. I still like they released the 2020 version, although I'm an alumni of CST, but I still took it again, because they went live. And I actually met Professor Milan in one of the open sessions, and it was really an honor talking to him. So yeah, cs 50 took me from the very scratch, working with a c++ language to taking me to, you know, SQL, Python. And then as I went forward, I took like online courses, I did not pay for any course because I wasn't looking for certification. So I went to open courses, which was like free, then had the same college level, both Mathematics and Computer Science. And they have course logistics as well open for everyone. So I took like Stanford courses, like cs 221, which is artificial intelligence. Then I took cs 229, in CS 230, by Professor Andrew enshi, on deep learning and machine learning. And then I took like, more and more and more courses. And like till now I've taken like, more than 50 courses. Podcast Host 11:31 Wow. Yeah. All online offering, Satvik 11:34 like in recent years, like Coursera, and edX, started giving out their scholarships and fee waivers. So I started applying from them. So some are like certified, and I've got them I guess, around 25, or 30, certified something like that. Podcast Host 11:50 Well, what was the, you know, beyond the Java's and Marvel interest? What continued to draw you in? Because some students, I'm sure, would look at some of the things that you were looking at, in the early days, right, going back to that abstract, and say, Oh, god, this clearly isn't for me. I can't understand anything here. I'll come back to it in a couple years time or, you know, maybe I'll you learned at university, what was your main motivation to be like, No, no, I want to continue learning this, even though it's really hard. And I don't really know much about the topic. You know, Was there anybody mentoring you at that time? Or was there anybody kind of, you know, a role model that you had that you were like, apart from Iron Man? Was there any other role model that you may have had at the time? Satvik 12:33 No, actually, not. Nobody was like, I guess nobody even knew what I was thinking. Like, even my mom and dad, they're from pharmaceuticals area. I was working on that one. Like, I've got a lot of time for myself, like after school. So these are what I used to after I finished my work. And one of the motivations, as you asked, is, like, when I was searching for artificial intelligence, one program I created I came across was the Google Assistant developer community program. Yes. And since a very young age, almost like since I guess back in 2017, when they first launched Google Assistant in pixel device. I was blown away with that, because it was the nearest possible Redemption of Java's because we have seen theory, but it's not up to that mark. Because what Google Assistant is able to do is far more of the reach of C, because of the, you know, whole data that Google holds. Yes. And it holds all different webpages and stuff in the knowledge it has far more than what Siri has. So I was really intrigued by this program, I went on to read on the documentations. And the same thing happened, as happened with the abstract, I didn't get a word. I started with a few lines and did with a few lines, I got to just that this is something very complicated. And I need to learn about it. So the program I had to made was on a platform called dialogue flow, which is a chatbot making programmer. Like it's a whole developmental suite. It was like pretty tough at first, but YouTube got my back, I was searching like how to do this in dialogue flow, how to do this in dialogue flow, what is dialogue flow? I saw a couple of their examples. So my learning was more in application way. Like I was seeing the code and I was trying to understand, okay, what does this line do? And what if I change to this, what will happen? So more experiment to a learning rather than just understanding things? So we are that really helped me pick a pace. And you know, as I was moving forward, like this is something about computer science. And I guess in most of the fields that once you start getting an output, there's nothing holding you back. Like since the day you start printing hello world on your screen. He has, like you get a few and like I've created something. He has a human being. That's great. feeling to have because as they say that matter can neither be created nor destroyed, it can change form. And here you have created something out of a few lines of code. And it was really fascinating than how much you could hold. And now here I was working on something which could talk to me, it say my name, and you know, chitchat with me. So it was a whole different experience. It was like creating a body out of some line of code and personalizing it as I wanted. Podcast Host 15:28 Fantastic. Talk to me about the Google Assistant developer, because you became one at the age of 13. How did you do that? Is it something that you had to apply for or you said, you were struggling to read that as well. And it's a bit of an uphill battle, but you ended up being part of the program. So talk us through that. Satvik 15:44 So it was like I said, coding eligible, like a child learning. It took me like seven or eight months to understand everything, and be proficient with the, you know, API's and everything. It's not like something you have to apply for. It was a limited time period. Program, which was specifically for Google Assistant when it was launched for, like, the Google devices will launch the Google Home mini to Google Home best and all. And it was like, it's basically to create a community to attract more people, and make them more engaged with the Google Assistant and how they could interact. So I started building a kind of app, which kids could have fun with. So my app was automate Marvel trivia, a Marvel guy again? Yes. So it was it was something like it's a game show, like the AI would ask you like a different set of question. It's a trivia questions, and you will have to answer them, the AI would try and count off, you're like, how many correct you got how many wrong you built, and we'll give you a score at the end. And like, it's like even one player could play more than one player could play. And then it's asked like, do you want to play again, and if you want to play again, the level of you know, your questions increases. It's like, it gets harder. And it's really fun. I played it a lot. Podcast Host 17:02 Yeah, hang on. But don't you program the questions? Or is the AI pulling the questions out of Marvel. Like, where's the questions coming from? Satvik 17:11 Okay, you have to create a database, or you'll have from a question. I actually there was some website, I don't remember the name I asked. And they had these questions on their website. And I had to ask them, but can I use these questions because they had privacy policies from them? And I spoke to them, can I get these for my app? And they were like, happy? Do you know how the data set contains more than, like, 700 questions? And at a point of time, even though I'm the developer, I don't know the answer to half of them. So what I lost you remember, even though my huge mouth and there's so many small, small details that are way too tough for anybody to you know, remember, as I, you know, went forward, created this app, it was well and functioning. I then got it published on Google Assistant. And I don't know how, like, more and more and more people started using it. And every night, the analytics would change, like it would include the previous day's record. And every night, I used to see like how many people actually played. And I reached 1 million, and within a year, it's something like people reach in three or four years. And I was doing like seven or eight months. So seeing that Google gave me like Google Home device, Google t shirt, $200 per month cloud credit. And like, invite to like all Google io, Google App Fest, and everything. Podcast Host 18:36 That's awesome. So basically, you created this, like, really cool Marvel trivia game, you know, after seven or eight months, Google's like, Hey, we're taking notice of how many people are playing this game, like here's, you know, some encouragement to keep on developing new apps, right? How many hours would it take to put together something like that? Right, like the Ultimate Marvel trivia, once you've got the data set? How long would it take you to code something like that? Satvik 19:00 I remember, I was working like 10 hours a day, almost a month. I get Okay. Podcast Host 19:05 Sorry. That's not like something that you can just sit down with a couple lines. And use Wait, right? There are a lot of like testing that you have to do in between? Satvik 19:13 Yeah, it's really tough to get published on Google Assistant. Because it's not that you just check it, you send it out for them to check it. Right. And they run your app, they go through various tests. And then they tell you that this is wrong. This is not working. This command is not working. My app actually got like various rejections, like before it actually got published. Podcast Host 19:36 So that's when you were 14, when you were making this almost almost. Right, right. And what have you learned or continued to learn since then? Because obviously, like that level of coding, I don't know. Was that like beginner level, do you think or is that kind of intermediate level coding? What kind of level was required to make something like that? And what kind of level are you at now do you feel with your skills in that area? Satvik 20:00 It was close supervision but not very proficient because I couldn't cry all the codes like an understand what am I doing here? Something's like, I think like this program is doing it like that. So I should write this code, right. And I didn't have a complete sense of what I'm doing. But now after two years down the line, yes, I am like proficient in more than 14 languages. And I could write in any other language, and even explain it to you what I'm doing and how I'm doing this. And I could write like, hundreds and 1000s of lines of code. I'm enjoying it now. It's Yes, it's more easy to, for me to write in Julia or five and then writing in English, Podcast Host 20:41 learning 14 different languages. Is that unusual? And why did you decide to learn so many? Satvik 20:48 But yeah, it's unusual. Like even like professional developers are like, into three, four or five languages, which they are like proficiently working in. I had no clue what computer sciences, I tried to, you know, discover every aspect of it. And, you know, to discover every aspect, it requires a different skill set a different language. So, as I went into development, I learned a different language, web development, a different language, but then AI, l and a whole bunch of different languages. And you know, I try to work in projects in your real life project, open source projects, and help me understand these languages more, work with them more, proficiently. That's how I like came in contact with them. Podcast Host 21:29 Does learning one language help you learn other languages? or do some languages have like a closer relationship than others? Because I really don't know much about coding languages at all. But is there like, perhaps even you know, the mother of all languages that gives you an advantage in learning every single other one? Or is it all a little bit different? Satvik 21:49 paths, like different syntax is like, you have the different way of writing each language. Um, yeah, they are mostly similar. I won't say like, exactly similar. But it's like some languages are just bizarre in writing, like c++, which is like one of the oldest languages. And it's like using terminals, or file sharing, file management systems or operating system but encoded in it. And they are really hard to read, like, what is the quarter trying to do, as the generation moves forward, and you go to a new language, it gets easier for you to understand, like in c++ to just print hello world, it would take at least five lines to write, but in like bytes, and it would take you like one line, just print hello world. That's the difference. It gets easier. It actually motivates you, oh, this is easier than c++. This is so easy to do this. Podcast Host 22:40 So once you've learned c++, everything looks pretty easy after that, or zero, at least. Satvik 22:46 Yeah, this is what motivated me like, if you are, you know, proficient with c++, and Java, I guess you would be, you know, good enough with any other language. And even some languages are pretty common. Like if you know, MATLAB, then you almost know Julia. So because Julia actually, is a compilation of all languages, like the developers of Julia said that they wanted to make a language which has the best of everything. So it's like, it has the syntax of different languages like, which is the most efficient way to code being the most powerful at the very same time, Podcast Host 23:21 yarn, or Julia, you said it was your favorite language to use. And I can see why that's the case. Now, actually, I was falling with Twitter thread, where a student asked, What's everyone's favorite coding language? And no one mentioned Julia yet, because I know it's fairly new. But I was, like I said, If static was here, he would be saying Julia right now. But everyone was like, you know, c++, or Python, or JavaScript, and these kind of things like, I've never learned a coding language, how long would you think it would take me or an average person to learn a new coding language for the very first time to go from like, absolutely knowing nothing at all, to being, you know, fairly proficient in something like c++, Satvik 24:00 it's up to the dedication, and like the amount of work you're putting in. This is just like maths, you know how to write things. And that's like one class, and then you just try to practice it. Like, there's a course on YouTube, like an eight hour long course. Just, you know, if you do that course, and do another, like five hours of practice with everything that he has taught, that you will be good to go and Pat, like good to go. You will understand everything. And just keep practicing so that you do not forget what this string does or what this command does. It's pretty similar to mathematics. Podcast Host 24:34 Does knowing 14 languages, though, does that get messy for you in terms of like, does your brain sometimes start trying to write in a different code that's not suited to what you're trying to do? Just because you know, too many? Satvik 24:47 Yeah, it happens. Like, if you're like doing coding in one language, and you start doing like any, any other language, you know, because you're typing so fast, because you have to write so many lines of code. This kind of gets into your Like, final chord that you have to press this button after you end this line, you say semicolon. And it semicolon doesn't work with every language, they have, like somehow backslash. So you have to put backslash. And even if you you know, missed that even once the whole code would go out of air. So that happens, like if you're working in one language, and you simultaneously if you're working on the project, which has any other language they're working on, it sometimes get a bit messy, but on the longer run, it's very beneficial. Because I know some of the, like companies and like research groups who interview, they say that we are going to give you an example problem, and you have to solve it. And they won't tell you what language it is written in. And they say that it would be in the top 20 languages. And it's like you should know all of them to you know, actually crack it and find what's wrong the code. So in the longer run, I guess it's a good thing to do. Podcast Host 25:56 Right to Know, all those different codes, right? Yeah, it's a good thing to do. How many coding languages actually are there? I mean, I'm sure new ones are getting developed all the time. But is there an estimate that you have roughly as to how many are out there? Because when I heard 14, I thought that was a lot. But you just said there's a top 20, which implies that is there Satvik 26:14 a lot. But yeah, they're like new ones coming in every day. And people are actually making new languages as per the system requirements. Also, like, if they're doing a particular task, you will have different language for it. So yeah, people are customizing languages, and using it just for their systems for their networks. And yeah, there's, I guess, hundreds and 1000s of languages? I don't know. Podcast Host 26:38 Yeah. But yeah, it's probably good to know those, you know, base couple JavaScript, Python, c++. And then from there, there's like variations on a theme and other ones that you can you can do in that kind of stuff. What would be your top two or three tips to learning any new coding language, Satvik 26:56 I would say start with the basics. That's the most important part like learning anything, regardless of your if you're, you know, learning coding language, or a real language, you know, the basics are the most important part where to put what, like the wall was the consonants, we have syntax, and then try to when you're learning, even when you're learning, try to focus on the neatness of writing the codes, you know, it helps you to understand the codes in a much more comprehensive way. Like if you're doing something just it takes like a few seconds to just write what you just did. And it helps you understand what you're doing and make it makes more sense in the longer run. And once you get proficient with it, you know, you can make acronyms. I know a friend of mine, who uses artists as like his markers, like he says, this part is Bob Marley, this part is Michael Jackson, and then he does his coding. So yeah, this is something I would say be comprehensive while doing the coding and do regular practice. There's like plenty of problems online, there's websites when you could get coding problems, and you can code in there. And they'll you know, tell you that was the code right or wrong, if wrong, like what was wrong in it. So there is like, so many different ways you could approach and even if you don't want to approach it, you could, you know, simply work on your, like daily lives, like, you could make a tic tac toe game, like you want to play with your friend, you could just coat that, or make a calendar or a clock. It's kind Podcast Host 28:19 of like trying remove some of life's conveniences. And instead of just, you know, looking at a clock or something, as you said, try and code one instead. And that's like, you know, a reason to practice and a reason to practice and a reason to practice. I keep finding those reasons to continue learning. I think it's really good advice. And is there any other tips that you would give like flashcards or that kind of thing? Is that like a memorization type of thing? Or is it just purely practice and getting used to, as you said, that kind of muscle memory type of learning? Satvik 28:49 Yeah, you can definitely make notes when you're, you know, taking any course or something. But yeah, as you're gonna start applying, and while coding doing practices, I guess you'll learn them, like how to do these operations. I just searched up and they're like, 9000 languages out there. Podcast Host 29:06 raizy 9000 languages? Well, there you go. So at least you know, 14, have you got plans to learn anymore? Satvik 29:12 I'm actually thinking too long, a bit more. I'm speaking to a couple friends of mine, and you're thinking to learn more Podcast Host 29:19 languages? In your experience? Why is there not just one mother language for all coding languages? Satvik 29:25 Okay, so it's like, let's take a like real life example for it. Um, if say you want to go from point A to point B, and you have various options. You have a bicycle, you'll have a car, you have a Tesla, you have a truck, you have a crane. And then you're asked, like, what would you use? So this is not an easy answer that you say, okay, that Tesla would move the fastest and I'll take the Tesla, but the conditions are very important about the distance between A and B what kind of terrain it is it very hilly or you know, it is Something like it has a lot of traffic or, you know, there could be plenty of conditions. And so basically, this is kind of a puzzle. And you need to find the solution to which you know, vehicle to use to reach there from A to B in the shortest period of time and most efficiently. So the same way it goes for programming languages, that you are given a scenario that you have to develop this thing, you think of the so many languages, and which of the following language would be most convenient, which have the most speed which, and also up to the taste of the programmer, like, Who likes more like, if somebody asked me to develop a new network, I'll probably go with Julia, but there's no harm in doing that the same thing with, you know, Python, either, but it's just that I like Julia more, I enjoy writing it that and also, it's a bit faster, you know, while compiling the code, although it's a fraction of seconds, but when you're compiling a huge amount of data in becomes, you know, quite significant. And then as these people analyze, and they have developed, like each of the languages developed, they have the developers have a mind in mind, they have like, Okay, why vi designing this language. So a language is basically, you know, devil up when they face any problem, right? Like any other invention, they develop, it's like, okay, we are facing this problem, and we need an alternate language to solve it, and so on, you know, we get generations of language, like, at first, like, we had PHP for like, web development, then we got HTML, then we are, you know, concrete working with JavaScript and Java, for your interactive based your web development, like, if you see Apple's website, it's a beautiful website, everything's moving, everything's changing videos and cooperated in it, you know, this was something not available back, even back when Google was founded, but not things are getting changed, and languages are getting more powerful, and, you know, they are moving forward. And the same goes with like, you know, machine learning and your whole statistical analysis of data, like we started with fightin. And now, you know, we are moving forward with Giulia MATLAB, which is used to, you know, make graphs and analyze the data sets, we are using our language, people from economists are using our programming language to analyze the data, you don't make predictions out of it. So it's like, as moving forward, we analyze what thing is useful for what, after all, programming languages are just a tool. And we, as you know, say, it's like, if there's a blade, Smith, and he wants to create a particular type of blade, it's really up to him, like what kind of, you know, tool you would use to make that play. So if he's gonna hammer it, or he's gonna, you know, quench it, or whatever your technique, you would like to make that blade more sharp or more long or short as to what he wants to make, or, and what resources he has, right? Because some languages are like, wood, if you try coding machine learning algorithm in c++, you can do it, it would be robust, it would take you I guess, a lot of time writing, and then a lot of time compiling it. And right, when you have an option, writing that in Python, in Python, we have like libraries, wherein you could import a particular model, right, they have pre written that model, you just have to import it and use it. Like there are a lot of libraries, and you could just borrow the model from there, and you could use them. But if you're, you know, looking for language like c++, you won't get the library and you have to hide everything yourself. So it will be like 500 or 600 lines of code just for one model, and then have to apply it. So it really gets very hard for you. And this is like one of the problems Julia programmers are feeling right now. Because there are not many of the libraries out there. But the ones which are out there are pretty dope, you know, are working refine, Podcast Host 33:55 you mentioned that people in economics are using some coding languages. In your experience, what do you think would be, or who do you think should be learning some kind of coding language, but they might not be completely aware that that's a skill set that they might need in future, Satvik 34:11 I guess, like, regardless of what field you are in, if you're learning any kind of skirt, it's going to benefit you. Like if you take example of economics, anywhere where you have to make predictions. And then you want to make new assumption when prediction machine learning is there and helping so there's actually a different field of study, which combines all machine learning and economics, it is called statistical learning. Stanford actually offers a course on that. And its uses our language to analyze the data, apply these machine learning models written in our language to analyze the data. So anybody like a couple of friends of mine are now reaching out to me they are doing comics that can you just send me some of the shots on our because our professor is saying that, you know, this is the next big thing and you guys should know it, and people are moving forward. programming languages, like one of the greatest example would be like the medical field, which has definitely no connection with machine learning in 2015, nobody would have thought that, you know, you could apply computer science and medical now, like drastically changing, it's like, people want to work together and you know, create a better outcome. Podcast Host 35:20 I think what I'm getting from that is that no matter what field, you're going into, that you would be very, very well served to have at least a base level of knowledge in coding, computer programming, that kind of thing. Satvik 35:32 Even vice versa. Like, if you're a computer scientist, if you are working with somebody who is in picture of Medical Sciences, you should have a basic background of it. Otherwise, you're just telling you stuff and you just don't get it. Podcast Host 35:44 But it seems like computer science and AI are going to be and deep learning and those kinds of things are going to be three, or a couple of the main tools that people will be using to solve the problems of the future. Like this is a fairly new technology. And that is increasing in power all the time, and can be applied to complex problems. So if you want to be a part of that problem solving, and if you want to be able to see those connections between the problem and the possible solution, then you really need to have a little bit of a grasp of both. So I think that that's very good advice. And I hope students listening take great analogy. Satvik 36:25 Yeah, great analogy. Podcast Host 36:27 As you said, like, even if they don't know when or where they will use it right now, it will be a skill that they can use in the future, almost certainly, it will be a skill as they Satvik 36:37 even I guess in future of like, artists who do painting would be using AI, because there's this new technique. It's called generative adversarial networks, it is used to generate images, which are not real, like it uses so many different images that like which contains probably 1000s of images, and renders a new image, which is unique, which is very different. And you won't be able to identify whether it's real or not. So people are using this technique to create artworks. And, you know, try to mimic what like Picasso made. Podcast Host 37:11 I know that that has some very dangerous potential as well. I've seen like deep fakes and those kinds of things. Satvik 37:17 Exactly. The example of generativity versus networks. It's about how you use your knowledge. Podcast Host 37:24 I know luid about coding from mainly been on the host of this podcast, actually speaking to other students who are also doing coding, which one would you recommend students should start with? Like, what's the most basic of the languages? And which one do you think has the most possibilities and is perhaps the most advanced of the coding languages that you know? Satvik 37:44 So yeah, different coding languages are used for different purposes, where if you are someone you know, who is getting into the coding for the first time, I recommend taking c++ because that's a very fundamental coding language, it's very rigorous. It's of no use, nobody uses but what is teaches you is to remember syntaxes, to apply the correct line of code. And then as you move forward, then you choose a path, like you want to be a developer, like an app developer, you choose JavaScript, Java, you want to be like a website designer, you choose HTML, if you want to be an iOS developer, you choose, you know, Android Studio, or like it for iOS, like swift language. But if you want to go into something like data science, machine learning are efficient. So there are like languages like our phyton, like, which is on top of every language right now. But some more languages are like Ruby. And my like, personal favorite is Julia. As of right now, it's a very new language, and it holds so much possibility. It's like, even if you read the documentation of Julia, it's like, we have the syntax of Python, and we have the swiftness of Java. And it's like, a very well composed language, it has the best of everything mushed together. And it's specifically for, you know, machine learning and data science, I felt that this is something revolutionary to me. And I know that when I'll be in my college, like two or three years down the line, when I'm, you know, working at somehow I know, people around me would be using this language more than Python. And I really think if, if there's someone who is really passionate about this field, I really encourage them to take Julia as a language. And even they have their online Academy, Julia Academy where they provide free courses to learn Julia and actually have some, I think, in all of their courses, and it's really fun to you understand this new language, they have great data sets, they have great, you know, what we call libraries to import models. They have amazing, you know, like this data flux, which is really great for deep learning, and it's really fun to Play around. Podcast Host 40:01 Crazy right? When I was at school, we were told to learn German because it was going to be useful. I don't know why we would learn German because the only reason it would be useful is if you go to Germany, right, I'm yet to go to Germany. So he learning German may or may not have been the most useful thing. But it does sound like this is a super useful language or languages to learn what fascinates you the most about computer science and the I guess the possibilities of computer science, Satvik 40:28 the possibilities that computer science whole like in not just in computer science field, but in other fields, even like in medical field, computer science and medical have very well mushed together, which was at one time were very separated things like one is engineering, and one is medical. And these were two different centers and very different things. But now, as we are moving forward, we see majors like computational biology, or by informatics, and people are working together, they are learning both sides of biology and computer science. And, you know, applied it, like in one of the conversations with Professor Halliburton, one of the oldest professors at MIT, and he has worked on like, one of the first languages, and he told me that computer science, if you want to work in computer science, you need to think about the ad like computer science and watch. Yes, so you want to move forward in that think about the and that thing has stuck with me forever. Since then, I've been looking for answers. And like, I think at a particular scenario, and I think like how computer science could be, you know, well marched in this location. So I try to, you know, apply things in the real world and see how better world it could be with computer science. It's not like computer science is going to take over. It's about like, if you're using AI, right, and say, another person who is doing podcast is not using the AI, the world for the second person is obviously done more than yours. Yes. And obviously, you will be more efficient, and you will move forward. And that guy would be shocked at what makes difference, that person using AI manages time managers will work in a more efficient way and solving the very basic functionality of computers, to help save time to make it more efficient. And thus remains the same for artificial intelligence. It's not about eating somebody's job, or we hear about like, it will take away jobs and factories. No, it won't, it will always be regulated by humans. And the humans need to be trained with AI. Podcast Host 42:33 Absolutely. I know, that's a big fear for a lot of people in factories and that kind of thing. But it's going to be replaced. But as long as people take the time to learn things like coding in different languages, and you've created a great community, for people to talk about these kinds of different technologies and what they're doing in that space, which is terrific. And so you've gone from a team of one or two people was you and your two people. And now your ad how many writers Satvik 43:00 are not just writers, we have a huge team of marketing, graphic designing web designing, outreach, content writing, and we have a team of around 35 people. Podcast Host 43:11 Wow. So you're like the founder and head of a very fast growing team, which is awesome. So these people are getting paid is it been monetized at all is a not for profit. Satvik 43:20 It's not for profit, it was in indeed, at first there was no profit, yet later and non non profit. So we started out as like, as I said to people, I paid for the domain name I paid for get the site design, I pay for the VIX that we used to design and I hard coded some of the HTML elements. And then I paid for those things. It was like in dollars, you would say 10 or $15. And then it was nonprofit, obviously. And later on, because the money we were making, first of all, how will it be distributed? amongst like the people, it's not like something I am earning the bus is not just my work, people are reading. Others people work too. And it wasn't really fair to them, if I take all the profit. And then if I take start taking profit, then if say if I get like, a few $100 How am I supposed to distribute that in to like a team of 75 people and everybody getting, say $2 or $3? And that will make any sense? Yep. And then again, if you want it is you get these ugly banners and ads on your website that I really don't appreciate because it's okay to have it to monetize, though. But one you are looking forward to create you know, an impact and working as a nonprofit, it doesn't really gives a good way when you're monetizing. Podcast Host 44:46 Yes. So that was like you had your initial kind of philosophy of why you wanted to create the website. And even though you probably could monetize it, now you certainly getting enough eyeballs to monetize it, probably not something that you'd want to do because it doesn't really fit well with what your original philosophy was. Satvik 45:03 Right. And moreover, like, if money is to matter, and we want to do something we would highly, you know, be encouraged to do something like a sponsorship, or to for, you know, program get funded by and foundation, you know, right, something which is more eloquent as I would say. And it's more, you know, in a way, which is benefiting both the organization and us, in a way. So yeah, and that is something I'm looking for, like, I'm currently in contact with MacArthur Foundation. We are speaking over a fund of like, 5000 to $10,000. For tech work, and we are in the final stages, and hopefully, we get it and yeah, move forward. Podcast Host 45:52 What would that do for the website? If you do get 510 $1,000 to Satvik 45:56 upgrade? It is not a website? I have huge plans for it. I have like can Campus Ambassador programs, country Ambassador programs, our whole website, redesigning it starting a podcast? Oh, yeah. And then like having events, which is very important. Like we I have people in like most smallest areas of Morocco. We have people from small towns of Italy, I have people from Brazil. And if I could give them this money, and they could host it even there for kids for a young generation, and they could learn something about it. Podcast Host 46:33 So you're saying like, if you could have tech fake be a vehicle to help rural communities learn about technology more, it could really reinvigorate rural communities, right? So you're empowering young generations of kids in rural areas to be like, Hey, you know, you feel like you can't help out too much on the farm. Well, guess what you actually can, but it might not be like plowing the fields necessarily. It could be creating a code or creating a system or creating some kind of data set for your farm farm or whatever it might be. Satvik 47:03 Exactly this, like I know a few people that come from a rule background and a vote on the genetics of week, like creating a new week, which is not that prone to cold, not that prone to diseases. This is like a new variety. And they have worked on it. Podcast Host 47:20 New kind of weight could really change a lot of people's lives all around the world. Now. That's, that's awesome. So I can see like tech Vic, not just being a blog, but being an organization for chatting. Yeah, Satvik 47:31 it's like it's more than a blog. Podcast Host 47:32 If our listeners wanted to contribute, potentially, I mean, obviously, they would like to go and visit and we'll put the link in the show notes. But if they wanted to contribute, how would they go back then? Okay, Satvik 47:43 so we have like options for like permanent positions. We have options for like internship for like three weeks or four weeks internships. And we have options for like one time submission, if you don't want any commitment, and you just have a piece that you want to get published, it's very easy. We are always accepting we are 24, seven, like all 365 days, accepting applications, we are not stopping. And it's a huge family. And you're welcome if you want to join us, because we are all driven by one motive to create an impact door and walk towards something new, which is like a tagline, Admiral era. And yeah, it's a beautiful game to work with. And if you're someone who has a knack for technology, or stem, I'm happy to welcome you to our family. Podcast Host 48:28 Well, I'm sure we will get a quite a few listeners who are fitting that description very, very well. I mean, a lot of the the episodes that we've done at the moment are quite stem based, how many views Do you get roughly a month or a year or you know what kind of viewership you have. Satvik 48:43 So far, we have reached over a million people. And we they are growing each month, we have articles which gain like 10,000 or 15,000 views in seconds, we get amazed, we have no idea how this the next cycle is going to go. And all of a sudden we know it got blown. It's like in a city of Morocco, and people are watching from there. And it's really exciting for us to see every day like what happened. It's really interesting. And more importantly, like because of our team, which is so diverse. We have like team for team members from almost all the continents in the world. And most importantly, the team is like a group of high schoolers and college students and a few like masters students and graduates. The most important part is that these people are not here for their welfare. They're here to contribute to the organization, which is very different because we have people from like MIT, Harvard, Stanford, all the ivy League's or technical university Munich, Oxford University. And the thing is that I spoke to a lot of people that Why are actually willing to join us. You know, this spoke about like, this was something I looked for When I was in high school, and I didn't get a chance, because something like this wasn't there, and now you're doing this wonderful job and you know giving a platform to people, and there is no way that I do not contribute to, you know, empower this. But it is very important to apply it for the good, as Ben Parker would say, like, with great power comes great responsibilities. Yes. So it's very important to understand your job as a programmer, as a data scientist or artificial intelligence practitioner, that you need to do something good for this world because you have the opportunity to learn this. You had the privilege to know all this stuff. And now when you do you have to wait for others who do not know about what you have to benefit them also all about living a good footprint. And people who follow that footprint to you know, something better? Podcast Host 50:52 Well said well said I think it's, it's all well and good to have the skills but even better, if you're able to apply those skills in a way that positively impacts the world. If people wanted to connect with you, what would be the best way to go about it. Satvik 51:04 Thing me on LinkedIn, I'm always active. First thing I do in the morning is check my LinkedIn. Other than that, if you're not on LinkedIn, you could send me an email, definitely you will get in response immediately. Regardless of any time zones, I am awake, almost like 18 to 20 hours a day. So you're gonna get a response, like in snaps. Podcast Host 51:25 Awesome. Satvik, thanks so much for joining Top of the Class. It's been fantastic to have you on the show. Satvik 51:30 It was an honor. And I really thank you for whatever, like podcasts you're doing and the way you're featuring people, it really means a lot to so many people and you're really inspiring people. Podcast Host 51:41 Well, I hope so. It's not me doing the inspiring, it's you doing the inspiring, and it's all my fantastic guests who are doing the inspiring. So thank you for coming on now, and I look forward to sharing the show far and wide.

Ep #20 MIT's Student Body President on Leadership, Applications and Hope

🗓 DEC 19, 2020

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Podcast Host 00:34 Hi, Danielle. Welcome to the top of the class podcast. It's fantastic to have you on today. Can you tell our listeners a little bit about yourself? Danielle 03:47 Yeah, definitely. First, thank you for having me. My name is Danielle Geathers. I'm a junior at MIT studying mechanical engineering. And I was elected the student body president. I'm the first black woman to serve in this role. Podcast Host 04:00 Amazing. And how old is MIT? Danielle 04:06 Good question. It's about 159 years. Podcast Host 04:10 It's about 159 years that sounds rather about a rather exact about number. But obviously like MIT, for those of you who don't know, the way I tend to explain MIT is it's the university that Peter Parker and Iron Man, you know, talk about a lot. So it's like science to the max it is I actually visited MIT in January, as Yeah, totally as a tourist. But I loved it. We took a photo in that, like, the see through man with the numbers and stuff is like crouched on the ground. Danielle 04:45 Yeah. Right in front of our students centre. Podcast Host 04:47 Yeah. So we took a photo in that and we we went to their tour. And one thing I found interesting about MIT is that they were like, "We are unabashedly nerdy. 100% unabashedly nerdy." So I throw to you, are you a proud nerd? Danielle 05:07 Yes, definitely. In terms of like academic nerdiness I think I'm definitely on the lower tier of MIT students. Right. I think I am nerdy in terms of the fact of appreciating certain nuances of life. So I definitely do identifies it MIT nerd. Podcast Host 05:23 Oh, fantastic. So give me those areas of life that you appreciate to the max. Like, what are some of those things that you like to get nerdy about? Danielle 05:32 You want me to expose myself? Podcast Host 05:34 You know, just as much as you're comfortable with? No, yeah, yeah. Danielle 05:39 I think I've always loved fun facts. I think just knowing random things. I think that's pretty nerdy. I think the way my nerdiness has manifested itself at MIT is I'm very much like I love MIT culture now. So one like nerdy thing we all do is like we call our majors course numbers. So like mechanical engineering, it was really tough for me to say it in my intro because it's like course to anyone else at MIT asked me I'll tell them course to Computer Sciences courses. So I think I love the little like coded language. What does it mean? Something really nerdy. I did when I was little though, was I would connect collect my mom's old contact lenses and I would rehydrate and dehydrate. Podcast Host 06:20 For fun. Danielle 06:21 Yeah, cuz I like seeing the polymers come alive. very nerdy. Podcast Host 06:26 Okay. Did you mention that in your application at all? Danielle 06:30 No, I didn't. No, no. Didn't go into that. Podcast Host 06:35 Yeah, I mean, I think like MIT if there was any admission officer that would appreciate someone who hydrates in dehydrates contact lenses, it could well be them, especially if it's to see the polymers. But yeah, what what did you kind of laid within your application? Because you had a lot of different things going on in high school? You One was that during high school that you won the three different scholars, the Burger King, coke and footlocker scholars. So you did a lot of cool things. But what was your like, main gist of your application? Danielle 07:07 Yeah, so one big thing I did in high school was I played soccer. I played soccer my whole life. But it's actually interested in playing soccer at MIT. But at the same time, I kind of was kind of to try and figure out how I would integrate my love for STEM and soccer. I didn't want it to be like, Oh, I'm a nerd, but also play sports and like, have it be like two separate thing I really wanted to be like, this is my personality, and how it all ties together. So actually, summer before my senior year of high school, I started a service project. And I went to a local park, where football is really big Miami's like the biggest city in the world for football or not. In America, for American football, you know, there's a lot of children from like, a marginalized backgrounds who love football. So actually, what I did was I would show ESPN sports science videos, where they would show like football scenes, and they would connect physics and math and nutrition. And then I would kind of explain the topics to them and do worksheets for them. So as my main service project, so how I lead my application is very much like describing my motivation for creating that project and the impact. And I think that kind of tied in, like, all the things that MIT typically wants to see in terms of seeing someone who like, loves them, first of all, like has their own passion and can figure out how to use that passion to help other people. So then also giving back Podcast Host 08:27 Awesome, so they No, that's, that's for sure, like a great way to pitch yourself along with the sport, right? It's about combining passions and interests and those kinds of things, which is always a good tip. But did you think you know that you would get into MIT? Was that like a? Something that you were confident about? Or was it like, you know, a hail mary type situation applying for MIT? Danielle 08:51 Yeah. So since I didn't play soccer, and I knew I wanted to play soccer in college. Um, I started really early on looking at schools looking at what schools are right for me what the LSAT scores would be. Um, so pretty early on, I decided that, oh, I want to do engineering, MIT's the best. I need to go to MIT. Um, so I contacted the coach, I think at the freshman year of high school, he had seen me play by sophomore year and said, like, he wanted me on the team. And mighty though is very different since we are a division three school. So it's not like you can just get in for athletics, though. Yes. Ah, but then I also did a summer program after my junior year, and it was a very inclusive summer program. So it definitely wasn't a hail mary. I felt like it was definitely my dream school and like my dream. Um, but I was pretty confident that I would get in but I did get deferred. So that definitely took a hit. I applied early got deferred, but then I got it in March with regular decision. Podcast Host 09:44 Oh, awesome. That's fantastic. And when you first got to MIT, what was your first impression, though? I mean, I know you're, there is all these other lovely nerds, you know, running around and I've met a couple of them actually, I when I was over there. We had dinner with an Australian guy. Who lives at MIT and studies there? But you know, it's a it's a funny kind of campus culture. I think they're quite proud of the pranks and all these other bits and pieces that really make MIT unique. What was your first impressions on campus? Danielle 10:16 Yeah. That's a good question. So I've gone to campus a couple times, at least four or five times before I went, actually, um, for recruiting to through soccer and summer program I mentioned and for like the admitted students weekend, um, I think one of my first impressions honestly was how nice people were, I think it was very much one of those environments where you step around and like, even if your face just like, even if you don't express or state a question, if your face is kind of confused, like someone would come to you and be like, Hey, are you lost? And I think like, it's continued, that I've been so fascinated by how willing to help people are at MIT chokes me with all the things, they're dealing with their busy lives. There hasn't been a time where I'd be like, Why isn't anyone helping me? Where can I get help? So I think I remember that as a first year, like something basic, with my suitcase, kind of like, where do I go? Like, oh, let me walk you there, things like that. So I think definitely, like the friendliness of the campus. I think people don't give like stem people credit in terms of like the soft skills. Yes, I want MIT ourselves to be and nice. And that's really like understated. Podcast Host 11:26 Oh, that's really lovely. And I think that initial impression, right? Because it's so positive, enabled you to, I guess, get to where you are now in some respects, because you wouldn't be giving your all to a university, where you didn't particularly like the people do, which is great. And so now you've become student body president, which is an awesome thing. But to be honest, I'm not exactly sure what a student body, you know, what a student body president does. So can you walk us through what your day to day, you know, obligations and tasks look like as a student body president? Danielle 12:02 Yeah, definitely. Um, and I will say that the role, one thing I've learned is that the role looks very different at different schools as well like depending on size and different things. But speaking more to my role at MIT, we're really blessed to have a set of school administrators and like a president who really want to include student voice. So my role is even more important as kind of the voice for students. So we do a lot of like town halls, and obviously students could speak for themselves, but just kind of on a day to day basis. I'm in a lot of meetings I serve on like, several Institute committees, I serve on the Alumni Board of Directors as like ex officio member. So I kind of go around to a lot of places, and I represent the student voice. Um, so because of that, I have a lot of freedom for how I gauge the student voice. But traditionally, that takes up most of my time to make sure I'm actually representing what students want. Um, additionally, our student government runs like fun events, we have to do recruitment for our student government, we actually fund all the like student groups on campus as well. Um, so the money goes through us to like that funding cycle. But overall, most of my day to day rules, like planning, the long term what MIT should look like for students, so really trying to influence those decisions, and just like meet where students gauge how they're feeling and really communicate when issues come up. Podcast Host 13:24 Yeah, sounds like a pretty full on kind of role. How does that affect your studies? At the same time? You're doing mechanical engineering? No, you know, no, kind of walk in the park there. That's a really intense courseload. And you're now student body president? Do you get much sleep? Um, 13:40 yeah, Danielle 13:41 I used to get a lot of sleep. Oh, it's 13:43 good. Yeah. Danielle 13:45 Anyway, studies might be affected, but I do get sleep. Um, I think I think growing up always playing soccer and playing soccer my first year at MIT. And just doing a bunch of other activities. I always have loved like a very packed schedule. Like whenever I have times, I'm like, oh, Netflix all day and sleep. Yeah, you do a day that's not packed. So I think I function better that way naturally. And I think also just mechanical engineering at MIT in terms of like, your four year courseload. Like, it's easy to like, figure out a good way to like, section it off. So you're not doing a lot of heavy semesters. So right now I have like one technical class. I'm in like this leadership developing development program. And then I have like a writing class. So it's really not bad, and actually the leadership development program, and so playing into a lot of my role as President. So definitely busy days, but it's not overwhelming. You know, that's Podcast Host 14:38 good. That's good. That's good. Well, I was going to ask you about leadership because I think that's such a, an abstract concept for a lot of students in particular, when they speak about student leadership, it seems to be more of a mindset thing than a skill set thing. So what are your views on leadership? Do you see it more as a skill or a mindset or a mindset first, then a skill set Because you've got like the skill of, you know, Public Speaking of presenting different portfolios or prisoner presenting different, what will you call them? Like proposals, right? or doing different things as a leader that you have to do convening meetings, etc, etc. And then you have the mindset side of things. Now, you obviously like a fantastic personality, you are great, like really friendly and a great character. Is that, like, Did you bring all that already into the leadership role? And then it was just the skillset side that needed work? Or what do you what are your views on leadership in general? Danielle 15:34 Yeah, that's a super good question that I haven't gotten before, either. I think that, um, my even understanding of leadership has completely transformed since like being elected office in May. But, um, to answer the question, I think it's definitely a mindset thing. And I think that a lot of people think that the mindset thing kind of is tied to like, what you would call like, extrovert trait, but I don't even think it's that, um, in the leadership program, we talked about, like, we have these like skill sets of leaders, or characteristics. And I think, like, one big thing is initiative, like, well to deliver. And I think that can express itself and like many different personality types, but I think overall, at your foundation, you have to like walk, you know, I think they sometimes even when I'm in a room, yeah, I'll sit back, like, versus like really wanting to take that initiative, wanting to drive the conversation, wanting to always like, look out for others and be like, how can I help? And so I think that that definitely is like a mindset and then you build out the skills. So in terms of like, the skills, I definitely thought before, like, being captain of soccer teams, like in school projects, like in high school is very much like, leadership is being like, the loud one, right? You tell you what you're like no other people skills, you can assign them to things like that was kind of what leadership was like taking initiative. I think, like, now being president with like, 200 other students in my student government with like, 1000 things always on the agenda, I really had to learn how important like, delegation is, but like, actually making sure that when you delegate to someone they have buy in, and they want to do something, and really just understanding how leadership is more focusing on developing other people as leaders versus like, focusing on tasks per se. But I definitely think just it's mindset, and then there's just so many skills you can build. And it's like a whole life journey. Podcast Host 17:27 Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it's going to be a huge year for you as the student body president. Do you think when you finished your time at MIT, what will be more valuable will abate the experience as a student body president, or will it be the mechanical engineering degree? Danielle 17:44 Yeah, definitely. Student Body President, 17:47 um, oh, this Yeah, Danielle 17:48 I just had this little slogan that, like, I'm not trying to let school get in the way of my education. I think that's a quote that I love. So I think that is very much my slogan. And I think like, even if I was like, ranking things, like mechanical engineering would not even be number two, or maybe number three, I think, really? Yeah. I think just like, learn being around people, like getting comfortable being around people who are just so much smarter than you. And like, understanding how to communicate with people like that. And then just like dealing with imposter syndrome, learning how to overcome that, I think there's just so many challenges that just come up with being at a place MIT that, like, you're, you have a lot of support to like, get over those obstacles that like learning how to deal with that just sets you up for life in a different way. I think mechanical engineering is great, but I actually like have zero passion. Podcast Host 18:47 Wow, okay, well, fine, I guess like as long as you're still enjoying the experience for everything else. And obviously, you are like, you wouldn't be student body president if you were heading your time there. So obviously, like you're still it's interesting that someone could go to a university like MIT, which is celebrated for nerdiness, as we covered earlier, yet, it's fine, the joy of MIT in things other than the coursework? That's what I find interesting in that situation. So is that something that you expected going in? Or did you feel like the coursework would pull you in and you would be a mechanical engineer to the bone? Or did you always think that you would get the joy of college from things other than your classwork? Danielle 19:28 Yeah, I think I think I knew what I was getting into. So just for some context, like my mom's a lawyer, she's a single mother. I was like, always around her always in the courthouse. And I think very early on, I was like, oh, law litigation that's up my alley. So I did go to MIT thinking I wanted to do like intellectual property law. And so in a way mechanical engineering was like a means to an end in terms of needing to have a technical background to become an intellectual property lawyer. So although I did love inventions that I did love like the technical side I love like math. I don't know if I love physics. But I think just coming in knowing that, and knowing that I chose MIT predominately because of its collaborative environment and the warmth of its people that like, that's why I was going there to be surrounded by like, people who go to MIT versus like, oh, the mechi department. Right, right. Right, Podcast Host 20:21 right. Okay, I get you, I get you. So you do see like, your next step is potentially post grad law or something like that. Okay. All right, definitely. Okay. Awesome. Awesome. And where would you study that if you've got any ideas? Or is it early days yet? 20:35 Yeah. Danielle 20:36 I've been looking at Harvard Law. They do have a junior deferral program. So I'd be able to apply like over the summer and get in and then work for two years and then go back. But as a Miami, Florida, born and raised Cambridge for seven years, sounds weird and cold. Yeah, I completely sold but I'm still looking at Harvard laws. Definitely at the top of the list right now. By the way, Podcast Host 20:59 I just need to help our listeners out here. I always feel like when someone from Cambridge, Massachusetts, says Cambridge, our listeners automatically think Cambridge is in Oxford, Cambridge. Cambridge in a good No, no, this is Massachusetts, Cambridge, Massachusetts. And yes, it is. It's cold out there. You know, I was there in January, and it wasn't too bad. Actually, this year was actually not too bad at all. It didn't snow or anything whilst we were there, but I know that it can get like, darn cold. what's what's the coldest you've ever been on campus at MIT? Danielle 21:34 Yeah, probably just also. So we actually we have a nice thing where it's called independence activities period for January. So you don't have to be on campus in January. But my freshman year I decided to be on campus. And we were working on our project in like a design lab, which is like a 20 minute walk away from our dorm. Lauer working that 2am Wyatt 2am don't ask, but a snow Blizzard or Blizzard or whatever happens in Massachusetts. We had a walk home and like, like negative TED or something. Like with cars, like with 80 layers, it's like trying to run back. So I was in that for 20 minutes. But other than that, I try to stay inside. Podcast Host 22:16 Yeah, yeah, I think a lot of people, particularly from Australia, you know, they want to study at places like Harvard and MIT. I don't think they really know what cold it is. Because we don't have that kind of cold here in Australia. Like we don't know, that cold, you know, negative, many, many degrees type of thing. And I think it comes as quite a shock to some students when they do get to places like that. And like, oh, wow, this is cold. I've my mum gave me one jacket when I really needed like, 10 glad you survived that experience. But yeah, let's let's go through the journey of student body president and how you, you know, as a freshman coming into MIT kind of worked their way up into a position to be elected as student body president. And kind of like, if there's students out there who want to do the same within their school, for instance, or when they go to university within the university? What advice would you give them for that journey? So yeah, take me through, like how you started to get involved in campus life? And then how you started to kind of, you know, was it something that you were planning for to be student body president? Were you crafting all the time, like your campaign and your message or that kind of thing? Or were you as surprised as anybody, when you like came upon the opportunity to be student body president, and that, you know, was a reality for you? Danielle 23:33 Yeah, definitely wasn't a plan. I did not know what city government was at MIT year, even the name of our student government until like, December, October, freshman year, so definitely wasn't a plan. Um, I knew I wanted to have an impact. I knew I came from a predominantly white like private high school, and I actually created the boxing evening there. And I had a lot of fun doing that I like got a lot of fulfillment in terms of helping people being an actually outspoken person, I realized that like, that was a gift in terms of being able to help other people who might be dealing with things in silence. Um, so coming from that background, I remember being in high school and like, seeing all the schools that I've you all these people, Ivy League schools, like doing all this advocacy, I think it was like 10th grade when like the blacks union and our Princeton was like, doing citizens and happy admit, it was on the news. And I was like, wow, this is like colleges, and then going back to I was in it for the experience more. Yes. Um, so when I got into MIT, it was like, okay, the Black Student Union like that is for sure. My first stop, that's where I'm going to join a committee. I'm gonna learn what college activism is, it's gonna be great. Um, so I joined the boxing union. We have like five operating committees, I was on like three of those. I was running the Instagram page. I was on the political action committee like being Secretary taking notes, like doing basically everything I could as a first year. Um, Then actually, the Vice President, like the person who was political action committee chair, ended up running for vice president of our student government the next year. I'm a complete, like, fluke, honestly, he wasn't involved in student government, but the person who was involved, knew him and said, you'd be perfect. So at that point, he won. And then he was like, oh, you'd be great being officer on diversity. And I was like, Office of Diversity for a while, like this guidance, Student Government, kind of just described the impact that they can have at MIT. So at that point, I accepted the role. And I was one of seven officers like leading the Student Government. Um, I don't like MIT. So I think at that point, I was like, the top of diversity, equity inclusion after just being like super involved first year, yes. And I was in speaking with all these administrators really learning about the impact or student government can have. And then I think after COVID-19, everything changed in terms of the actual need to represent students after the summer the need to like put Diversity, Equity and Inclusion issues at the forefront. So I think that was very much like the intersection of what I was passionate about in terms of making our student government more visible, more inclusive. So I think it like all lined up for me to run it was very much not like a plan. I didn't do any student government anything and I school, but very much as following my passions, and like really wanting to drive impact and figuring out how I can do that. And I thought running would be the way to do that. Podcast Host 26:28 yet. So is it like a campaign or something that you have to put together? Or like what are you presenting to the MIT student body to be like, nominate or vote for Danielle and make me student body president? Like, what's the kind of process there? Is it like a US style election? Or is it a little bit more chill? Danielle 26:46 Yeah, it is. It's more chill than the US election, but pretty similar. Um, so you run with a running mate. Um, so you and your running mate, um, file the forms. And then you usually have like a week, a week and a half a week of planning. And then like a week where you can start campaigning, we give campaigning, and then voting starts in a week of voting. It might have been a little different because we were virtual. So not at home because of COVID. In March, I decided to run in April. And then though, all right, yeah, I decided to run late March. And the elections were the last week of April. So all virtual campaigning Instagram pages, Facebook pages, websites, constant zoom calls, I think I was literally on zoom am midnight. But just really like you have a platform. We ran on values, because we thought we have no idea if we'll be on campus in the fall. But what will matter is like the values of the person who's your president and vice president, so you ran on unity, equity and authenticity, and lots of campaign fires. Oh, Podcast Host 27:51 wow. So it sounds like Yeah, really strong campaign that you have put forward and you got elected, which is awesome. What was that week like where you get the nomination or not just the nomination, you got elected student body president and the first black woman to be student body president MIT's 159 year history. What was that week? like for you? How crazy was it? I mean, you were doing media. I'm sure the student body was like, getting behind you. And you're getting messages all over the place. Like That must have been crazy way. Danielle 28:24 Yeah, it was a crazy week. And it was a crazy campaign week. So I actually ran against someone who was also an officer the year before, um, and I'm trying to get this number, right. But we definitely won by less than 50 votes. 28:39 Wow. Danielle 28:40 Yeah. So it's kind of that like, nobody knows who's gonna win. Um, the president before me, endorsed the other ticket. Our school newspaper endorsed the other ticket, she was holding your breath until well. Yeah, so I think it was very stressful. But then also, our student government was like four weeks behind because of it. Um, so I was very much I had to have a quick turnaround where I picked everyone who was in my officers. We did like student represents on representatives on different committees. So I had to pick all those within like two weeks, like a process that's usually done over like, four weeks. I did in two weeks, it was very much like, we got elected and then we're like, Okay, great. I'm two hours from now, what a zoom call, again, to figure out this email we're gonna send to people. Yeah, I forget to say it was kind of immediately like, Okay, time to get to work. Um, so it wasn't a lot of like, celebration immediately. And honestly, a lot of the media attention didn't come for like a couple weeks. So it was very much like, over your head, like, just focus, focus, focus, yes. Fine. Living to where like the next week, like working more so than like celebratory, unfortunately. Well, Podcast Host 29:55 yeah. I mean, you're getting there now to kind of celebrate and feel more comfortable in the role and Is it something that you would recommend at this point? I mean, early days, but you know, for students who are in school and like looking at school leadership, or who are about to go into university, and potentially looking at student leadership in student government? Is it something that you would say, Yeah, 100% go for it? Or is it something you were like, you got to know your priorities? Like, what do you want to get out of the unique experience? Like you did? Like, I love that whole idea that, you know, mechanical engineering is not even second on the list. It's like third or fourth, perhaps. Right? So it is like, what kind of advice would you give for students who are potentially considering it, but not too sure if it's for them? Danielle 30:36 Yeah, definitely, like the latter part of what you were saying. Like, I think just so right now, like, I just have so many other student body presidents because why there's a lot of black student body presidents right now. So we have our own cute little group chat, but also just from meeting different people. And I think one thing I've learned is you have to, like want it and like not like once a title or what the role or the authority, nothing like that, you have to genuinely want to help students. Because yes, it's so much work that if you don't like do the work like you are going to have a horrible time. So I think it's definitely like, definitely not focusing on the role at hand. I think if there was another role I could have had, in which I felt like I could have had the same impact I would have been in that role. It wasn't about being president for me was about wanting to set the agenda because I felt like I knew what resonated with people more so than I wanted to do what I wanted to do. And this was the position to do it. So I think in terms of advice for other people, it's really about figuring out what's right for you, in terms of how you want to spend your time in college. And what you want to do. I have a bunch of other friends who stayed on the athletics team. And like, that's their journey, their captain, and they love that and they're getting fulfillment from them, they would hate student government, I have other friends who like run the engineering robotics team, and they love that. And they get fulfillment from that. And they also hate seeing government. So I think it's really just trying out things your first few years seeing what feels right for you, and not going like title chasing or anything, because people who end up chasing and getting the role, they just have a horrible time. And usually they're like, a mess. Podcast Host 32:13 I love that. I love that advice. Because I think that's particularly a problem in high school, I think maybe potentially due to a lack of maturity, or whatever it might be right where the title chasing is real. And I think it's become even more real for students wanting to get into top universities, right? Because they're like, you know, it's kind of a form of resume padding in some way, where it's not about what you do with the role. It's just about having the row next to your name. And once you get it, you're done, right, where like a lot of people feel like that's the achievement just getting the title, when actual fact it's what you do with the title that matters. So yeah, 100% do not title Chase, that's very bad, because you will end up having a horrible year. Yeah, very bad, you will end up having a horrible year. So I really, really love that advice. And I think that's totally a real thing for high school students to really consider and as you said, like, you know, you can get as much fulfillment, or even more Fulfillment by being the, you know, member or president of everybody's club or member of a president of a or captain of a sports team. You know, you don't need to necessarily, actually, you could probably do more with a title that you're comfortable with and that you really want, then with like the head title, that you don't really want it you just wanted it next to your name, like a good philosophy to live by. I love that. I love that. Well, let's let's shift gears a little bit. I want to chat about your your scholars, your various scholarships that you want. And if you have any kind of general advice for how to approach an application, right, so you've got these three different scholars, the footlocker Burger King Coke, Coke, Bane, as you said, before the podcast started technically, it is like the main one. And I know it's like super competitive. I'm following them on Instagram. I think it's only for American students. Am I right in saying that? 34:04 Yeah, Podcast Host 34:05 I think so. Yeah. But for all the American students out there. Talk to us about like, what it means to get a coke scholarship and versus the other ones like, did you have to alter your application? Or were you just like, copy, paste? send off again? Like, how do you approach all these different opportunities? Danielle 34:23 Yeah, I think growing up you hear like, Oh, this person got a full ride or this and this. And I think I definitely thought like, initially, my understanding of scholarships was like, oh, what you get when a school wants you for either academics or athletics? I think then I learned that no, what a lot of people are looking for is people who want to have an impact and people who want to give back. So one thing I can say about like meeting my scholar cohort, from Coke scholars, and all the other scholarships and other scholarships in general is everyone has a thing, right? Yeah. And it's not a thing that they do with it. They're amazing. Like we have people who are Like great cheer test champions, right, but they don't have the Coke scholarship because they're test champions, they have the Coke scholarship, maybe because they help teach ability How To Play Chess, or because they use chest to somehow enrich somebody else's life. So I think very much at your core, it has to be about giving back. And I also think that you shouldn't give up because I'm saying to give back or because somebody is telling you to get back, I think it has to be something that comes from within. And then if it truly does, like, it kind of shines. Um, so I think just being really intentional about it, when you're in high school, it doesn't have to be like first year, or second year, even I think just being like, Who am I? And how can I uniquely give back. And I think that's one way that like, really sets you apart, I think like to be that young, and to know what you're passionate about, and care about giving back and figuring out how to merge the two, it can really make you stand out and scholarship application. So that was the main thing I did. So for code scholarship, I really like shifted around the service project with like sports science, and soccer, and really kind of talked about that passion. Same for footlocker, they were looking for someone who played a sport, so it was really helpful shaving soccer. Yeah. And then same with Burger King. So I think just in terms of how to go about filling out the application is really about being able to tell your story. But your story also shouldn't be just about you, right? Your story is about how you gave back and how you plan to give back in the future. So I think that's the key. I mean, in general, I think like, although it was the same story, every time, I think depending on your audience, you should shift in and change it. So I think it was a copy and paste for base. But then it was definitely like the essays are not identical at all. And you need to read the questions that they're asking, because a lot of the scholarships are looking for different types of people. Right, right. Podcast Host 36:49 Right, for sure. For sure. No, that's fantastic advice. One thing that I am interested in is, how do you I'm going to sound like a bad person here. I know I am. But how do you come across as a genuine person who has a passion and who wants to make a difference? When in the back of your mind? you kind of know, in part, that you're doing this? Because it will look good? Or an application? like yeah, is that ever come? You know, in mind when you were doing these kinds of things that you were like, Oh, you know, I'm going to do this thing with the ESPN sports science and soccer, etc. And of course, like it comes from a very genuine place. And I can see that with you that it does come from a genuine place. But did there ever creep in that kind of little voice at the back being like, this will look awesome on your application type of thing? And how do you I guess, balance those two? Danielle 37:42 Yeah. And I do think it's a balance. Because I think one thing I learned also is from like doing service projects, and I think something that people don't really tell you is like, if you do a service project, and you don't take a picture the whole time, like Oh, Podcast Host 37:57 really happened, right? Danielle 37:58 Yeah, I think also it is, it definitely is that like balance, because also when you're doing your service project in doing these great things, you have to document it. And you have to gain these contacts who are gonna vouch for you, I think this like, idea that it all comes about naturally, right? You do something great, like you don't naturally come out. And that's like not true at all. I think like one thing that's really important is like, the black presidents like people when they get a role, like people don't understand that, like, you actually have to tell people you have to like reach out and do press releases. People don't just know information about like, government. So I think that's just kind of something you learn in terms of claiming space, I think, especially for underrepresented communities, a lot of it is like claiming space and being comfortable, like achieving things, but then also claiming that achievement and knowing how to publicize that achievement. So I think for me, overall, I knew what I was doing was helping people. I knew I enjoyed doing it. So I think I didn't have as much guilt. But I do know what your say, um, and I think that as long as most of it is to help others, yes. There's no negative in it. Right? Like you're not doing it for bad reason. So I think that's how you sew up those differences. Podcast Host 39:16 Yeah, no, no, it's just interesting to kind of think that I think I still, you know, I sometimes have in the back of my mind, like when I want to go and you know, volunteer or plant trees, whatever I'm like, this will be like, this will look good on Instagram or something, you know, like, there's always that kind of, you know, what does this show? Or what does this tell about me, rather than just my internal compass, just telling me to do the right thing, right? And it's what like social media is kind of created, I guess it's based off of that outer awareness of what it looks like to other people versus like, what it means to you. And I guess that's a very interesting balance. And I know that some students are just out there going, being like, you know, what, what servers project will get me into Harvard. Just level with me. And you're like, No, no, no, it's it's not about that. It's like, it's like, What? What do you want to do? And what do you want to give back to? And how do you get joy out of giving? Right? Yeah. Danielle 40:11 And I think that's why it's so important that it's related to your passion. Because if not, then like you are, then you might just be doing Yeah, yeah, Podcast Host 40:20 exactly. And then it will get very tiresome very, very quickly. If that's the case. Yeah. No, it's been a really extraordinary year for student voice. And for young black student voice as well. You know, everything that's been going on in the US has been crazy to watch from the perspective of an Australian here. And the election, BLM protests of Black Lives Matter protests. And just like the whole COVID situation, student body president in that COVID situation with all these different things, like, must have been a crazy year for student voice in general. Have you been surprised by how important student voice is? Or is it something that you already knew? And just wanted to elevate? Danielle 41:04 Yeah, I think I have been surprised, more moreso with how receptive people have you been to listening to soup voice then, like vital, and like poignant student voice can be, um, I think one thing that was like, really big for me was kind of coming into the presidency and being like, Oh, I'm gonna have to, like, tell these administrators, I'm gonna have to get into a meeting, I'm gonna have to all this and having them invite me in having them be like, No, we want you here. What do you think? What do you think about this? What should we do? I hate like just being like COVID-19. And BLM really created that environment. And I hope moving forward to really adopt that kind of mentality. But from my perspective, people have just been so eager to hear what students have to say. And that's very refreshing. And I think at the same time, students are really educating themselves and preparing for what to say and what comes next and really shaping up to be the future. So I think I was very surprised to see how many people are willing to listen to students. I was also doing an internship. So I was like a student, but I was like on a team. And I think they were like, Danielle, what do you think like, what do you think about this? What can we do? And I said, No. Okay. I think I think it's very important. I hope moving forward, we keep the same mentality. Podcast Host 42:22 Yeah, 100%, I think the student voice and I said, like, in recent years, I think America has been, you know, in many different circumstances in terms of like a global reputation. And it's been, it's not so good in some points. But in any case, I think one thing that has been a shining light for America over the past couple of years, his students, his student voice, the people, you know, from Florida, who were protesting about guns, and leading the March that they did, which was like the power that they spoke with, and then through the Black Lives Matter movement, as well, like the number of students who are involved, it just seems to be, you know, like, I look at America sometimes. And sometimes the, you know, the 50 plus age group isn't really doing their part in many respects. But certainly the younger people have that hope. And is that something that you feel like across at least the MIT campus and maybe even broader with, you know, other black student body presidents? Do you feel like, there is hope for America more broadly, I know, that's like a kind of broad topic to speak on. But like, from where I stand, I look at America, and I see students have hope, probably more hope than many other people or many other age groups. And do you feel that way? Danielle 43:42 Yeah, I think like, one thing that's super interesting, is kind of the role that social media has played into everything. I know, you meant mentioned, like the Douglass tragedy. And actually, when I was seeing it, it was my senior year of high school. And I had a girl My team, my actual fellow Captain went to that school. Um, and I know that on our soccer team, we knew people who went to that school more so from social media than anything, and I think like that kind of interconnectedness, vibe, um, the Yale had their first black student body president last year, and he, like, I got elected, and he reached out to me like, over Instagram dm. So I think the fact that our generation can be so interconnected, and different when I was talking to my mom the other day, because I think I posted something on my Instagram story, something that took me like, five minutes to take a picture of, um, and then to see 1000 people thought 24 hours later, or did you have anything like this when you were a student? Yeah, no, nobody listened to me nothing like that. Um, so I think it's very big. And I think just getting the platform to have people listen to your ideas, the platform to amplify other people's like educational resources and stories. This is really encouraged our generation to like, take grasp of the moment and be really kind of poignant, and like very Much more serious and I think what a lot of people think we focus on. Um, so I do think there is hope in terms of confronting the history of the United States. For a long time, we've had a lot of hush, hush. Let's continue on Ford, Ford Ford. Um, I think I just wrote an essay. Yesterday I kind of about the history of ghettos in the United States. And like, kind of understanding that, like, de facto segregation is a myth in terms of No, there were laws made by the government. That's why things are segregated, not like, Oh, this is a naturally occurring phenomenon. I think those like realistic histories and like confronting that history, it's so important to come up with solutions. So I think the myth that we can just move forward without really confronting the truth of the past is just a myth that our generation wants to get to the bottom of interest, knowing what actually happened knowing the truth about Christopher Columbus and indigenous people, um, and figuring out how to come up with solutions moving Podcast Host 46:02 forward. So I think that's what gives me hope the most, it's like the, the kind of desire to have those tough conversations and not to ignore them anymore. And just be like, hey, let's just hash this out for once. Can we just talk about it? Because I do think that for, you know, throughout the 60s and 70s, and 80s, it was just like, oh, Christopher Columbus Day like, yeah, you probably call it a damn thing. You're like, No, no, that's, and there will always be that small, dissenting voice. But I think, you know, as he said, like, social media has this power to amplify that small dissenting voice, and really get it out to a much, much wider audience. would you encourage young student leaders to be very active on social media? You're very active on social media. Danielle 46:47 Yeah, very active. I think I've become more active. But I also think my social media has been a little bit corrupted in terms of like, being student body president, and whatever that entails, for what my social media should be from. Podcast Host 47:03 Representative now you gotta like, you gotta you gotta manage what you put up. Yeah, yeah, for sure. Yeah, Danielle 47:07 I but I think in general, I don't think like if you're naturally not a social media person, and you're naturally not like, really drawn to reposting other people's stuff, or even posting things about your life, I don't think I would push anybody to be like, Oh, no, use this. But I think if you are holding yourself back, because you're afraid of judgment, or because you're afraid of whatever it might be, maybe feel like right now you don't have the following. I think definitely always just if you're a creator, and you want to create things and put it up. This is such a like, actually, industry for influencing now. I think that's amazing. So I think that definitely, if somebody wants to, I would definitely say to explore social media explore its benefits, explore what's out there. There's just so many sources of education on it. Like, how much have I learned from Instagram in the past year, like in comparison to like, even like high school history? Yeah, I think crazy. So I think it's definitely a powerful tool. Podcast Host 48:06 Yeah. And for our listeners, if they wanted to check out your socials, what would be your recommended list of Danielle socials, or Tick Tock or an Instagram or LinkedIn? Oh, what would be your ones that you would encourage our listeners to check out your posts on? Danielle 48:25 Yeah, so I'm not on Tick Tock. Podcast Host 48:27 I'm on Tik Tok now. I've never posted but Crimson Education has a new Tik Tok channel. So I, I follow. I joined Tik Tok for that purpose. So now I follow Crimson Education and, and I've seen some like it's really interesting platform like there's so many back to two years ago, when it first started, it was just like people doing random dances. And now it's like, all kinds of things going on there people giving stock tips and like a Korean dad sharing his life story and an old grandma sharing like, it's crazy how like diverse it's become. The spectrum is insane. So I think tik tok is a really interesting platform. But I think you always got to be you got to take like, some of the political statements with a bit of a grain of salt. Sometimes some people might be, you know, obviously, with a bit of bias, putting content out there. So you got to double check your facts in some respects. But you want to tick taco What's your favorite social platform? Danielle 49:24 I do like Instagram. I think that's my main one. I'm Danielle.g_ on Instagram. I like that. I really like the the story feature and the Explore page and kind of games see that and then repost. Um, I think that has been big for me, but I think that the Tik Tok algorithm is very interesting and also very addictive. I think that's why I've stayed off I think a couple times, my friends like school and be like, oh, wow, like you really don't stop scrolling like they purposely do that like long and lists feed you can scroll on for forever. I think Instagram is also addictive, but little less And I also I just started the social dilemma. I think I fell asleep the first few minutes. But that I think it talks about like the how all these things are created to be addictive and kind of the trappings that can come with that. So I hope Podcast Host 50:11 I hope you went tired because you were like on Instagram too much, and you're just like, fell asleep? No, I've seen social dilemma, it's well worth a watch. You know, again, like, you got to kind of take some of it with a grain of salt, but certainly did make me delete a few apps at the end of watching the social dilemma. So I hope you enjoy that. But yeah, let's, uh, let's get your final advice for students going forward, whether they be in high school or whether they be in university. Now, in terms of like, I think, you know, you might come from a different angle, but I think, generally speaking, how to make the most of that high school to university time or even that time at university. Like how do you make it? I'm just really, I really love that idea that you're not making it about the coursework too much, and that you're making it about the experiences and the people. And what was that quote, don't let your classwork given the way of good education or something like that. Danielle 51:13 Cool. get in the way of your education. Podcast Host 51:15 Right. Right. Right. I think that's such an interesting thought. Yeah, I'd like to just get your final thoughts on how that's played out in your life? Danielle 51:24 Yeah, I think definitely, um, that growth mindset thing is very important. So I think always be willing and open to change, I think that can be very hard. I know, I have anxiety. And sometimes I'm in a room and I'm like, I just want to stay in my shell. But I think just always being willing to be open and learning things as well. I think there's things that like I, in high school never tell you that I liked or was passionate about. But then just having that growth mindset and being open, I found out about things. And because I was open, I was able to pivot to them. And really, like get submerged in Everest, I feel like I even know people. And some of my best friends are kind of like, on the straight path, people had told them what was a great profession to be in what was a great school to go to. So they felt like, Okay, I'm gonna do that. And they just stay on that path. And it was much more structured. And I think that that can work for some people. But I also think that sometimes when you're just on a mission to go somewhere, you don't like stop and look around at the surrounding. So I think just always being open, and not being afraid if your path isn't linear. I think we're taught that like, this happens, this happens, this happens. And it's all in a straight line if you want to be successful, but I think it's not like that. And not to be afraid of failure. It comes with the territory. And I think for all the scholarships, we talked about getting like any scholarship, I won, there was actually 20 applications 20 no's as well, right? It's a story of success. Also, it's a story of failure. Podcast Host 52:53 I love that I'm actually going to ask you about the failures that you're most proud of, I think is an interesting way to think about failure. Sometimes we think we need to reframe the conversation. So yeah, I'm going to ask that question, because I've almost forgot to ask it. I've never asked that question before. But like, what are the failures that you're most proud of like putting yourself out there, you may not have got the result that you wanted, but God damn it, you put yourself out there, right? Danielle 53:18 Yeah, I think I'm very, like, happy that I got deferred. Um, I think that was like a whole like, moment for me emotionally. And being a very stressed out senior in high school. It wasn't like a positive emotional moment. But I think now being in the position, I wouldn't be in the position I am now I think I was regularly admitted to MIT. I think that's kind of what it became more of an experience for me more so than just an academic pursue. And so I think being deferred, it was crushing at the time. I definitely cried a lot. So it was in my room Jagger cried for a couple days, and then oh, no, we're Podcast Host 53:57 Okay. Those emotional scars have healed. Danielle 54:01 They have no, they've definitely healed and I can say, Look, I'm better for it. And I'm grateful for it. Because I think it's very easy to get bogged down into what's the best school, what's the school for you versus being able to adopt that? I'll be okay, no matter where I go. And I think everyone here listening, you can have a dream school, and that's great. But also you'll be okay, no matter what. And I think that's important. Podcast Host 54:23 Awesome, awesome. Well, Danielle, it's been an absolute pleasure having you on the top of the class. I know, our listeners are going to really enjoy the chat and your advice. And hopefully, they'll follow you on Instagram, and can stay in touch with whatever's going on, as the student body president for the 2021 year at MIT, which is an awesome achievement. So yeah, thanks so much for coming on the show. Danielle 54:43 Yeah, thank you for having me.

Ep #19 Building Companies, Writing Books and getting into Harvard Business School

🗓 DEC 16, 2020

See transcript

Podcast Host 00:20 I'm your host, Alex Cork. And in today's episode, I chat with Kaushal Reddy Ottem. Kaushal started two companies in high school, has written five books, and has just been accepted to Harvard Business School at the age of 17. We talk about fast tracking, education, coding, business building and getting into habit. Let's chat with casual ready autumn. Hi, Kaushal, welcome to the top of the class podcast. fantastic to have you on the show. Can you introduce yourself to our listeners? Kaushal 00:48 Thanks, Alex, for inviting me here, it's a pleasure to share the stage with you. I'm Kaushal. And now I'm currently doing my post graduation and RMIT Masters in Business Administration, major technology and innovations. It's quite research based. And I'm in the final year recently, you know, I'm according to Harvard Business School, to do my strategy research over there. Think surely we can formation strategy, disruptive strategy, and basically with entrepreneurship and innovations. Podcast Host 01:18 Okay, and you're how old? Kaushal 01:20 I'm 17. Podcast Host 01:22 And you've already been accepted into Harvard Business School, what's the general age that people would usually be accepted into Harvard Business School? Kaushal 01:30 either it's not like, I'm not like other countries. So you know, there's a lot of people from us from the states that have done it and engage, you know, somebody graduated, somebody did a post graduation and powered by 15. And, you know, I've heard a lot of stories of many people accelerating in our that are from the States. And generally speaking, if you wanted to post graduation at avid, you're doing the undergraduate degree, or you will be needing to prove that you know, some other experiences or some other, you know, extracurricular activities like you've undergone outside and you're supposed to file an application, but the chances of getting accepted are quite, quite high with Howard. And as you know, the acceptance rate is quite, you know, 5% or 6% or something. Yes. Podcast Host 02:10 So, you're going to be probably one of the youngest students there, are you actually going to do your degree on campus? Kaushal 02:17 My ones PG, and you know, it's like a cert, so what's going to happen is that if I want to if I want to continue the complete PG, the postgrad, after cert, you know, I'll explain the different stages, right stage one cert, if I want to be doing the old thing, yes, I do have to move to on campus, but proven that it's COVID time and, you know, international students and things like that. It's going online at the moment. But you never know. So, you know, if COVID just continues along, you know, I'll finish it online, and you know, COVID just ended and then you have to move so, you know, it's all it's all this kind of practices. Podcast Host 02:51 are will take me to that moment where you knew that you had gained acceptance to Harvard Business School, that must have been a pretty like, impressive and important moment for you in your life. Kaushal 03:00 Yes, it was quite that moment that okay, yes, I was quite relieved, it's Harvard. It has to your resume, and it adds weightage. And, you know, when you say that, you know, you're either graduated or you've been to other, it's just the feeling just changes around your, the circle, you know, the name itself has some, some kind of narrative that just comes from, from the older generations. So I was quite relieved. And, you know, I was quite, I was quite happy with it. But again, speaking of the nature, I was more happy because, you know, Harvard is something that, that has a lot of like minded students, or they create this mental atmosphere and space of thoughts and ideas, new ideas, new innovations, and US which is known as Silicon Valley. And, you know, something that, you know, adding to innovations and I thought it's such a such a good thing and it's such an honorable moment to attend such a prestigious university. Podcast Host 03:49 Is that some of the reasons why that you applied because obviously, you've got your own business, which we're going to be talking about soon, but is that kind of prestige and network and having that you know, have a name next to your name now, for the rest of your life as you know, you'll be a graduate of a postgraduate student of how a business school is that one of the reasons why you applied and really wanted to get in? Kaushal 04:12 Certainly not. The reason being that, you know, firstly, before doing RMIT, post grad, I was I was given a similar offer from University of Melbourne, you know, which which we all know that uni Melbourne is one of the top universities from Australia, but I've said I don't want to do uni Melbourne, I want to go into RMIT because I RMIT the program structure looked for me It looked better and looked like you know, it fits my life. And you know, something about avid, you know, definitely the prestigious name is always there. But definitely I would say the like mindedness of our you know, when they provide you such a, you know, when they have the experienced professors experienced teaching and experience to network, that is what I think that definitely plays a role. You know, if you're surrounded by people that are quite, quite ambitious, they're quite intellectual and are quite, you know, that are quite giving something in or something in terms of researcher in terms of productivity, then the old atmosphere and then the old feeling around new changes. And I just believe that not that that's the main reason you're the network, the professors and the ideas, thoughts, more than just having an hour with me, you know, these days, you know, you could you could just get a degree and immediate end of the day. So you know, it's important to just gain the knowledge. Podcast Host 05:18 Yes, absolutely. Talk me through what you have actually finished. Have you finished school and your undergrad and another degree at RMIT? Or what exactly Have you already completed? Kaushal 05:28 So I finished my Year 10 last year. And then, you know, I firstly enrolled into VCE at RMIT, RMIT, office VCE. And then what happened in March was that somebody told me that, you know, having the profile, adding new work experience and things like that, then they made me go into undergrad, and I undergrad like the four subjects finished them in June. I didn't have undergrad that was in it computer science. Podcast Host 05:54 Okay, so you actually haven't yet graduated technically from high school? Kaushal 05:59 Technically, no. Podcast Host 06:00 Okay, so they accepted you into the undergrad program at RMIT. Because of your work experience, and because of your profile, and they're like, hey, yeah, you could go straight into undergrad, even without a official High School Certificate. And then after doing a couple of courses there, you were able to apply to Harvard Business School. So are you a graduate of RMIT, at this stage? Kaushal 06:21 No, I'm still doing my RMIT post grad. Podcast Host 06:24 Right. Kaushal 06:25 I still have to finish. So you know, I'm, I'm like four subjects now. Okay, do the MBA program into the official program. So I still have to finish that one or two. And then with avid, you know, the acceptance is quite high with our The reason being that, as I said before, our does not look for, you know, degrees, or, you know, your previous experience with education. You know, we all know that Harvard has produced some of the greatest issue and, and the reason being that our actually looks for your experience in your class, in terms of what you've done, you know, programming and application, and you're taking it to millions of people that, you know, as you read the profile and and when our looks at those things more than you know, your profile or your scores in you know, yet well, or undergrad or things like that. Podcast Host 07:08 So in terms of your overall profile or application to Harvard, can you talk me through that a little bit? Like what did that actually look like? What were you trying to present to Harvard, to make them say that you were a good fit for them. Kaushal 07:22 So you know, if you if you went to the avid website, and you know, tried finding the strategies, or the entrepreneurship, and you know, you're catching up of courses for organizational factors under the PG organizational practices, you know, you've got such as to do with strategies, you've got something to do with marketing, you've got different different fields out there. And when you try picking the right one, what you've got to present to our with that, is that, you know, it's not about why you're a good fit to them, is that why do you need our in your life? And, you know, what can you do with it, in terms of them pushing you, um, you know, avid does not need to sense that, you know, that they can just make a name of firewood wants to push students are doing well. So I presented, you know, whatever the technology is that I developed, you know, the books that I have done, and then you know, if you, if you google with it, I've got some publications, so, you know, with the publications with the collaborations, and, you know, things like that, you know, more of the nature was from computer science background, but it was good enough, or it was, I don't know what they felt like, but, you know, they felt I could pull it off and, you know, migrates from RMIT, were relatively, if they were HDS. Moreover, in the PGS, and, and they were quite happy, you know, with getting over nine peace in RMIT, and things like that, and they were quite happy to take me, I just got an email to, you know, just fill up my profile. And that was it pretty much. Podcast Host 08:37 Right. So it's kind of like you've been on this fast track for a little while now, where you're kind of not following the traditional, you know, finish high school that I take and go to university, that kind of thing. What was the original idea behind you fast tracking all of this, you know, you'd started your own company. And you thought, all right, I'm going to set the goal of going to university, getting my undergrad, my post grad, going to maybe Harvard was in your thinking back then. But what was the original motivation for you to push things ahead quite quickly, Kaushal 09:10 to the motivation to push things quite quickly is that I do know what I wanted to see the point of adding High School, it's not teaching you like you know, from up until year 10. You experiment a lot with subjects, you know, you've got robotics, you've got this, you've got that little things like that. You experiment a lot to pick your favorite subjects. And all of this is to know that you know, what you're doing, or you know, what you want to do, such as, you know, what pathway you want to choose in life, whether you want to do a doctor, whether you want to do computer science, whether you want to do business management and things like that, but you already knew, I knew. So what I knew was, you know, being at this for what, seven years, like, you know, when I started to program at the age of 10, now at the age of nine, and you know, what I wanted to knew because it was a clear cut goal, you know, I've learned programming so I know that it was computer science, but and mixed, you know, some kind of business element. So at the time, when I Started maybe intended to Well, it was all about programming and you know, just doing it for the sake of doing it. But when I was 12-13, things are very serious. And, you know, I started to plan out, okay, if I wanted to develop something, what purpose does it have in other people's lives, and I started to think chronologically, rather than just developing blindly or developing some kind of a product that's been there, I started to in a way, you know, more of a focus on newer technologies, newer trends, like artificial intelligence, machine learning, or something along those newer lines. And when I started doing that, I knew that, you know, research would be a very good subject or, or matter of time, because, you know, I've been into this research, research technologies and things like that, you are there, you're 15 in an age of 16, and you know, that find your proper work experience covered up, you know, 30 plus hours a week, so, and definitely school I was balancing, you know, I was I wasn't, you know, sometimes I wasn't performing well, I was doing the exams, exams were like acing the exams, like when it came to 85-90% to do with English, maths, a couple of my favorite subjects, and definitely it is more. But other subjects when it came to chemistry, physics, biology, I was always I was always lacking in I was barely, like, you know, barely crossing over the line. Podcast Host 11:10 It wasn't a focus for you, though, right? Like, it wasn't your main goal to do that. Kaushal 11:13 It wasn't a focus for me in the school year. And then I went to a private school, and the school knew that and the school said, you know, what you want to do? Well, you know, you, you know, what you're going through, and I said, if you don't want to do science, please try it for the sake of doing it. But you know, we're not really going to be very, very concerned about, you know, you're doing fine. So unless and until if you want to go and pick it up in the future. Right. And, you know, I got that support. And you know, and I knew that the tradition of the, you know, Australian education system, it's not like compared to some other countries where you have to pass every single subject, I had this, you know, kind of nature, and then I was doing well, and then I've taken this covered the experience and, you know, relatively, you know, in my free time I used to the coding cover the experiences develop the technologies marketed as the network and expertise. And they came a point at 16 and 17 are fast tracking options. And, you know, in terms of fast tracking, I've got offers from first offer was from union sake, that was in business side of things, majored in entrepreneurship and innovations, right? And the reason of this innovations, you know, people ask me, why aren't you doing computer science or anything like that? Because you've been a programmer, and I said, Sure, the basic lines of it, and they expect you to learn, or they expect you to progress using that. And that's what people have been doing. So I said, Man, I've already I've already done this before. Now, the program has already developed many applications. And what's the point of me redoing this? Can you reason I haven't picked computer science, because I knew the first two or three subjects that are five was also boring, Podcast Host 12:35 Because it was like covering things you'd already learnt yourself. Kaushal 12:37 Yes. And even in the third year, I've tried one subject from the third year, and, you know, it wasn't much of a progressive, it wasn't like machine learning artificial intelligence that I that I didn't know of. Podcast Host 12:46 Harvard Business School is probably the place to be in that case. Kaushal 12:49 Yeah. And the reason why I would probably say, HBS, for the strategies is that, you know, they help you in terms of, you know, diversified strategies, and you know, COVID, under the cabinet, right, well, things have changed, you know, business's operations have changed the way of expertise in, in a couple of things have changed. So, it does give us a pleasure to look into things when it comes to us, when it comes to, you know, transformation strategies, you know, how do we go on about this? How do we do the future, you know, people have been saying work from home, people have been saying, you know, differently, you know, this kind of thing, you know, they want this kind of lifestyle, people have been moving to, you know, work from home, they've been moving to regional places. So, you know, there's so much of happening with lifestyles, and you know, and our business, which is quite, which is far into that research, which is quite into the future thinking. And, you know, I do, I do believe, you know, he just gives us fat to show that slight advantage of looking into things and, you know, grasping over the market very quickly and rapidly. Podcast Host 13:43 It must have been a fairly brave decision, though, to fast track everything, because I think a lot of people who are in your situation, who do know what they want to do, who are academically very advanced, they would probably argue that socially, they would prefer to stick with people who are 16-17 years old, and not necessarily go to a place where people are like, 19, 20-21 years old, what's it been, like, from a social standpoint, making that transition, Kaushal 14:11 immediately this year, you know, most of my batchmates at RMIT are in a different various, you know, they're in 282-9 with people in 33-34 people have, you know, 15 years, 20 years of work experience that are just doing their own graduation. And, you know, people returning to study after two years to do their research work and, you know, go on to do their PhDs. You know, we've got a lot of people are at different stages of life and, you know, socially, socially, it's challenging, but I wouldn't say it's impossible. You know, the reason being that you cannot always be in your comfort zone, you know, you've got to step out of your comfort zone. And when you do that, you start losing days, you know, you start either losing your family time losing, you know, other aspects of your life, you know, things to do with your school friends, things to do with, but that's the, that's the beauty about, you know, shaping you up into a new person or into a person that's going to achieve something much bigger than this. Podcast Host 14:59 You Yeah, I think it's that getting out of your comfort zone. But that must have been a fairly hectic first couple of weeks didn't how you came to be so clear cut, because a lot of students who are 1415 1617, they might have a particular interest or passion, but they also don't want to take a risk and commit to that path, because that might cut them off from other opportunities that they might enjoy. So how is it that you are so definite and clear cut about what you want to do? Kaushal 15:30 I'll plug this analytically at 14 or 15. The reason being that because you know, I've been programming since little and you know, machine learning, artificial intelligence was definitely tough, you know, to always take it on. But you know, being in that for four years, and you know, doing that it's not always you cannot say no, I'm done with this, I'd rather go into an easy field, you're in that field. And you're it's a continuous process of doing stuff. And I've seen many people, even when it comes to Australia that ended up needing to WWDC in a worldwide developer conferences, Apple scholarships, definitely, you know, there are people younger than me that are very clear cut on this, and you've got a very clear cut. But this is what I want to do things like that, when you mentioned that people are confused on what they want to do there, those people that have been following the traditional pathway, you know, from 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, that are dependent, that are highly dependent on schools, schools to give you the motivation, the choice in the interest to find your passion, but they're not the sole reasons, you know, they only tell you like, you know, one or two lines, and you've got to make use that two lines to continue the process. Podcast Host 16:35 I think that's one thing that you've obviously done very well, is that ability to learn outside of school, and from your age of 9, 10 years old, picking up coding and starting to program code, that type of thing. What was that? Like? And I don't know if you remember that long ago, I guess eight years ago. Now? What was your first kind of introduction to programming and coding? Was it your parents and introduced you? Was it a friend? Kaushal 16:59 Do you remember, it was my parents because my mom comes from a computer science background, she was lecturing in India, like, Professor, that's helpful, that's definitely helpful. Because you know, she's got the book sellers, the first introduction when I started reading them, and I found it relatively something that I wanted to be can pounce upon coding. And it's something that most people want to do at a young age, because you know, you don't really have any other options, you know, you cannot, cannot really learn anything outside. You can do sports, but apart from sports, if you think about other subjects, like, you know, music or arts, if you remove them, when you're trying to learn something else, like educational categories, yes, you cannot learn business, you know, business is definitely something different, you know, so something about self learning is coding is such a good subject to start. And it's not something that everybody needs. Podcast Host 17:49 It's pretty, like black and white, right? Like you're saying business or that kind of philosophical stuff. When you're nine and 10 years old, a lot of that stuff goes over your head. But when it comes to coding, it's kind of like these, the numbers that you have to plug in, this is the code that you have to put into the formula. And then you can kind of go from there. So it's pretty easy or not easy, but I guess it's more well suited to younger students, if they're wanting to learn something. And it's not some kind of like, sport music type of thing. Definitely, in Kaushal 18:17 coding something at a young age, you can easily learn coding until the intermediate level. And that's when after the intermediate level is when the art thing starts. You know, that's when you need other aspects, such as you know, you need research skills, you need business skills, you need other skills, you know, to take your idea or to take that knowledge and apply it into an application or weddings or whatever that you want to eat. Podcast Host 18:39 Okay, and that's something that you have done with your businesses. So can you talk to me a little bit about what your businesses are? Firstly, Kaushal 18:47 I put two, he said, so one is kind technologies. The other one is, you know, push out innovations. The other one, the two stardom innovations is only there just to procure my innovations, like, you know, you need a company just to, you know, just add the innovations name under rather than money. Yes, well, is the entity and the other one kind of technologies, Podcast Host 19:06 Kite technologies? And what do you do through that? Kaushal 19:08 through that, you know, we, we develop things, you know, we develop, you know, group of other games. So, either when it comes to, you know, technology, such as web applications and things like that, we come up with our own ideas, and something like, you know, for example, let's say you come up with an idea of, you know, deploying a game, and, you know, we've done, we do the game, and you know, we give it to the publishers, and in collaboration, we publish the games, because you need the publishers in terms of finances, or in terms of the things so that's what we've been doing. So, you know, we don't really call ourselves, you know, a company, we call ourselves an organization. And the reason being that, you know, we don't always do developing side of things, you know, we don't provide services like other companies do, because we will rather come up with our own own set of ideology, own set of innovations. So, you know, we're into that organizational space. But yes, you know, we want to expand or we want to, you know, we want to look into other things such as, you know, consultations or consulting into new techniques. Newer algorithms and things like that. But that's far away, you know? Because, you know, we need to consider other basics and other structures. Podcast Host 20:06 Yeah, absolutely. So who's part of the company? There's you? And is your dad part of it as well? I saw somewhere that he was, Kaushal 20:13 yes, you don't quite basically, you know, we've got our family being part of it. You know, we've got contractors, definitely when it comes to the developing nature that we outsource for different things such as, you know, UI design, UX designs, and when it comes to definitely you need marketing to be done on some applications, you know, some applications, the contractor would do the services, or the publishers would do the maintenance or the other marketing, sometimes you got to end up doing your own own strategy, tragical marketing or psychological things in case Podcast Host 20:42 You set your company up when you were how old 14-15? Kaushal 20:47 I was 15. So so the company was there for like, somebody operated on a different company name? So and I was there for four years. And they we just ended up canceling the name because that was pretty much it when I was say 15 or 16. Podcast Host 20:59 What was it like to be balancing school and a company and you know, you've got your parents helping you out and you're subcontracting. And I know that you had you were doing some innovations, then at the time, and I've read that you were creating like a watch for women who might be in danger, and they can immediately call emergency services. And you're working on some other things as well. What was that whole balancing act? Like? How are you managing your time during that crazy period? Kaushal 21:26 See, balancing has always been the key. Because you know, right now, it's, it gives me that so much of ample space, because you know, you've got your PC running, you know, your postcard running on, it's one of things, and you've got time to work. And you know, that's the good thing about fast tracking. That's the good thing about these aspects. But definitely, if you take me three, two years back, and you know, there was school happening, there was this there was that it was always, you know, you're not in that right environment to innovate. You know, there's always things coming at you like assignments. And there's always that feel, you know, what happens if the school doesn't pass me What happens if I don't pass this play, and you know, I better I better, you know, do something about this, you know, these things in life or these aspects in life that you think about when you're in that environment of school, but right now, it's different. But it's not about balancing, it's always about getting the structure or the strategy right in the first place itself. Podcast Host 22:15 Yeah, that must have been a bit of a steep learning curve for you, what advice would you give to other students who are looking to go through that starting up a business phase, because that must have been like, must have been a bit of an interesting phase for you. Kaushal 22:29 It's different for each person, it's different for each individuality and personality matters a lot depends on you know, whether you come from migrant family, whether you come from an established family out here, you've got a family business happening, there's so many other factors to consider, I know that, you know, a couple of my friends that are my age that are doing exceptionally well, you know, they've got established family businesses, and you know, they've taken that business to a whole new level with new ideas, and, you know, so they haven't started their own entity, but they've already had this established family business. And, you know, they've just taken that, you know, ended up escalating that into a new level. And it quite matters on what you want to do. The only thing I would probably advise is just to be prepared to make sacrifices. But in terms of you know, entrepreneurship innovations, you know, things change, you know, things change day to day, you know, something that I would say today will not be the same in one month time. Um, you know, things have been changing weekly, strategies have been changing weekly, in advisors have been changing Lincoln. So the only thing is not just people that make sacrifices and you know, things will fall in place. Podcast Host 23:26 What are the advantages or disadvantages of starting a company versus say, for instance, like, you could have been doing a lot of this stuff just on your own right, like, you would have just been coding or you would have been innovating things, but you decided to set it up as a company and create, you know, Secretary rows and managerial roles. What are the advantages or disadvantages of doing that? Kaushal 23:49 We did it for the legal sake of things. And I did it because, you know, for example, let's say I've done a publication or a research strategy based with your avatar, you know, we have been working on so what I'll do, what I want to be doing is that I want to secure that research into a company, I just want to be doing this because it matters in the long run, you know, if you add it on a company name, or entity name, what happens is the fight that you carry on becomes easier because I've been cheated two or three times, I had my coat stolen, you know, I had, you know, my ideas stolen and things like that. Even and, you know, some cases that I've lost in India too, you know, because it was too hard. You know, it was too hard to go and fight a case and things like that. But having that on a company makes a lot easier for the court or for the for the highest sake of things that you know, okay, this is registering your company saying that a belongs to a company belongs to an organization and you've got roles within the organization. So you've got multiple people that can wipe out multiple people that can fight compared to one person. Right. Okay, that's the entity side of things because we are into innovations, you know, because we're into innovations. That's what we've done. But again, if you want to be service based, you know, I could always say that, you know, I want to be a freelancer. I want to be, you know, normal contract. developing applications. And you know, I'm not doing that, you know, I'm not doing that because, you know, I'm into the newest side of things, Ai, and things like that. But if I was in that field of you're just developing an application for the sake of developing an application for others, then definitely I would have done it on my Podcast Host 25:15 own. Yeah, it was for the legal application mainly, and the ability to if you do create anything that you want to keep it closer to, I guess, home, and not have the ability for people to steal it, can you talk us through that, you know, having your code stolen? And what that was like? And did you ever think someone would do that too, Kaushal 25:35 as a young kid, politically, you don't know that you know, about the world. So pretty much no, you're quite inexperienced with the world or what's happening around you what's happening with things around you. So you know, I, I've ended up developing one of an application, that's an operating system. So I developed a Linux based operating system that can be used for as a widest thing, you know, you've got the penetration tools and things like that, I was about to get that registered on my name, but and it started, you know, a cyber attack on my server, or things like that. And, you know, it just ended up taking off, I was deployed somewhere else. And, um, you know, all of these things do happen in today's world, you know, there's so much of, you know, horrible things happening, I would probably say, wherever that you're innovating, wherever you're researching, there's always some stupid things going on. So it's important that you're quiet, you know, you're quite brave enough for that. And you're quite brave enough that you know, you do something like me, or you do something like, you're not what some people have done. Yes. So you can have it under the company's name. And you know, when you think you're good enough, and you think you've got the technology, when you think you can deploy it, it becomes a easy structure. And as you said, it's very important that I will complete in our world and you know, look into things such as you know, going into Silicon Valley. Yes. And that's when when you go to Silicon Valley, you do work for others, but again, your technologies that you develop in the company, see, and you know, you can always take that company out to Silicon Valley, or, you know, to other other places, and deploy the technology. So, you know, give it to other people that came and said to all you level Podcast Host 26:55 that, yeah, no good advice for students out there who are interested in doing this kind of thing that they need to have a serious thought about taking their skills to the next level. And potentially putting it under a company name is one of the ways that they can protect what they're making. Kaushal 27:09 A lot lot of people don't know about this, that you know, that they ask, you know, why the company? Why the company, if you aren't working and things like that, are your business going to say? No, it's for the legal side of things, or it's for the registration of research projects, publications, or applications or procurement of technologies. That's pretty much it. But you know, apart from that, you know, we could do this on our own, you know, if the world was at peace, you know, everything was going well, we would just be doing it on on, you know, we could make things very easy. Podcast Host 27:36 But the world's not that kind. So it's probably Kaushal 27:40 not gonna take that time. But I'm gonna say that you know, that we don't have things going in our way. Nobody so much of other things. So that studies in your legal side of things, it's important to be not safe, safe zone. Podcast Host 27:50 What are some of your main interests in the areas that you work in? So you do programming developing in terms of the many different directions that that skill set could take you in? What are some of your main areas of interest at this point, Kaushal 28:06 we're trying to focus on transformational design, or conformational design structures that has to do with getting in technology procuring technology in terms of designing it, changing it into an organization leaps, but it's on transformational design. Podcast Host 28:20 Okay, transformational design. And that's something that you see is like Silicon Valley is the place that you want to go to eventually to really amp that up. Kaushal 28:28 Definitely, I just believe that Silicon Valley, as the network, you know, to do that Silicon Valley is an advantage the US because you look at Whatsapp, Facebook, Instagram, everything came from Silicon Valley, every single app, Apple came from Silicon Valley, you know, Microsoft came from Silicon Valley, Amazon came from Silicon Valley. So every every innovation that's actually been talked about came from Silicon Valley, it's because they have the expertise, the budget, and the thing. And I believe that, you know, we don't really have something Silicon Valley, or we don't even have something 5% close to Silicon Valley, which we won't be building upon you. That's one thing that we've been raising, you know, we've been constantly raising with the with the ministers or with the, with the MPs that, you know, they'll be we want this, you know, some students or not for the students, but for the sake of, you know, we want to have the name Australian written all over it. Podcast Host 29:12 Right. Now, I want to get down to some nuts and bolts here casual talking about like the top tips from you, for students who want to kind of emulate a little bit about what you've done. So let's break it down a little bit and take it one by one. What would be some of your first tips for students who are interested in programming who are interested in computer science but might not know really where to start? Or you've got those students who have made a start but don't really know where to go to from their type of thing. So what would you give in terms of that computer science programming, developing advice for both those audiences, your students who haven't yet made a start but are interested or their students who have made a start but don't know where to go? Kaushal 29:54 It's important to look into the first two aspects that the first two years that it's not going to be easy because You want to be learning and you know, just dedicate two years, I mean, I'd say two years, I would probably say, you're looking somewhere around easily 2500 to 4000 hours just to dedicate yourself to programming. It's important that you learn basics of all programming like Java, HTML, you know, c, c++, and you know, the five or six programs, it's important that after the first year, then the second year you x you major in one of them, like, you know, you might major in Python, or you might major in HTML, then, you know, there's so much technologies like, you know, Angular, React, native, hybrid cross platform applications, that it's just developed to all your levels. So you need a lot of time to consume. So it's important that you get aware of all technologies, learn, and then spend time learning the five to six basics, and then spend time majoring in one of them. Podcast Host 30:47 Which one do you major in? Kaushal 30:48 So the technologies I major in our flutter react, and then the basics that I know in C, c++, Java and HTML? Okay. So that's what I majored in with technologies and programming would be tightened. So it's very important that you, you know, after getting to know this, then after the first two years, then you know, once you know, this, it's important for the third year that you know, you're quiet work on developing practical skills, like you know, so you've learned, and it's time to apply what you've learned earlier, make sure that you try developing applications or you know, you'll find that and you slightly progress through. And that's going to be three years and one after three years, you're set. You know, once you can develop a full fledged application, then you know, you'll be developing apps like in no time, you'll be developing, you know, things within you know, your loved one every day, or you know, that you do one every week. Podcast Host 31:36 So you can develop an app in a week. Kaushal 31:38 Depends on how long you want to spend for it. Like, you know, when people want to say not only have 10 hours to spend for a week, that's fine. But let's say I work, you know, I did 25 hours in a week and 25 hours weekdays. So what I did, I did 40 hours. So you know, 40 hours, I had not been one enough week. Podcast Host 31:54 So you were doing like a 40 Hour Workweek on top of your schoolwork. Kaushal 31:59 Yeah, that's been the advantage for hashtag because, you know, I could explain what they mean, the full time work experience, right? Podcast Host 32:05 You didn't like stuff around wasting time playing fortnight or those kinds of things too much. Kaushal 32:09 I never played fortnight like I don't know how to play it. I sometimes I did play pub g because it was mobile gaming. I like a mobile gaming. But I did play a lot of cricket during the holidays like physical sport. Yep. I know. I'm a game developer. You know, I just didn't go to a lot of physical rather than, you know, most technological gaming. Podcast Host 32:29 Fair enough. Okay, so you're that's really good advice for the programmers developers out there. Did you ever put apps on the App Store and that kind of thing? Kaushal 32:37 I did. So I the the publishers did. For example, whatever I developed, I gave it to the publishers. Right. So you know, we've caught as I said, You know, I developed one of the cricket games in that as a 15 million downloads. Wow. So that was a bandage that I proved out or approved. I MIT, you know, this is what I can do. Podcast Host 32:55 What's that game called? How can people find it? Kaushal 32:57 So you could just Google real cricket? Podcast Host 32:59 Real cricket? Kaushal 33:00 Yeah. And you know, but you get the latest version, which I'm not part of, but I gave up the previous version. And, you know, I was I was only part of the game writing. But again, there's a lot of this was a project that has that has helped us because for this project, you needed designers, like you needed graphic designers, you needed editors, you need a desk, you know, you need unity creators, you needed, you know, the illustration of players. When I was working on this three years ago, what ended up happening is that collaborating with these many people or collaborating with such a big unit, when they did the design, get out that you know, it is not about computer science. It's also about business people, marketing people. It's all he calls it, it's all about different. So it's all about collaboration. Podcast Host 33:42 Yeah. And so you got all these different people that you had to work with. And that was a, I guess, a really steep learning curve, when you're made to like, Oh, I forgot to do a group project. And you're like, well, I'm trying to create an app that I need to work with all these people as well. It's just part of part of life. Really. Yeah. Kaushal 33:57 So but the advantage was that because you know, they had the other three or four previous editions established publishers. Advantage was that you know, what they did? You know, wasn't they designed it yet, and they ended up sending the designs, and we just have to quote for it. Very simple. But in other cases, you know, right now, I'm working on a project that, no, they wouldn't design, we just have to collaborate together to get that idea formed. So you know, things do vary. And on the note, I wanted to add something very quick for the programmers was that what I did, or what I found was that the first two or three weeks, it took me to build an application, find a building some solid application. And what happens is you can build something in a week, it's because you can end up getting that code and just changing it a bit to play around with an application. So you know, as long as it's your own code that you've written out. So you can always Copy that. And you could always paste that into a new form of application and then, you know, just just rework around that to fit that purpose. Podcast Host 34:53 You don't need to rewrite it every single time. Kaushal 34:55 Yeah, then things become very easy. Podcast Host 34:57 That's a good tip. So you've covered the The programming development side of things. Give me a few tips on the writing side of things because you're a multiple published author on Google Scholar as well as Amazon. Why did you see that as something that you really wanted to do when things were so busy? Kaushal 35:14 publications have to be done? Because publications have to be done through university like you need to do the publication's definitely do Podcast Host 35:20 the Google Scholar stuff. Kaushal 35:22 Yeah. So that's a cool book. And and some of the publications that I've done is something that I've taken the university publication to a new level, collaborating with other individuals from a different research background from different universities, like uni, Melbourne, or boutiques, and then just end up collaborating to take that into a new level to do an event publication. Right, something that I enjoyed, but again, the advantage of the books is that, you know, they provide you with, you know, it's not like a tips book, it's not about an how to become a millionaire or things like that, but the books are based upon a clear cut profound strategy. So you know, it's very important that a lot of people do think that, you know, other EU degrees and nonsense that you don't need university that you can just do computer science, learn outside and just go out and, you know, be baffled upon the world. It's not true in the sense is that, you know, there's a lot of TV's organizational practices that that to teach you in the university is just that you cannot depend on them, you've got to take that out. And you've got to explore on that. So when you do that, on your own, what happens is that you clean atmosphere and you create thoughts, you create diversity, and, and that's when you're all the writing just happens on its own. Podcast Host 36:28 And you were a self published author, or is it a books, Kaushal 36:31 it's ebooks, so you could just download an Amazon. So what I had to do to get the books written, and then I had to send it to Amazon, and then Amazon aiders, they would approve it. So once they would approve it, for example, Google does not because Google's a self publishing author, yes. But Amazon, because it has to be on Amazon, what Amazon does, is when you, when you send the book to them, like the ad copy in the E book, both of them, they quickly approve it, making sure that there's no plagiarism, there's nothing that you know that you're quite unique, and they will publish it. Podcast Host 36:59 Okay? And is there any kind of benefit for you from that? Is it just kind of like the personal experience and being a published author? Kaushal 37:08 See, there is always a benefit when you write books, because it's very easy that, you know, I can I can walk up to a university, and then as you said, aavid, or anything like that, you could always send them your books, and you know, they'll just, they'll have a peek through, and you know, just start reading it, you know, the structure, or the capability of this person, say, No, if you read my book, you will know that I know, this author, you know, this author has a writing style is it's not about writing style, but he's got he's got concepts, he's got design, he's got context in it. Yes. And the other aspect is that, you know, you apply this practices in place, so that, you know, even you people can read it. So I post on Instagram, and some people go through Instagram to buy it, and you'll get feedback such as, hey, you know, this practice has helped me with my organization. So the last book that I've written is completely, you know, it's completely problems, but a through a character that's based in India, like, you know, the problems that they're having with education system and things like that. Mm hmm. And, you know, somebody read it, and somebody read it, and they contacted me and said, I really appreciate your writing this book, because, you know, this has helped me to, you know, this is me to put in practice for my kid, that, you know, we cannot depend on this education system that, you know, I have to do something such as outside something outside the school have things in place, and, you know, just letting you know, off guard from traditional base, you know, do what he likes, right? It's not like, you know, just do it for the sake of published author, you know, it doesn't really help you. Podcast Host 38:24 Yeah, exactly, it kind of has to be out of your own passion and interest. But that's awesome, that you're contributing in that way. And I think that's a really interesting way for other high schoolers to do something like that, and probably have less barriers to getting published, then what they might think, right, they might think that they got to need to, you know, hire an editor, or they need to pay heaps of money to get published, Kaushal 38:44 ah, the books didn't, because even they ended up costing me around four to 5000 USD, for each book, The reason being that, it's because you know, the artwork that I have to get done, I have to make sure that it's unique, I have no copyright issues in the future show, what some people do is that they end up getting a stock image, and then they just change it a bit. But it's very important that when you do when you write a book, it's very important that you know, even you spend like 500 to 600 USD, because you know, you're supposed to have that frame, even inside the book, you don't use features that are copyright. So you have to design a new set of digital designer. So all of the books ended up, you know, costing me somewhere around, you know, some some 1000, 2,000 the other one day three to 4000 because the technology budget 4000 for me, because I had to get so much of designs in there, there are no copyright. So it's important that you have no copyright issues. That's that's where the cost This is the copyright part. And then the designing part, you know, it's not, it's not very expensive, like 20 or $30,000. Podcast Host 39:40 Yeah, exactly. And I will put that in the show notes, actually, the links to your books, which I found on line there. And then the last thing to chat about is in the Harvard Business School, I know you've given some recommendations and tips already in terms of letting Harvard know how Harvard can help you become a better person or a better student. But is there any other tips that you would give for students who are going through the application process or who might want to go through the application process. Kaushal 40:08 Um, there's nothing like you know, any tips or tricks, but one thing is definitely is that if you're applying for a prestigious university or a university that that's like well known upon, hmm, they know this stuff, they look for iron Academy breaks one thing, but they also look for extra curricular activities like, you know, whether you're into programming, whether you have internships, whether you have your research projects, whether you have any publications in adipose fat level, and it's very important that you're quite active in your undergrad, which is quite active, that you're quite active in life, that you have all these publications or books or that, you know, technologies or that outside the box, rather than getting only 1990s 1990s each and every time. Podcast Host 40:46 Yeah, you need to show that you're special beyond your academic grades, like just being a very smart student doesn't necessarily mean that they're, you're going to get into a top university, that's for sure. And that's something that having worked at Crimson for a couple of years, I know very much about, Kaushal 41:01 I get a lot of stories for aldiko. Because, you know, a lot of people from India, you know, even the rich kids that cry outward, that can 1990s 1990s we know the Indian education is one of the toughest isn't that doesn't produce any grades, but it's one of the toughest for some reason. And when it's really, really tough, people get 1990s 90s. And then they get ejected out with one simple reason is that they can produce anything outside school. So that that's an important thing to keep in mind. Podcast Host 41:28 Fantastic. Is there any final tips that you would give to students on an academic front, like study tips, or how to kind of get yourself ready to do four or five hours of coding after a day of school, like, what kind of study tips or, or time management tips would you give to students Kaushal 41:45 can management would be would be, it's going to be one of the worst tips from my side. Because the reason why I would say that, you know, don't spend time if you don't like anything, but again, that doesn't go well with a lot of parents so that a lot of students and then talk to the school, it's very important that you know, in Australia, you can be very open with the right school, you can be open with the coordinator, you can go to the talk coordinator and talk to them. They know this is what I want to do. This is my passion. This is what I've been doing outside school and just tell them your situation, you will definitely find out and you know, if you don't, if you cannot find out what I've done, I've changed one of the schools because they weren't supportive, right at the admission level, you know, this is me, this is what I'm doing. And this is what I need. And they said, we'll definitely support you. So that's one thing that you could do just have to have the self confidence. Podcast Host 42:28 Yeah. And it's also I guess, having that support network around you, like, you know, you had your mom who was obviously I'm going to guess fairly integral to helping you find a love for computer programming and developing and finding other people around you who are going to support you and what you want to do, whether that be the school or your family or friends. Kaushal 42:47 That be a part of it. Podcast Host 42:49 Yeah, for sure. For sure. Casual Is there any way that people can get in touch with you and follow along with your your journey, Kaushal 42:55 I will probably say just the social handles that that's pretty much it. So it's just Facebook page, Instagram or LinkedIn, LinkedIn. Right? I just post a lot of things to do with you know, as I said, design thinking or, you know, entrepreneurship approaches. Gosh, it's Podcast Host 43:10 been awesome chatting, man, like I you know, massive congratulations on the Harvard ambition. Massive congratulations on the business ideas. And, you know, we look forward to seeing those innovations come to life. You know, I think they're kind of things that you're working on a real world problems. And it's awesome that, you know, at a young age, you feel that you are the right person to be doing this. I think a lot of students kind of say, Oh, well, I'm, you know, I've got this idea, but I'm only 15 or I'm only 16. There's probably someone else working on it, who's probably a lot older and a lot more professional. So why should I put that pressure on myself? But it's awesome that you've said, No, I'm 15-16, I've got the skill set. Why wouldn't I, right? Kaushal 43:47 I wouldn't say this, because the reason why change is a lot like, you know, the your network, it depends on your network, your expertise, like, you know, if you asked me to come come and be or as an educational consultant out like something like Crimson Education? Hmm, I don't think about like, you know, something that you guys know, something that you guys have the network in terms of, I've only dealt with one university, but you deal with multiple universities, right? Yes. So that's, again, the network like, you know, you know, most of the students do come to you. And for example, if I finished my hour of my graduation, now, I might come to Clemson again and say, Alex, I want to apply for Cambridge, I'm gonna apply for something else, can you help me with bribery? These are the things that you cannot take it out. And I'll probably say that, you know, are to collaborate with a data analyst write an ad to collaborate with some kind of, you know, some kind of a doctor to do medical innovation. So, you know, there's so much of things that led to the collaboration of two minds. So you can always say that, you know, you have the skills you're better if you do that, you know, you still lack the teamwork. You know, there's a lot of teamwork. Podcast Host 44:45 Yeah, yeah. It's kind of like, looking around you seeing what your network can provide you and seeing what ideas you have and then putting the two together, right. It's kind of like if I've got the idea who in my network and helped me turn this into reality. Kaushal 45:00 Yeah, collaborating is such an odd thing that you know, you put so much of, you know, this time factor. There's other things life lights going on other side life stop for you. So it's there's so much of things. It's important that you know, whatever the school teacher says, you know, the collaboration group projects that you have to do, because it happens in life. Very important. Yeah. Podcast Host 45:19 Exactly. Exactly. So do your group work is the moral of the story. Do your group work. Kaushal 45:25 Just that, you know, you need to do your group work. Make sure that you know, you know, this is just like you just goes on? Podcast Host 45:31 Yeah, exactly. Because it always comes up and you can never be even though you have like great skill sets on your own. You're always going to be collaborating with people. It's just a fact of life. But awesome chatting, Kaushal, all the best for you know, your journey to Harvard it. I'm sure it's going to be a really exciting one for you. And I'm sure some of our listeners will be keen to connect with you on LinkedIn. Kaushal 45:49 Thanks, Alex.

Ep #18 A Voice for Social Justice Goes Global

🗓 DEC 12, 2020

See transcript

Podcast Host 00:00 Hello, and welcome to the top of the class podcast. I'm your host Alex Cork, and in this episode, I chat with 15 year old founder of the SheQuality blog, Yuko Nagakura. With a focus on feminism and social justice. The blog now has an international team of authors. In part due to her decision to join a global Online High School. We chat about the importance of young voices and why the process and not the number of followers should be the priority for any aspiring content creators. Let's chat with Yuko Nagakura. Yuko, fantastic to have you on the show. Can you tell us a little bit about yourself? Yuko 00:50 So I'm a 15 year old girl from Kyoto, Japan, and I'm currently attending Crimson Global Academy. So in school, my main interest are in women's equality, education, equality, LGBTQ plus rights, and that sort of thing, along with business and mathematics. going to be talking about blog, I started that I was able to start because I was part of a global Online High School, Podcast Host 01:13 And that's SheQuality. Yuko 01:15 Yep. Podcast Host 01:15 Am I saying that? Right? Is that how you say it too? Yuko 01:17 Yep, you're pronouncing it correctly. Podcast Host 01:19 Okay, SheQuality. I love it. I love it. Let's go back a little bit. You've got an American accent by the sounds of things. And you live in Kyoto, Japan. So tell us a little about your story. How does someone find your way to Kyoto, Japan with an American accent. Yuko 01:32 So um, I was born in Tokyo actually. And when I was six years old, I moved to Honolulu. And that's where I went to elementary school. So for five years, I was in Honolulu. And it was a great time, obviously, always really chill. It's really great place to be and a lot of fun. Yeah. And that's kind of when I started getting an interest in mathematics. And originally in around grade five. And from there, I was exploring, like possible schools to attend in for middle school. And I found a school in San Francisco. And that's when I moved to San Francisco because it to attend a school that specializes in mathematics. Right. For three years, I had a great time. And we did a lot of math. And but the best part of being San Francisco for me was that it, I was able to find a passion in something else other than mathematics, which was in social justice, because they have such a diverse culture. And during those three years, my interest in social justice developed a lot, especially for women's rights and LGBTQ plus rights. And then after middle school, I was talking with my parents, and we were talking about possible options for high school. And up by that point, I'd been in the United States for eight years. And so I kind of lost touch with my identity and sense of being Japanese person. And I wanted to explore as much as possible in the world before I had to college and actually decide what I want to do. And I don't have that much flexibility. So I decided to move to Kyoto. And that's why I'm here today. Podcast Host 02:58 Right? So is your family with you? Yuko 03:00 Yet. My family's with me. Podcast Host 03:01 Okay, so you've all been a family unit. And you've gone from Japan, Tokyo, to Honolulu, Hawaii, to San Francisco, back to Kyoto. Yuko 03:10 Yep. Podcast Host 03:11 Wow. So you've done quite a few moves in quite young. And you've picked up obviously, like that worldliness, I think, is part of that journey that a lot of students go on when they do have to change countries and cities quite a lot. Would you say that the San Francisco experience has been kind of the city that has or that experience has shaped you the most in terms of who you are now in your identity? Yuko 03:32 Yes, San Francisco is definitely the place where I found my interest. But I talked with my parents about this. And I always say like, I would never wish that I moved to San Francisco at first, actually, when I was six, I really think those five years in Honolulu helped shape me. It's so different from San Francisco, and there's a lot less pressure in my opinion, and it's less like competitive and everything. And it allowed me to, to learn English, and B also just live freely and do what I want to do. So I didn't like swimming at the time and everything. And I was able to just take my time to do what I wanted to do. And that that time that was mathematics and, and so you do still love maths. So I definitely like math, and it's my favorite subject in school. I will say I'm not as interested as I was when I was in middle school. I'm in middle school, just I was obsessed with mathematics. And I finished calculus in eighth grade. So but through developing my interest in social justice and learning about ways to help, as of now I'm more interested in business for a while I want it to be a lawyer actually. But as of now, I think I'm really interested in the way businesses actually contribute to equality and fairness in a different way than what law does. One of the things I like about social justice is up. I've had my opinions, my opinions like my political opinions have changed so much. And it's really interesting to talk to people on like opposing sides and from like, different backgrounds and I think, you know, being from San Francisco, which is very progressive, versus Japan, which isn't so progressive. I've gotten to talk to a lot of people have different beliefs. And one of the things I like about that isn't really the case in math is that I now have to be open to changing my opinions. Whereas with math, once I'm certain, I'm kind of certain. Podcast Host 05:21 Yeah, so that's a really interesting thing about that kind of open mindedness. But one thing I'm interested in is, is there any kind of moment or story that you recall from a guess your time in San Francisco by the sounds of things or anywhere else that really opened your eyes to social justice? Yuko 05:39 So in sixth grade, I was, I guess that was my first year in San Francisco. And I was kind of just exploring, I didn't really decide anything, I wasn't really set on anything. But then I became friends with several people in my school and of different ages of different backgrounds. And from there, like they were already kind of interested in politics. And that's when I realized what the issues were. And it's actually around that time when the first 2016 presidential presidential election was occurring between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. And so everything was quite political, especially in San Francisco, where 99% rate of like Clinton, so yes, everyone was quite opinionated. Um, and that's when I realized, like, what politics wasn't actually started caring. And from there if things kind of took off, and I just gained this interest, and in seventh grade, I started a gender sexuality Alliance at my school, and where we explored, like topics related to LGBTQ plus rights and women's rights. And yeah, so say it was almost like a gradual process. But with like, like multiple events, kind of contributing to this growing interest, like the presidential election, and then I participated in the school walkout for gun control, for example. Podcast Host 06:58 Yeah. Do you remember when you started the Alliance, because I think that's like the first step as a young Yuko kind of taking a leadership role in the social justice space, it's going beyond an interest to actually saying, you know, I'm going to do something about the interest. What was that process? Like in from a kind of practical standpoint? Did you have to go and chat to anybody at the school? Or did you have to get some friends on board first? Or did you just kind of create a logo and say, with having an alliance or like, what was that process like? Yuko 07:29 Yep. So before I started anything, I was pretty close to a teacher, my, an English teacher. And we already started talking and like other extracurriculars about the possibility of GSA, because it seemed like crazy that there wasn't something like this already. Because there are so many kids who are interested in social justice and politics. And from talking about it from their states of like, several months for me and two of my friends to really put our foot down be like, yeah, this is actually something you want to pursue. And so we talked to that English teacher, and she helped us in starting an official school club. Podcast Host 08:06 Did you have a logo and a website? And did you have regular meetings? Or was it just like, this is a safe space for people to come? and chat about social justice issues? Yuko 08:15 Yep. So we did have weekly meetings every Wednesday. I think every Wednesday we had weekly meetings and be, I think, at the beginning of it, it was more of a safe space, where we kind of discussed and we're just doing things for fun. Honestly, we just enjoyed it. Yeah, we would bring in like, a topic and debate about it. For instance, the masterpiece cake shop case with, like, is rejecting a gay couple for creating a wedding cake. Podcast Host 08:44 I remember that. Yuko 08:46 And you know, doing debates about things like that, and kind of trying to come down to a conclusion altogether. And that's what it was at the beginning. And then we were like, okay, is this doing anything? Because after a certain point, we kind of realized, like, we're just doing this for fun, like, what do we want to do to make a difference? And so one of the things we started doing was, we started noticing issues within the school to point out and change. So for instance, we created a poster, we designed a poster talking about how harmful the saying no homo is, and we put that around the school, because we've heard that before within the school, or emailing the teachers, or the faculty about the possibility of having gender neutral bathrooms within the school. So we started by noticing issues within the school that wanted to change and trying to do something about it. And other than that, I left off at a point where we're trying to develop this discussion board. This where kids can put up discussions onto the board, or point out issues like anonymously that we can put up onto this board and try to help others. Podcast Host 09:57 Yeah, just kind of like facilitating tough discussions, right? Because it's quite a sensitive topic, some people might not want to put their name to it. So sometimes it's they're doing it anonymously, or whatever it might be, and how do you raise these topics in a safe way? Which is a really, you know, I think a lot of schools are still struggling with that concept. And a lot of not just schools, companies are still struggling with how do we raise these sensitive topics in a way that is safe and inclusive and doesn't create too much disruption to people's lives? That's a really interesting thing. I think it's really interesting how you had that kind of moment of, oh, we're here just having fun, we really need to start doing something. Right. What was it like when you first started putting those posters together? Because that sounded like one of the first activities you started doing when you like, Okay, this is no longer just our private club, where we chat and whatnot, we're going out and engaging the school community. And at the time, you're in like you seven or eight, doing that kind of thing. That must have been a pretty brave step for a young year, a 12-13 year old to take at the time. Yuko 10:59 So putting those posters up. I mean, we got some comments that it was spam. Maybe because we went a little bit overboard and potentially put up a little bit too much. But yeah, I guess the thing that probably helped the most was, I always knew that there was some support, even if it wasn't like the entire school supported this. I mean, I knew there was a teacher that did the heads of the school did. And they allowed us to, and I had the friends that I started with. And yeah, so having a support system from the start is probably the most helpful thing is like my parents were supportive of the projects, I was engaging and things like that. Podcast Host 11:36 Yeah, that's a really good tip. I think for students who want to start an organization like this at their school, right, it's about get, you know, you're not going to get 100% of people on board, even if it is like the most well intentioned, most necessary group for the school to have, it's virtually impossible to get 100% of people, there's always going to be the quote unquote haters out there. And right, it's just like having the key people who are the decision makers backing you that's really important. And looks like you got that sorted. So you have the confidence to go out and spam the school with a whole lot of posters, which is awesome. Talk me through the transition to Japan, and then the decision to start SheQuality? Yuko 12:15 So I would say transition to Japan was quite a bit of a shocker for me Actually, even being from Japan, myself, I wasn't in Japan for a whole eight years. And when I was six, I didn't care about those sort of issues. So when I first moved back, I was actually surprised by I was surprised by certain things. And when we buy menstrual products in Japan, there is a culture, I mean, not a culture, but it's almost like a rule where the store packages into this brown bag, like the packaging of this brown bag in order to hide it. And that was like a shocker. For me. That was one of the first things that kind of held me back. And then the whole issue with employers requiring female employees to wear high heels in the workforce, when that started becoming more international news. So I was like, oh, wow, Japan has a lot of issues. Why do they require women to wear high heels? I think it's, it's seen as professional. So similar to I mean, in the United States, it was the problem of like, and not being considered professional to not wear makeup to the workforce. In Japan, it's a whole new level where you have to wear high heels, like a full face makeup, like having your hair down. And they're just more requirements in looking professional for a woman, which makes things even harder for women who are in the workforce. Podcast Host 13:35 Right? So you're there, you're seeing this kind of big change from the very progressive San Francisco to kind of like a not necessarily backward but certainly a backward step in Japan, and you want to do something about it. Yuko 13:48 Right. And one of the most interesting things was this kind of contributed to it was for the first six months I was in Japan, I attended a normal Japanese high school that happened to have like a class for an English curriculum. And there were a lot of kids who cared about such topics. Like my old score, I was at tons of friends who cared coming to the friends was like, Oh, yeah, let's start this. I have that. And that was one of the most difficult things and also one of the I guess it was also a little bit concerning to me that there weren't a lot of kids who were interested in politics here, watching the television, all the politicians are old, and like by old like 60s 70s. And it's just it was concerning that like this is a reason why we this is a backward step. So during those six months, I honestly spent those six months just like thinking almost like I didn't do anything, because I almost felt stuck. And I didn't know what to do. And I was just thinking about these issues, but almost shoving into the back of my mind because I was I guess I was trying to adapt to this new place and I almost lost the interest at first. Especially because you is also a little bit harder for me to access information about Japan when my Japanese wasn't isn't perfect or right, it was even worse when I first moved. So I kind of almost lost that interest for a while. And then quarantine kind of, yes, COVID. And I have a lot more time on my hands because the school I was attending at the time moved to online. And I was like, Okay, this is the time to start doing something. So that's when I first started putting my thoughts down, like on paper, thinking about what I wanted to do, talking with my Crimson extracurricular advisor is about possibilities and what I can pursue. And that's what I officially started that officially decided that starting a blog was something I was interested in. But at that time, my plan was to just start this blog for myself. So just for to just be me sharing the issues of sexism in Japan to the world. And that was my plan. So I kept that plan for a good two months or so, or a little bit longer than I actually say. And I was writing these articles. And the reason why I decided on a blog was because we'll a never been like the best writer ever, like writing has never been my favorite thing, especially with English being my second language. I just wasn't super confident in my writing, along with the fact that I mean, again, like, again, I was a math person, I didn't put a lot of effort into English for a long time. So I wanted to challenge myself. And that was one of the reasons why I decided on a blog, and another was, I wanted to, like do a translation between Japanese and English. And then several months forward, it's around May, and I decided to roll into Crimson gold Academy branch is an online school. And there were like multiple reasons contributing to that decision from like, a purely academic standpoint, along with wanting to attend school, where I could do a lot of like new extracurriculars, because I knew as new and yeah, so I decided to attend Crimson Global Academy. And honestly, I first with a lot, a lot of worries, because I don't know, I mean, online school kind of has a reputation for not being very social, and for it to be a place for a place for like anti social people to go, that kind of reputation. So I was a little bit worried at first, but I make that decision. And I immediately I'm impressed by the global community, because there are so many people from different parts of the world. And from there, I was like, wow, this seems like a great opportunity for me to do something that's global. And at that time, I hadn't published my blog yet, because I wanted to get certain a lot of articles like we're in before I officially start. So nothing's been set up yet. So I was like, What if I like combine the school community along with this blog idea that I already had? And so I was unsure whether it's a good idea. So first started off by going on Slack. And I'm Slack leader. So I tried to be as active as like, as much as possible. Yeah, it sounds like okay, I'm just gonna post this on extracurricular section of slack. And yeah, I sent the entire school of message regarding my extra curricular project and asked like, are, is anyone interested? And I got replies from like many girls from around the world that were students of CGA. And so I was like, Okay, then, if I have interest, and this is definitely a good idea. And the fact that there are so many girls who messaged me was one of the things that really boosted my confidence in this project, because I didn't receive that sort of feedback when I was in this Japanese school, because there were a lot of people interested. So for me to get like replies from ambitious girls from different places where I was really excited. From there. It's been like quite a bit like a team project, like asking, like, what kind of things do you guys want to do? And last month or so we officially started the first article and our 10th article got uploaded this Wednesday. Podcast Host 19:07 That's awesome. And so how many people do you have, I guess, on staff with the SheQuality blog now. Yuko 19:13 So currently, we are a group of seven. And right now I'm talking to potential or almost at eighth member. Podcast Host 19:21 Were you surprised by the interest in terms of like you were dealing with it in Japan and I guess you had that experience. Were you surprised that other girls from around the world, we're also identifying with those issues in my care? Yeah, I'd like to join this too, because it's not just you, I see this happening where I am as well. Yuko 19:40 So I guess, with those girls, I mean, they share similar concerns that I had when I was in states. Those are the kind of articles that they're writing and they're very much so like, there's so many issues relating to feminism that are very present in even the most progressive countries. In a world that a lot of them not being so much about laws, but about the way like society treats women and things like that. So that was kind of where I saw the interest from those girls coming from. But there's one of the members, she's from Costa Rica. And when we first started talking, and she expressed interest, she told me about some issues from Costa Rica, it's very different from the issues in Japan, or even in the United States, like, it's just it was very different. Like it was more like about issues regarding like, gender based violence, for example. So I think talking to her was when I was like, yeah, this is a project that has a lot of potential in the sense that it really just proves how different sexism is around the world, and the different issues that women face. And all of them are big issues that need to be addressed. But it's important to realize the differences I felt like... Podcast Host 20:56 it's like the education process and the acknowledgement of the different experiences around the world. That is like the first step towards solving some problems. Right? Yuko 21:05 Yeah. Podcast Host 21:06 It's interesting to look at what is the intention of the blog? Like, is there a stated purpose or a mission statement that brings everyone together? I mean, obviously, like the title of the blog, is SheQuality? So if you want to look it up SheQuality? We'll put it in the show notes. By the way, I'll put the link to the blog in the show notes. But yeah, was there any kind of binding statement that you would say to the girls, hey, this is what it's about, this is the kind of purpose that we're going to be writing towards. Yuko 21:32 So when I think about the purpose, I like to think that there's two main aspects to it. So the first one's a little bit more obvious in the sense that it's about finding an audience that reads the articles and potentially finds interest in an issue that they read about or realizes the differences in the world and tries to think about what feminism really is, because it's so different, depending on the country you're in. The other aspect that I think is equally as important was actually about the girls who contribute to it. So my favorite part about the project actually hasn't really been the whole writing and publishing part. But the community in general, we're currently mainly communicating on a Slack channel and on there, we don't only talk about the articles that we're thinking about publishing, or the possible ideas on SheQuality as a project, we also talk about the issues and on the Slack channel. And a lot of times we'll have deep like questions posted up, and then we'll talk about it, we'll have a discussion. So this group of girls that first started off as just being like team members for a project of saying we're more of a small, tiny, small community, now we're talking about these issues. And I think that's one of the missions of SheQuality. And I would love to get more members involved in the future, so that we can have these more personal conversations, aside from the writing and publishing. Podcast Host 22:53 I really like that aspect that almost like you had the intention of writing the blog, and it was mainly based on your experiences in Japan. And then because other girls from around the world joined as well, it felt like it changed the kind of flavor or the stated purpose of the blog a little bit to instead of just focusing on the sexism in Japan, it became like, let's compare or let's educate each other about issues where we are and how they differ. And how the same around the world. So it's kind of like that shared experience in which social injustice occurs or social justice, I guess. So it's like the global community. I think that's such an important thing, right? Because a lot of students when they're at a particular school, they often find it difficult to get outside of the school bubble, right? It's like, whoever's in a 10 kilometer or 15 kilometer radius of the school is who's going to be there in the classroom with you. And so the experiences that you're drawing from are quite limited, but as a result of having girls from New Zealand and Australia, in Costa Rica, etc. It really expands the possibilities with something like this. Is that something that has really enriched the project for you? Yuko 24:06 Yeah, I would actually compare the process of me changing, I guess, the mission of the project from being like an individual one about Japan to a global one, to the situation I was talking about earlier with the club and being like, okay, with the GSA and being like, okay, we need to do something. I just felt like I joined CGA I had to question. First of all, I mean, this seems kind of ridiculous, but it's like, I feel like when we're living we almost like forget about the fact that this is a world in a sense, like, it feels like my world is not even Japan but like the school that I go to my world is the home that I'm in and that's all it is. But going to CGA I was like, it becomes obvious that it is an entire world. And so I guess that was when I was like, okay, am I really doing this project for just for myself, or am I trying to do something with it? Am I just doing it for fun and it feels like to me the world is just Japan, the country that I'm from and that I'm living in and San Francisco and Hawaii, two other states that I've lived in. And so I almost felt like it was almost becoming like a personal project I was just doing for fun. And I was like, okay, but that wasn't what I originally wanted to do. Like, I want to do something. I want to do something with it. Right? Yeah. So I was like, okay, like, we need to start doing something. And that's when I just Slacked everyone Podcast Host 25:29 You're so right as well, like, it's, it's that whole idea that, you know, some people just don't look up at the sky enough and don't realize how big the world is, right. And I think that's what a lot of people live day to day, because they're just going to school going home. Well, I mean, in COVID times, you might just be going to your desk, across your room and going back to your bed. But essentially, like, it's, it's amazing how some people's worlds during, I guess this COVID situation has shrunk so considerably, you know, some people would have had travel plans, and, you know, going out to friends, places or the rest of it. But because of COVID everyone had to stay indoors a lot of the time. Whereas it sounds like for your experience, you know, joining something like CGA an Online High School, and then from that decision, your world expanded dramatically. And now you got all this like shared experience with these girls around the world? I think so awesome. So I think that's a really cool benefit that I think you probably wouldn't necessarily know from joining an online high school right that you're like, oh part of a global community worldviews that type of thing. How important is young women's voices in the conversation around sexism and gender inequality and social injustice? Because I know there's a lot of people out there a lot of students out there who might say, I would love to contribute. And I've got something to say on this topic. But I feel like it's already been said by someone else, you know, might be said by some politician or could have been said by some activist who's a couple years older, or a couple years younger, or someone else on the other side of the world. But how important do you feel it is for every person to have their authentic voice heard, particularly when they're like 14 15-16 year old women? Yuko 27:09 I think it's very important. And I think no matter what your ages, or rather how many times a topic has been talked about, I think it's important to really think about your opinions and share them, even if it's it feels repetitive. And I think there's so many like aspects and like so many flavors to an issue that are not even sure if you can fully repeat something that's already been done. So I think I think an easy example of this is like abortion, for instance, right? I mean, it's easy to say I support or don't support abortion, but there's so many aspects to it, like so many laws regarding it, right? Like which cases do you like which trimester like there's so many little aspects to it and the flavor of it. Like, there's so many issues regarding even like, one topic and even a simple topic like, or a seemingly simple topic like abortion. So I think it's almost impossible to repeat someone else's work. Yep. And that even if you are if you're amplifying the voice that you believe in, and I think only and sharing it can be really deeply Think about your opinions, like a lot of times once you write it down, or once you say it out loud, you have kind of like process it again. So you're almost reconsidering your opinions. And I think that's another really important aspect of supporting the issues a sport. Podcast Host 28:20 Where do you see SheQuality going in the next couple of weeks and months? I how, how you sharing it, how you acquiring new Raiders, and how you getting the resource out there to students, I'm going to guess is the main target audience or anybody? Yuko 28:34 Yep. So as of now, students are definitely the main target audience, right, like by young people, for young people, that sort of thing. And our original goal was 10 articles. And we just reached that goal this week. So right now, I'm talking to an artist from CGA about potentially sharing this on Instagram, through her art, that sort of thing. Because like through those 10 articles, I feel like every member was able to get a feel for what it's about and how it's gonna go from here. Podcast Host 29:03 How is this project open doors for you? Has it connected you to a wider community, not just within Crimson Global Academy, but beyond that to other young women who are passionate, not just young women, but young men, gender non binary people who are passionate about social justice issues? Because when you start a blog, I know you're pretty early on in the process 10 articles in. Yuko 29:26 Yeah, I have actually been connected to other people by starting this. And that's, I think that's one of the direct ways that I've been connected. But another thing is like, an example of this was I was volunteering at this One Young World caucus event in Tokyo last month, and what I was there, people were asking me, like, what kind of things are you interested in? Right? Because I was the youngest volunteer there, I think. Yeah. And so when people ask if they'd be like, Oh, yeah, I'm interested in like feminism. For instance, I'm doing this with like a global group of girls. And automatically that you know, that raises Because it's kind of new to be able to do that with your school. And it's something that can only be done when you're in a global Online High School. So I think it has opened doors for me. And I'm hoping that it will help open more doors in future. Podcast Host 30:14 Do you have anybody in mind like any young people or adults in mind who say, Yeah, they're doing really cool stuff. And I'd love to connect with them, I see them as being a role model for what SheQuality is trying to achieve. Yuko 30:27 So I think on the more personal and I would say, that English teacher that I talked about earlier with GSA, she was the person that kind of helped me find my interest. And on a less personal level of like, who I look up to have, say, a robot, for me has to be Rebecca Solnit. So she's an author of like, multiple books, and one of her books called 'Men Explain Things to Me'. I have like a whole set of books somewhere around here, right? Yeah, it's called men explain things to me. And that was the book that really caught my attention in terms of gender based violence. So when I was younger, and I was in middle school, and I was doing speech about gender based violence, and her book very much was the basis for my speech. So to say that her work definitely interests me, she has a lot of books, and I enjoy all of those greatly. Podcast Host 31:15 One thing that I want to look at as well is how important is it for students to get outside of their bubble and absorb the news of the day? You know, you mentioned the wedding cake incident that happened in the US in 2016. I think it was here 15-16. Yep. And I think a lot of people focus on school. Like, it's interesting that you were like a math student. And I'm going to guess you're pretty committed to what's happening at school, and you're going home doing your study. And that was like your main focus. And I guess there's some things that happened that catch your attention, and you're like, well, geez, I wonder what else is out there. And then you start looking at more news is something that I think the majority of the students that I'm interviewing on top of the class that they have in common? Is the interest in what's going on in the world around them? Is that like, one of the major benefits of being involved in shape, quality and leading SheQuality is that it kind of drives you to continue to engage with the world around you. Even if it's tough conversations, right? I think some people kind of be like, Ah, look, I don't want to deal with it. I'm just going to ignore it. I've got other things to worry about. But like, because you're one of the riders that SheQuality, I guess you probably always looking at what's happening in the world around you, and what kind of news stories are coming out? Yuko 32:26 So I think, with SheQuality, absolutely. Like, I need to be on top of like, what I'm reading, so that I'm not like sharing old things, and things that kind of changed. And I'm always exploring so I can, I'm confident in what I'm writing. And like, I know, I've put in the thought to the issue that I need to put into it. Because I think you know what cakeshop thing like if I only spent like a day thinking about it, I think I would have come down to a very conclusion that I eventually came down to after like, multiple weeks to be completely honest of thinking. Yeah, I actually always like every breakfast, I go on Hulu and I watch American or like British news. Um, so Podcast Host 33:03 I was going to ask like, what kind of resources do you tend to get your news from? Because I think a lot of people struggle to find reliable news sources, or they struggle to find different voices. So what would be your recommendations to help students widen their horizons in terms of news and resources? Yuko 33:23 So during those breakfasts when I just like turn on, I just got my iPad, and I watched the news. The only option for me is BBC and CNN just because that's the only things on Hulu. So I usually end up watching BBC. And then with when I'm just like, searching from like my computer, I would say my favorite source has to be Reuters. I just feel like from what I've seen it from what I fact check Podcast Host 33:44 right is is just like a Newswire, it's kind of like should be fairly unbiased. And yeah, no opinion, no fluff. It's just what happened, right? That's like the idea of Reuters. Yuko 33:53 So I enjoy borders the most also, like, ask people about what they think and like having those conversations so I can really understand what I'm thinking myself. Podcast Host 34:05 How do you stay in control with your emotions when you're talking to someone who is diametrically opposed to your views around a particular issue? And is perhaps not the most eloquent in voicing those opinions? And is perhaps a little aggressive to the way you think, right? I mean, this is like a global issue at the moment. I'm putting it in your hands as the in one of the riders of equality. Do you have any advice for people who are encountering that? Potentially? Yuko 34:34 Yeah, so there was a person in my class who was quite they're quite politically right. Oh, yes. And so one of the things that came down to it was when we had a discussion about the masterpiece cake shop thing, they started claiming that being gay was a choice. And that was one of the most you know, it's obviously like, kind of like upsetting comment, but from there started being like, Oh, I don't believe in like same sex marriage because Like, I believe that gay people have the right to marry, but they only have the right to marry the opposite sex was I believe what was said, like, Okay, everyone has equal rights because everyone has the right to marry the opposite sex was the argument that was made. Being a San Francisco it. I've never encountered that sort of opinion before. Along with being in Japan. I've also not encountered with that because people in Japan just don't care that much. But it's not like they have an opinion, that cream. So I think at first I was like, Whoa, like, it was just like shocking or like, wow, because it was seemed like crazy to me. Like, this is the kind of thing that I seem like comics, not like in person. So I was like, wow. And I mean, I think honestly, I think it helps that girl on zoom, I feel like if it was in person, I may have raised my voice a little bit more. Whereas on zoom, I just don't really have the option to you. And I didn't have that urge as much. So I tried to keep the conversation as logical and related to the course as much as possible. So instead of being like, Whoa, like what the hell like I talked about one of the things that question was like, because they were coming from religious point of view, I was like, Okay, let's look at the first amendment. And because that was what the course was on, yes, we kind of talked about like, okay, because freedom of religion applies, it should apply to like, all religions, like, why is it that this particular religion at your part, like takes precedence like, kind of try to stick to the topic as much as possible? I think that's one of the main things is try to stick to where the conversation started. And also, honestly, I don't like saying this, I was opposing this, like, I was strongly opposing this kind of belief, like, long, like a year ago, honestly. But I've learned to just walk away. At some points, I genuinely think that there are certain people, especially when it comes to a belief like homophobia, that you're not going to change their minds, they've honestly probably had multiple people, like tons of people try to change their minds, and they haven't changed their minds, and you're not going to be this new person that walks in and change their minds. So I think for your own sanity, walking away is often Yeah, a good option. And, frankly, because staying doesn't really achieve anything. Podcast Host 37:11 Yeah, I completely agree. I think some people get so caught up in the argument. And so get caught up in the fury of it all and the emotion of it all that they can't leave without getting that person to agree with a point of view. And it turns into this, like unproductive conversation that goes round and round and round in circles. And people get pushed, I think in after a while, they get pushed in further into their respective corners, right, like they already better come to the middle and have a compromise, they get pushed further and further apart. So you know, that's good advice, with joining SheQuality getting involved. How can students do that? Yuko 37:48 So if you go on the website, there's an email address. So if you email that address about any interest, I will respond. Podcast Host 37:56 Awesome, awesome. And hear directly from you. Yep. Right. And they should expect to be an author potentially, if they're wanting to join equality. Yuko 38:05 Yes, absolutely. So we're looking for artists, or even if you don't have an interest in writing, or are, but you want to be involved, please just email me and I will get back to you on any potential roles that you can take within it, or even like joining the slack community, just to have these discussions is always an option. Podcast Host 38:24 And what would be your final advice for students who haven't strong opinions who want to get their voice out there, but might not think that the world wants to hear from them? Right? or might not think that they've got a voice in world full of blogs, and tic tocs in YouTube channel, etc? Like, what advice would you give to students in in that kind of thinking? Yuko 38:46 Right? So I think first of all, when I started this project, my goal wasn't to have like, tons of people reading it, like, I'm not super obsessed with having like, so like many people read it more. So even if it's like three people who like read it, and kind of can take something away from it. I think that was worth something. And like I mentioned before, with any project, I think a lot of times it's not about who's reading or who's looking at the content, it's about the process and people who talk to you while creating that content. So even if your opinion doesn't reach like many, many people, I think it's important to think about those few people that it did reach and also what you were able to do during the process of creating that content, whether it's a blog article, or a YouTube channel or whatever, like, who does you talk to, because I've personally taken a lot away from talking with my group, my group in SheQuality and also reading articles that my teammates, right, so I think, you know, I think the fact that I read those articles is I'm taking something away from it. Podcast Host 39:50 Yeah. Yuko 39:50 So yeah, so even if it's not like 10s of 1000s of people reading it, I think it's always important to think about the people that you can impact and also the experience gain in the process. Because I think once you gain that experience, and it opens opportunities to grow, and also to have an impact, and even if like the project ends and never route to like large point, I still think that it adds something to what you did, and it can connect to the next opportunity out there. Podcast Host 40:21 Yeah, absolutely. I think that's the impact that it has on you. And it's like your personal growth. You know, what, my gosh, this brings back memories for me because I started a blog, and I stopped it because I didn't say many people reading it. I think I was just sharing it through Facebook at the time. This is pre their Instagrams and all the rest of it. So we're really going back here, but yeah, I mean, that's it. That's it. I just hadn't even thought of that, like that concept that I'm not writing it to get 1000s of followers, because I think a lot of people look at that and say, if I'm going to enter into the social media world, if I'm going to put my voice out there, I'll be embarrassed if only two or three people read it. But in reality, it's just like you're doing it half of yourself. And yeah, half of those couple of people who read it, and if it profoundly affects them, or even if it has just a small impact on them. That's a win. And even if no one reads it, right, even if you get something out of it, that's still a win. All right. So I think it's like don't judge the success of a blog by how many readers or followers you have just just success of the blog and how it makes you feel. I might even start writing my blog again. Yeah, I thought about it that way. It's crazy. It's crazy. Well, I should have but I'm really glad you brought that back. Thank you for coming on to the show and giving your time I think SheQuality is awesome. Yuko 41:35 Thank you so much for your time today and for having me have such a great time talking to you. Podcast Host 41:39 My pleasure, Yuko. Yuko 41:40 Okay, thank you.

Ep #17 Starting an App Development Company in High School

🗓 DEC 9, 2020

See transcript

Podcast Host 00:17 Hello, and welcome to the Top of the Class podcast. I'm your host, Alex Cork and in this episode, I chat with 15 year old app developer and co founder of AppSydney. Nicholas, Mihailou. We chat about how we learn to code, the experience of creating his first app, and how he goes about getting new clients while managing life at school. Let's chat with Nick Mihailou. Nick, it's fantastic to have you on the show. Can you tell our listeners a little bit more about yourself? Nick M 00:44 Hey, guys, so my name is Nicholas Mihailou. I'm a 15 year old app developer and entrepreneur from Sydney. I think my whole story starts when I was about 10 years old, I started learning how to code on YouTube and that kind of thing. Eventually built up my skills, I'm starting to develop games, got a bit of traction there, and then Apple kind of so much stuff. And now with me and my friends, we run a custom app development company. And we're really enjoying that while hustling at school and really taking a key focus in that. So I think that's kind of everything. Podcast Host 01:17 So a lot of stuff going on at a young age of 15. So that puts you in your nine or your 10. Where does the nine Yeah, your nine. Okay, good stuff. When people ask you who you are, are you a student first or an app developer first or an entrepreneur? What do you see yourself as? Nick M 01:34 I would see myself first as an entrepreneur, and then a student, I think, to the core, I love business, and then academics as well. And I think app development is just one of those things. So I'm interested in a lot of different types of business. So I just think that's the kind of industry I'm in should, say, entrepreneur, then student. Podcast Host 01:52 So how does an entrepreneur spend their time after school? Nick M 01:55 Yeah, so usually come home, and firstly, focus on my homework, but then spend the rest of the night back and forth with emails, hustling, and LinkedIn, as you said, before, email marketing, that kind of thing, and actually working with my team and developing whatever projects we're working on. So it's very, it's very time consuming. And I do need to usually talk to my parents and discuss how I'm going to manage my week or my day, it's definitely hard, but I think a lot of kids can do it if they really want to. Podcast Host 02:24 So where does your entrepreneurial streak come from? Is it something that your parents encouraged you to do? Is that something that you saw through school? What makes someone who's in the early years of high school suddenly say, Yep, entrepreneurship is for me? Nick M 02:37 Well, I think it all started, when I was in year six with me, and one of my good mates to heal, we decided to start a bit of a coding club at our school. And I think before that I was interested in, for example, the stock market, or that kind of thing, tech companies was always a big interest for me. It wasn't really spearheaded by anyone else besides myself, and maybe some of my friends. But as I went along, other people did help me. But I think I was just naturally interested in business and in how tech companies ran, I have a really key interest in that in that kind of field. What Podcast Host 03:10 are the companies that you look at right now is the beacon of light for you, the ones that you aspire to work for, perhaps are the ones that you aspire to create perhaps your own. Nick M 03:19 We are obviously Apple, since we have a really good connection with them. I did personally on Apple is my favorite tech company. But besides that, I think companies who are working in, you know, development or in financial in the financial kind of space, you know, Robin Hood is a great example. They do commission free stock trading. I think that's really cool. Besides that, Amazon is an obvious one, Microsoft, you know, just the big one to you know, how to really strong roots in development and just built it up to a huge kind of state. I think that's really inspiring. I'm also inspired by Crimson Education, to be completely honest, I think what Jamie and you guys have done is really is really impressive, especially at such a young age as well. Podcast Host 04:01 Well, I'm sure Jamie would appreciate that. And I know cruising has gone, you know, great way in the last X number of years now seven years or thereabouts. I think we've been around so a great education company to be a part of, but yeah, do you read the stories or autobiographies of these? You know, the founders and the history of these companies? Like how in depth do you go? When you say, Yeah, I like, you know, what Robin Hood does or I like what Apple does? 04:26 Yeah, with Apple as an example, when I was about nine, eight or nine, I read the Steve Jobs biography. at a really young age, it was a really big book, but I kind of fell in love with that kind of aspect. And whenever I set my mind on an idol, someone who I aspire to be like or learn from, I really go deep. I watch as many videos as I can. I usually buy that books and kind of read about them a lot. And I'm a big fan of really going deep and whenever you're doing is making sure that you've done enough research and you know really learnt the mindset of those people, for example, how their companies run stuff like that, that's in my personal opinion really important. If you're going to pick someone to idolize, or someone to our company, for example, that you really want to aspire to be like. Podcast Host 05:10 So talk me through when you started creating your first team. And then you're doing coding. So like, this is all fairly new to I'm sure, most students, what does that look like when you're talking to your mates and saying, hey, look, do you want to start a coding camp or coding club, and I want to start a team, and you're going to be on my team, like almost starting like a mini business. And now you actually do have your own business? So what was that? Like? What was that conversation? Like when you were How old? Nick M 05:39 Are 12? Or 13? I'd say 12. Podcast Host 05:42 Yeah. Okay, so you're 12 years old? What does that conversation look like when you're talking to your mates about starting a team and building something, and not just going to a footy training or something? 05:51 Yeah, exactly. So me and two other mates, we had the conversation that wanted to make games. So I think games came first for us wanting to make games, but we also wanted to make money from it, I'm not gonna lie. That was that was a big driver for us, we wanted to make a bit of extra side money. Um, so during those years of you six, and seven, spent a lot of time talking to each other about it, trying to find other school mates to help us with it. And also just making a lot of games that weren't successful. I mean, we had nine fell apps that just didn't come out or got rejected from the App Store. So I think main causation for that was that all three of us had a key interest in it. A few other people came and left in the team. But in terms of game development, we we had a very key interest in technology. We were very business minded. And I think with the current people that we have, you know, my best major heel, could we do, you know, the apps with, we're both very similarly minded about how we run the business and our passion for it, and the kind of angle that we aspire to have. Podcast Host 06:53 Okay, so even though you're only 12, or 13, at the time, it didn't seem like a goal that was a bit far fetched or anything, it felt pretty achievable when you were going out and saying, Hey, guys, like, let's create some games on the App Store. And let's make some money from this. Did that seem believable to you? At the time? 07:10 I think it seemed believable. Before we had our first failure. I think we we were kind of blissfully ignorant as you can put it, that we thought that if you just made a game, we put ourselves really high, we try to make a big RPG type game, a desktop game. Yeah. And then we start doing it. And it just didn't work. You know. I mean, we made it but it was terrible, right? So we had to change our sights from there. And we came very realistic about how hard it was to make an app and then make money from it. And we had to learn that whole process. Um, so I think before we we had our first few failures, we thought it would be easy. But then we came through that, and we realize how hard it is. But we've done a good job so far. Podcast Host 07:50 Yeah, so it seems like a baptism by fire type of thing where he got to learn from your failures. Yeah, what encouraged you to keep going even though the first app, or the first game was, as you said, quite the failure? 08:04 Yeah, so we had multiple games that just didn't come through. And we had people, one of our other good mates who wasn't really interested in come High School and wanted to leave us. So it was me and Jay Hill left to just keep going. And we had the conversation about always pivoting or just quitting in general. But I think it's hard when it's something that you want that badly to, for example, to have our first game on the App Store, that was something along along go for us. And I feel like when you're that passionate about something, there's nothing, nothing's really going to stop you there. And I feel like that's kind of where we came from. Because we've had, for example, just in terms of business, we've had nine failed apps that either didn't go through or just weren't good enough. We've had, for example, clients who lied to us, we've been cheated out of things. But I would say we never really took it personally. And we always just kept going. And I think that's a really important, you know, feature to have, if you want to be successful in school. Or if you just want to have a successful business, I think that's a really key thing to have. Podcast Host 09:03 Absolutely. And talk me through I guess that client side of things. 09:07 Yes, I think our approach since we started a new company app, Sydney, where we do development for, you know, big companies, small companies, is that we kind of wanted to position ourselves as having gotten to a point of difference. So we, we were open in saying that we're 15 years old, you know, everyone on the team who was working with us at that time, and we saw that a lot of people were really interested in that kind of part. We're like, that's kind of you don't hear that every day. So they were like 15, we'll have a call. You go on the call. And then they're like, okay, that's pretty cool. And then you get to stuff like price or you know, what we can deliver, and their expectations are really high for something that because we're so young, they don't expect it to be the greatest quality or cost a lot of money. So I think that was something that was hard because we just thought that if we were 15 and young, it was a great story, for example, but a lot of people kind of tried to a lot of people have the perception that we couldn't do it what we were offering or that we were charging too much, for example, for development services. So I think it has been really hard to find people to believe in us. But I think we've gotten through that now. Podcast Host 10:11 Yeah, I guess you start kind of building up a client base, and you've got a portfolio of things you've done before. So people that take you a little bit more seriously, but tough going in those early days of starting app, Sydney, can you talk us through I guess, like the first app that you put onto the App Store, and what that was all about? 10:30 Yes, a puzzle. So the first game that we released onto the App Store, basically, it's a hyper casual mobile game, it was really actually took us three days to make, I mean, that was after years of experience, but it's pretty simple. It's just a puzzle game, basically, a puzzle pieces come down, you have to try to strike them to get more points, right. So the premise was simple, the plan was that we'd make it quickly. And our plan at that point was that we knew that meant spending a lot of time making games that like percentage wise probably would fail without the right thing. So we spent, we focused on quantity of quality at that point, but we still tried to make the best game. So we made like seven games in rapid succession of just really simple because you see on the app store a lot of really easy games that are really, you know, simple mechanics, that kind of thing. Yep. Um, and we, we researched different coding languages. And we decided, for example, on unity, which is a great game engine, and are the coding language C sharp, which we thought would be really efficient for that kind of thing. So with puzzle dash, it took us roughly three hours to make a siphon with the business side of things. And we decided that we would, you know, use ads to make money from that. So we released it and kind of told Apple, what we were about, you know, our age and things like that. And, I mean, when we released the app, it did take a while, but it kind of did take off a bit, but a lot of downloads in the wall of different places that we didn't expect. So I think that kind of opened our eyes in terms of what was possible, just through the internet. And like what you can do at any age, Podcast Host 11:58 talk me through the learning process of something like C sharp and unity. Is that something that you think anyone can learn? Or is it best to have a background in, say maths, or physics? Or, you know, what kind of skills do you think makes someone able to learn something like that on their own? 12:16 Yeah, so I obviously learned to that quite a young age, me and my friends who pursued the business, I don't think you need a background in mathematics for that. But I think when you're getting into, for example, we do AI development where we're personally into artificial intelligence, stuff like that, you I think it would be best to have an interest or a background in math in physics, to really understand the theory. Because if you think of coding as a language, like French or Italian, there's a lot of you know, key rules about that. But you also need to, there needs to be a background theory into those kind of things. And with coding, it's no different knowing mathematics will help you or having an interest in that. But I don't think it's completely necessary for if you want to make a game, it's not necessary. Podcast Host 12:59 What was your go to learning resource? Like you you said, You learned on YouTube primarily? Was there one particular channel that you found extremely helpful? Or one particular resource? Yeah, what was that? 13:10 Yeah, um, a channel called Rockies, they focused on C sharp development in gaming, we actually chatted to them a bit about ourselves and that kind of thing. Um, but there are a lot of good ones about, you know, swift development, which is more like iPhone kind of development, a lot of good ones out there. And I think on that kind of topic, I feel like YouTube is probably the best tool to use. I don't think it is required to spend all this money on the course or go to a camp or for example, I think, if you really want to do it, YouTube is a great source. Podcast Host 13:41 Absolutely. I mean, there's a lot of things people can learn on YouTube about knowing the right channels, I think sometimes otherwise, it's about 13:46 knowing it's about knowing what you're looking for, and really cross referencing and making sure that what you're doing is right. Podcast Host 13:53 Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Now, on a scale of one to 10, for instance, how difficult was it in comparison to what you were learning at school? Was this like your main academic intellectual challenge? Or was school still The difficult thing and this is what you just did in your downtime. 14:10 I feel like throwing yourself into business and learning how to code at the same time, in terms of an intellectual struggle that was very difficult to overcome, because, for example, I've learned many different languages where you can look at flutter x code, Swift, C sharp, and different JavaScript Python. So and those are all very different and but I learnt them through just kind of passion and just knowing that I needed to learn them to the business, for example, but I think was school it has been, you know, wrapping up in my school, for example, they have a great you know, system of really pushing kids who have a keen interest in that kind of thing. And just maths and English in general. I would say bit learning coding has been a bit harder than academics so far, but I feel like it will only get harder to school. Podcast Host 14:55 Take me through the business side of it, and how much you learn. about running a business from doing this because the app side of things is a great skill set. And being able to create an app is one side. But then there's like the business thing, you know, filling in invoices, creating like a pricing structure, advertising all the rest of it. How much of that did you have to kind of learn as you go? 15:19 So I think it's been pretty hard. And I've had to learn through experience, like, for example, my parents love them to death, but they have any kind of business experience, you know, they helped me with, you know, just the emotional side of things. But I would say it's been hard just when you're thinking about pricing, for example, I think that's a big thing that kind of had me in the early days, is that you never really know what these people are going to think. Because, you know, it's so funny games when you talk about, you know, young person making an app or service. But when you come to price, that's where, you know, it becomes very serious. And then, you know, being rejected time and time again, it can have an emotional effect on people. And it did have an effect on me personally, because you, you question yourself, and you say, oh, why isn't this working, for example, and then just managing the business, emailing people and being on top of that, because we've gone to client meetings where we have school the next day assessments for the whole week, and they say, We need you 24? Seven, to make sure that this for example, this app is running, right? Yeah. And what do we say to that? What do we say, we can't do that? Because we have school will then they'll go to a different company, although it's distinct that we don't have the skill set. So I think it's been very hard. But I think once you do it for so long, and once you get someone who will pay you or will believe in you, I think that it confidence will boost up in that kind of sense. So I think it has been hard, but I've learned from it. What was that feeling? Podcast Host 16:39 Like when someone said, 'Yep, I'm going to be keen to have my app developed by AppSydney.' 16:45 Yeah, so first client, not sure if we can then overly talk to him about it. But yes, so basically, this person, this company, they did want like a podcast website done. And for us, it was our first client. So we didn't really know what to do. We had a zoom call, talk to them about what the project was, we had that kind of sense of imposter syndrome, where we didn't really believe that, that we deserved to be that because it was Fs, well, obviously, we made everything on the spot on the fly, we were just running with it. And then we sent out our first invoice our deposit, after they agreed on it for a few days, didn't respond, we we got very nervous about it, we were like what do we do, send your follow up email, they pay at the same day. And, and the feeling of you know, first getting that deposit, it was very small. But that kind of propelled the passion. And just the the idea that we could pursue it to a third degree, I think it was a very it was it was challenging with the first client because we had to do so many things that we didn't expect, we would have to do, for example, invoicing emails, you know, and we didn't expect the revisions. For example, if the person didn't like the design of the website, or the app, in our case website, and we had to fix it up and spend a lot of time on that. And we didn't really affect that in. So I think that kind of taught us a lot about what we would do for the next client and next client. And we've met a system so much more efficient, but I think ever needs to go through that kind of period of not really knowing what you're doing. But just going ahead and try it. I think it's very important. Podcast Host 18:17 How do you hide that, I guess, from your clients? How do you hide that sense that you don't really know what you're doing when you're in the early days of a company, because I think no matter what age you are, whether you're 14 or whether you're 40, if you're starting a company, and you're doing it for the very first time, there's going to be a fair degree of I don't really know what I'm doing, especially for those first couple of clients. But how did I guess you keep that confidence up through the pitching process until you actually, you know, received the invoice got a contract signed and went through all that side of things? 18:49 Yeah, one of my biggest inspirations is Atlassian. And the people there Mike cannon Brooks and Scott Farquhar, they talk about that, as well as that they, when they started out, they didn't really know exactly what to do, or the lingo about business. I think, because we had such a deep experience in coding for ourselves, we kind of understood the development side of things, for example, but I think in terms of the business things I talk to, for example, my uncle, my parents about it, to see what they thought. And we kind of made up a kind of a body of directors in that kind of sense of people that we that we knew. And even if they weren't in terms of if they weren't in business, they still knew how people react to certain things. So I think you need to definitely talk to people, I think, talk to people. I think also, just if you go into a business, for example that you don't know too much about, there's a solution to that. And that is, you know, learning more about it. For us, we were pretty confident in what we could do because we made so many apps and websites before and with the business side of things. I think we also had the belief that we could do it. And I think that's really important and also backing that up with research and making sure that everything's right. Podcast Host 19:58 Yeah, certainly takes a bit of time. To put that kind of marketing material and collateral together, and to make sure that you're communicating that throughout the entire process, how have you been advertising? 20:09 We've done a lot of email strategies. And I think a big thing has been referrals for us is that when you do good work for someone that balance and tell someone else, and I think, I think being a student is a great asset, because it's such a unique story to be so young to do something, and think it's a really good asset to have, rather than people think that might be a liability. So I think having that whole story is really good. And I think, you know, just talking to people in real life about that, because over email, it's easy to ignore people, for example, but I think if you're starting a business, I think you just talk to your family, your friends, are people that you may know that you may not know, mutual people, I think that's a great way to start. But I think from that you need to automate your systems, I think you need to, you know, look at lead generation marketing strategies. You know, LinkedIn is a great tool, as you said, before we met on there. But as you keep going, for example, we've made projects, pretty big organizations, I think that kind of naturally occurs where, for example, they might want to talk about it on their podcast, or on their, you know, newspaper or media form that they have. I think it can really snowball and that effect, but you need to make sure that the work is really good. Podcast Host 21:18 The companies, I guess, might use it as a bit of a marketing tool for themselves to be able to say, hey, look at us, we took a chance on some 15 year olds, we brave and bold, don't we see the future of kids? That kind of stuff? Right? Yeah, Nick M 21:30 That's been a big thing. Podcast Host 21:33 Yeah. It's interesting to kind of look at it from that angle. And I think there's some students who would probably be quite talented coders, who are sitting at home thinking, well, this is quite interesting to hear how you kind of handled that student side of things and the age side of things. And whether you saw that as a barrier to success, or whether you saw it as helping towards your success. But I'm sure there's as equally as there's fans of us, who would be like, Oh, he's 15. And doing amazing things. There would be other people as well, who would say 15 year old No way, I'm never going to hire a 15 year old to do a website or an app. 22:07 Yeah, we've definitely encountered those types of people. I think, in terms of that kind of dynamic, where we're so young, I do think it's quite warranted to believe that we couldn't do it. But I think just in terms of the population of people at my age who can do it, I think it's quite unfair to just put that stereotype on them that they're doing nothing other than gaming, or, you know, not not really focusing on the project, I don't understand where they're coming from in that kind of sense. But I do believe that you just need to make sure it's the right person for the job or whatever service you're providing. I don't think age matters too much in that kind of sense. Podcast Host 22:41 Let's talk a little bit more about your school life. Because I know that's an interest for a lot of students who are like, Oh, well, I want to do well at school, and then think about what's next. But when you're balancing business, and school can be a bit of a challenge. Have you seen the business side of things help what you do at school, like say, for instance, you know, you might be doing economics, or you might be doing some kind of technology class? And obviously, like you're spending a lot of time doing business related things and technology related things outside of the classroom as well. Yeah. What do you see it perhaps getting in the way of some of your major assessments and as you said, You know, sometimes clients once you available for 24, seven, and it's just impossible sometimes to meet those demands. 23:20 I think, generally, I've balanced it pretty well, I think, if you don't, it can definitely detract from your schoolwork. For example, I do commerce at my school. And I think that's really helped out I think, my general interest in that when you go to English and math, I think if you're not focusing on that, as well, in school hours, it can definitely detract. It's a balancing act at that kind of point where you need to make sure that you're really focusing because that's a big thing for me, and my business partners, and everyone on the team whose at school, is that we focus on school at school. And when we're out of school, we do homework, and then additionally, trying to work on the business in the time that we would be spending playing footy or basketball playing the Xbox. Right. So I think that that was a huge a huge thing for that. So I think if you're not careful, it can definitely detract. But I think for us, I think for me, personally, I think it's I don't think it's improved my schoolwork. But I think my school, my level of quality is stayed the same. Podcast Host 24:16 Okay, so you don't think it's really gotten in the way. I mean, I can say you would be taking a bit more of an interest in the commerce side of things where you know, you've got a business, right, because you might be talking about some of the things that you're doing in your day to day business to keep it running. Let's talk a little bit about where you see yourself in the future as well. Whether you see yourself continuing on the AI computer programming side of things, or you want to move into the VC space as well, venture capital, talking about your options there and how I guess a 15 year old comes across I mean, most 15 year olds, you wouldn't even know what VC means of venture capital remains. Yeah. So how you've come across this whole world and where you see yourself fitting in in the future. 24:56 Well, yeah, I mean, as I said to you, that was one of my goals. So Was I've always had a keen interest in the stock market and investments in general, I think that really ties into technology quite well learned about, you know, it's one of the key things for starting a tech startup, having a VC is one of the most important aspects of that someone who can, if you don't know what a VC is, a venture capitalist is someone who kind of funds your idea for a percentage of the project. So say, if it's Mark Zuckerberg pitching Facebook, they put a million dollars in get 5%. And when it becomes a huge company, they make that money back in in droves, 10, X Games, whatever it is. So I think for me, I always really want to stay in the kind of space of technology and kind of pursue my interest in investments. And I feel like I can do that very well, by going into venture capital row, as well as you know, even working at a tech company at the same time or founding one. So I think that's quite natural for me to, to kind of look at that avenue. And I think a good idea. Podcast Host 25:57 Where are the hotspots in the world for venture capital tech startups? I know, obviously, Silicon Valley comes to mind. But are there any others around the world that you could see yourself working in potentially? 26:09 Um, yes, it's Silicon Valley, San Francisco, that's the obvious stereotype of technology stops, but I think we're seeing a huge increase. You know, in Asia, especially China, there's a lot of increase there, you know, London, New York, those are some other stereotypical places. But I think also in Sydney, and Australia, in general, I think, for example, Atlassian is building a huge building here, that's supposed to attract a lot of tech startups, because that can be a working space for them as well. So I feel like as the world globalized isn't everyone becomes more connected in the future, 10 years down the track, I don't think that that will be a specific place to be, I feel like there'll be stops coming from every corner of the world, Israel as well, this love starts coming from there. So I think I think in general, you know, being in Silicon Valley would be a great thing. But I think you could be anywhere in the world and have a great idea and build it up to a big company or invest in a great startup. Podcast Host 27:02 And what kind of doors has this kind of business open for you. 27:06 I've been a part of some great organizations of people for development, for business, and for kind of fun out in the financial space for investments. So I've been a part of, for example, a young people's group of school group of, you know, stock people who are doing pitching that kind of thing, where we have competitions. So that's been one, two, let's open another one has been when I talk to people like adults about my passion for business or app development, for example, the apple trip, I went to Melbourne with my team, and we, you know, met with Apple executives about the app and stuff, that was a great opportunity. And that just came from simply emailing apple. And then for three months, nothing happened. We didn't expect anything to happen. But they had the specific event, and it just fell into place that way. I think in terms of business, there's a lot of great, you know, people and organizations that are really interested in the fact that young people are doing it. So I think I think if anyone's listening to this, I think an important factor of that is going out there. Even if you're introverted or something which I know I am personally, I think just talking to people messaging them, because you don't know that what might happen in that kind of case, you know, people could respond to it love the idea if you're making a business or if it's just your personal brand. So I think it's open to Logar opportunities for myself and for the people around me. And I do feel like a lot of people can replicate it if they have a great idea, or have a really big passion in a field that's growing so rapidly, which is technology in my case, Podcast Host 28:30 yes. So it's like connecting with people around the world. I've seen some great app developers, young and in university and professionals are out there. And it's like a very quickly growing community. And it feels like a pretty I think one of the very unique things about app developing is it feels like a very level playing field in some respects. Like in some industries, experience matters. And if you're not like in your 40s, or 50s, or whatever, like people aren't really going to take you that seriously. Because you're not going to have you know, 20 plus years of experience under your belt. But because, you know, app development and artificial intelligence, etc, is fairly new. And like you've grown up with it. People say like, Oh, well, you know, a 15 year old has just as much chance in many cases as someone who's in their 30s or 40s. In fact, you would probably trust you to create an app more than I would someone who's in their 40s because someone in their 40s hasn't grown up with this technology and has had to kind of learn it from scratch. Do you find that that is a feature as well, about the community you have? It's pretty much like a level playing field and age isn't such a factor. 29:35 I think for sure, I think with the rise of sites such as five.com, or freelancer, you know, that's a big industry of where people who are any age, any ethnicity or whatever it is, and if you can provide the job, people will hire you. And I think that's been a huge factor. I think I've been lucky because in tech, I think there's a good perception around, you know, young people who are into that kind of thing, because we've obviously grown up with it. And I think that's been a great perception. I think If I was going into a different industry, clothing or whatever it is making something else, I think it would be drastically harder to break into that industry and find any type of success. So I think specifically in technology, making apps, you know, developing, having a start off, I think it really does fit with the demographic of people that I mean, you know, young people, 15 year old students, whatever it is, I do think it fits quite well, to your point. Yeah. Podcast Host 30:28 Talk me through what it was like to first set up the business, like that day or that week, and how you felt about it. And when you started kind of pushing it out on socials or whatever you were doing in the early days, what was the general response you got from your mates? 30:45 Yes, I would say that that moment would be when I first released password ash was my first foray into business, even though we kind of developed it before then. So when I released the app, we got, for example, my dad put it on Facebook, and people started talking about it. And then it was when I came to school that people started to download it, and then find that there was issues with the app, for example. So for the first few and say, months, even, but for the first few weeks, I had ever coming up to me having the app in their hands and playing it, finding an issue with it. And then I felt really embarrassed. So I went to quickly fix it. But then as we kind of kept getting traction, and those opportunities came up for me, I think a lot of people got interested. And I think generally just the feeling was we were very, very proud of having the app out there. But we always felt like we could have done better or that we could have fixed something up. If you walk in a class and someone comes up to you and says that you know that the app doesn't work or there's a glitch, you know, you feel very embarrassed about that. That was definitely a struggle for me to deal with, you know, all the people talking about it, and having that as a conversation piece. But I think as as it's kind of gone along, all people have kind of grown in interest into what I'm doing. I think that's been really good. But I think Yeah, just the general emotions were it was quite quite a challenge in the beginning stages. Podcast Host 32:03 Yeah, that sounds crazy. Because it's like putting your work out there for everyone to see. Right. And judge. And people know what, you know, a good game is not like writing an essay where people can have their opinions about an essay, but it's your thoughts and whatnot. But when it comes to a game, and it's a glitch, like it's pretty obvious, right? Like, it's a pretty clear stuff up. So it's about going back and fixing that pretty quickly, I imagine. But yeah, it's pretty brave to kind of put your work out there for anyone and everyone to have a go and and commend you for that. That's awesome. Talk to me about what comes next. After school, you did briefly mentioned that you're interested in overseas universities. But as everybody knows, if you're an entrepreneur, you're in high school, and you already mentioned it as well, there is I guess that other thought bubble, which is what are you doing at school? Why don't you just pursue your business interest? So talk to me, I guess about that internal battle? Yeah, that might be playing internally and with your, you know, friends and family as well as to what you do the end of high school? Well, I 32:58 think in terms of my friends and family, that's been a quite a controversial thing, where my friends at school think I should just drop out and continue it. All my parents are, they think I should obviously get my agency done sad, whatever it is, and go to university, which I completely respect and it but internally, I've kind of set milestones where if I reach a certain point, in kind of clients revenue, I feel like I'll be able to, I would say, decide maybe not to pursue University if I reach those goals, but those are really high goals for myself. So I definitely want to go to university, but I want to find a way to manage my business, because it's something that I am really passionate about as well. Podcast Host 33:36 So if you were to go to university, what would be your mindset, then if like you were to start University next week? Yeah, what would you go there with the intention of doing? 33:45 Well, as I said, my parents sometimes is that a lot of people, you know, that you go to university to learn how to make a business and run it. And I feel like I've already had that experience through doing it at such a young age. So I think in terms of university, I do have some kind of ideas for that, where I do want to pursue a degree that is kind of away from business, but you know, maybe something in like finance or law or just something like that, which kind of interests me, and I think it comes down to which universities I might be able to get into for the kind of networking aspect of the people I can meet, just to interact with different types of people. So I think, I think it's it's a hard thing to take into account. But I think my goal is obviously the to maybe try to go and overseas, you know, American University, European University. And unless I can do that efficiently, and get into a great degree, I might not pursue University here, unless I have a compelling reason to Oh, I you know, my business completely fails and I have nowhere else to go. But I think I'm in a pretty good position where I can kind of choose that route. Podcast Host 34:49 Well, yeah, having worked at Crimson for a couple of years, I've definitely seen some students who were in a similar position to you and had a business when they're in high school, went to university Continued building the business and their network, as a result of studying, you know, a couple of these students actually samil is on one of the episodes that I did. And he's now at Y Combinator, and doing his own business thing there. And another student Brendon, as well, we're going to try and get him on the show eventually. But he's got an app as well that he developed through uni at Harvard. And he's at Y Combinator as well. And so like, that's a great pathway for entrepreneurship. And in terms of like, getting that venture capital to really start your own stores. But it really depends on whether or not you want to, I guess, scale app Sydney into something that is either a big app development platform and automated somehow, who knows what's going to happen? Because right now, it's kind of like one on one client basis, it's very hard to scale. So I guess it would be a little bit of a interesting process to see if you go through uni and have some ideas. But yes, certainly, like, I went to UC Berkeley and a tour. And I was talking to one of the students there. And he said, Every second person here at UC Berkeley is working on an app. It's crazy. He's like, yeah, just the culture of those, like, you know, top universities on the west coast in particular. And obviously, like some of the major ones on the East Coast as well in the US. Like, they're just buzzing with this stem innovation, so could be a really good place to be even if just for a short term, and I pull up Zuckerberg and bail after like a year and a half or so. And, you know, you head off with a couple of good contacts in a way you go. But yeah, is there any final advice that you would give Nick, in terms of, you know, high school students, maybe not necessarily coding related, but who are considering starting their own business? And might be putting it off? Because of whatever kind of doubts they have in their mind? Yeah, advice would you give to them, 36:45 I think my main thing is about failing, but you need to fail forward. What that means is that if you have a business idea, and you want to test the market, for example, you go out and everyone says no, but that you find out why you get that feedback. And you really understand what you what you did wrong, so that you might you maybe continue that business, or you can branch off to a new one, and kind of weigh your options out there. So I think failing forward is really important, I think you need to do a lot of research beforehand. But at the same time, just try to go ahead and get into the business as soon as you possibly can. And that doesn't really mean just have an idea, and just go on YouTube or Instagram and talk about it and say I'm selling something, I think it means making something that's of value. I think the whole point is that if you want a business, you need to make sure that you're solving a real issue. So I think in terms with the emotional aspect of it, you need to kind of identify who you are. So I early on identified that I'm into I'm an introverted type of person that I needed, you know, try to find ways where I could improve that and become more confident, because I think that's really important. Learning how to talk to people is the most important skill more than being booksmart. So I think you need to really quickly understand the type of person that you are, and how that fits in with the business. And I also think that you need to identify who your biggest inspirations are, and try to see what they did wrong, or maybe what they did, right. And kind of take that and, you know, look at what they did, and help your own journey with that information. So I'd say those are the three major things, Podcast Host 38:17 Some good tips there. And if I could add one more, it sounds like it means a lot to you to have a really strong business partner as well, like someone who's kind of stuck through, you know, thick and thin, and has been there for you along kind of the student journey, because you can have parents who support you and teaches you support you. But it must mean a lot more when there's another student who is there on the same journey with you. How important has that been for you? 38:44 I would say that's been the most important factor, having someone who you can always talk to, and when when you fail, you fail together, you talk about it. And it's a great feeling when you have someone that you're on the same page with. I know a lot of people get into a business with a partner for the wrong reasons. And and they kind of don't succeed. But I think in my specific partnership in the success that I would my best major heel, I think the whole point is that we we have different skills, emailing people just in the trenches, I think that's the most important thing that you can possibly have. Podcast Host 39:16 Yeah, that's really good advice. And I 100% recommend that if students are interested in starting a business in high school, the first thing they're trying to do is find a willing co founder to do that with. But anyway, Nick, it's been fantastic to have you on the show to give your insights into starting at Sydney, wishing you all the best of luck for whatever comes next. And I'd be encouraging our listeners to reach out to you in the near future. Nick M 39:36 Yeah, really appreciate it. Thank you so much. Podcast Host 39:38 Thanks for listening to Top of the Class. subscribe for future episodes for show notes and to plan your best future head to crimsoneducation.org.

Ep #16 Winning the Google Science Fair and Fighting Plastic Pollution

🗓 DEC 4, 2020

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Podcast Host 00:00 Hi Fionn, welcome to the Top of the Class. It's fantastic to have you on. Can you tell our listeners a little bit about yourself? Fionn 00:47 Yeah, so my name is Fionn. I grew up in Ireland, and half German, half Portuguese, and living in Netherlands. So some people describe me as European, which I also describe myself as at the moment. But essentially, what I really love doing is building things and inventing things. And I've invented lots of things, most of which have not worked, but some of which have worked. And think what I'm mainly known for is known for removing microplastics for water. I also study chemistry, and play the trumpet and like gardening on my balcony as well. Podcast Host 01:20 Gardening on your balcony? Fionn 01:21 Yeah, totally. Podcast Host 01:22 What do you grow? Fionn 01:23 I really like edible things. So anything from like edible flowers to Herbes lettuce somewhere, it's like cucumbers. Yeah. So science project. Podcast Host 01:33 Yeah, yeah. Well, everything seems to be like a bit of a science project for you, right? Like everything seems to be an opportunity to learn and grow. Talk about the Google Science Fair for us, because that's something that you won in 2019. And I know that's going to be of significant interest for a lot of our listeners. Can you tell me a little bit about what that competition actually is? Fionn 01:53 Yeah, so the Google Science Fair is a science fair. So essentially, a competition where people can enter science projects. And yeah, not only get judged and win prizes, but also get connected to a lot of like minded people who do science projects. And really, what makes this very unique over other fairs like Intel, isef and other challenges is that this fair really is looking at more the quirkiness of the science more to fund the process that you undergo, and really looking at you and how you like to invent and your passion rather than the complexity of the project. And what they also really, really focus on as well is how you communicate the project. So therefore, I feel like it's a slightly different science fair, in the sense that it might be a little bit less strict. You know, we those design friend suits and ties, we can be there in hoodies. And because of that, it's a little more fun. And yeah, it gets people who are not only scientists, but also communicators to get involved. Podcast Host 02:53 Yeah, that's a such an important part about science is the communication that you can have great science. But if you aren't able to communicate it effectively, then kind of falls flat. How did you get involved in the Google Science Fair? 03:05 Yeah, well, first, I have to give you some background on westcourt. Oh, yes. Yeah. So West Cork is quite remote in Ireland, maybe about three hours south of Cork. And I mean, well, West south, kind of, and essentially three hours into the middle of nowhere from Cork City. So you know, if you drive three hours into the middle of nowhere, you're really in the middle of nowhere when you arrive there. And just to give you a little bit of scale, the nearest town to my house, which was 10 kilometers away, and had about 2000 people living in it, not particularly big, but I thought that was really nice. We're close to the seaside. And I really felt that that area really fostered my ideas. But to get back to the Google Science Fair, what really inspired me to enter was just that I saw this YouTube ad online. And it was kind of saying, Yeah, well, you can enter the science fair online, you submit your idea, and you can win a T shirt. So I thought, Oh, I can get a T shirt. That's nice. So I approached my parents, and I was like, I want to enter the science fair, I saw you win a T shirt. And if you're really good, you can win a Chromebook. Do you allow me to enter? They were like, okay, so at the time, I was working on this microplastic removal project. And it was kind of a side project. It was something I was trying out and working on. And just playing with in my bedroom. With a couple of beakers, I think, essentially, to enter the science fair, Google Science Fair, you fill out this online form, which is like a report about your project. So you talk about the methodology is essentially all the steps. So I submitted that, and I heard nothing from them for like six months. And I thought, well, they've probably ignored me or whatever. And then I got an email, like, after six months out of the blue saying, oh, you're you're a global finalist. And you're coming to Google headquarters. So yeah, and they sent me a T shirt. Oh, that's Chromebook as well. So yes, I've got my T shirt and Chromebook. And then I went to my parents. I was like, yeah, I'm going to Google headquarters. One of you guys has to come with me. And we're going in three weeks time. And so it's all happening pretty quick. Yeah. After the big long way. It was very, very quick. Yeah. And then what they did, they brought together the finalists, we got to present our project in a format where they gave us like, stands where they designed visuals for us. And we really got to present it to a celebrity judging panel. So people we all looked up to, like editor in chief of Scientific American, National Geographic people from Virgin Galactic, Richard Branson, lots of really amazing innovators and inventors. And they then judged us, and all of them had different rubrics. Podcast Host 05:47 Okay. All right. All right, let's wind back a little bit. Because there's a lot of cool stories in that. You've talked to your parents who say, Hey, we're going to Google you're coming. This is a non negotiable, pretty much because like, this is a once in a lifetime opportunity, right? What was that journey to Google headquarters? Like? I've never been, what's it like in there? Fionn 06:06 Yeah, so Google is kind of interesting. It's like an ecosystem itself. So we like arrive to this hotel on campus. And then we were cycling around and little colored bikes, and we were playing volleyball. And we had like, a week. And it was really, really nice. It was just that it really felt like a campus that embodies the spirit that I actually find is so important. And that's the spirit of play incorporated with work. And, you know, I, if you've ever watched the movie, the interns, it's really so similar that like, the whole of Google is full of slides that you can like, take a slide down from one floor to the next, or the cism, a jogging path while you're working on your laptop, or take a day off or have a nap inside when the Fed nap pods. It's really crazy. And you name it, it's there. It's always changing. And it's just this brightly colored campus that's almost like a big playground for adults. And you wonder how to get any work done there at all. But uh, yeah, it's incredible. Podcast Host 07:07 But it makes it a place that people want to be at, right? It doesn't feel like you're at a workplace, it feels like you're on a vacation almost. Fionn 07:14 Yeah. And actually, what was very funny was, the food was really, really good there. And they had these like kitchens, micro kitchens, or bigger kitchens, they could just go to help yourself. And anything like sweet or unhealthy is hidden. It's hidden in a different spot every day. So it was always a big task to try and find the like chocolate, it would be hidden somewhere in the office. And there's some of these job who's just hiding the chocolate in different placesevery day. Podcast Host 07:38 You find the chocolate that day. You're the hero of the day. Fionn 07:41 Yeah. Well, you're not allowed to tell anybody else where it is. Podcast Host 07:43 Oh, really? Fionn 07:44 Yeah, strict rules. Podcast Host 07:45 My gosh, my gosh, well, it sounds like an amazing place. Google headquarters must have a very, very cool to be at. But can you explain a little bit more about how you turned your like project that you were doing in your room, right in a couple of bakers into a science fair, ready type of project? You know, you said you had to work on displaying it and communicating it? Was this kind of the first time that you were doing that in terms of like, okay, I've been playing around with some chemicals and microplastics in my bedroom. Now I need to try and impress people like Richard Branson with it. What's that process like? Fionn 08:22 Yes, I've never, I never had done it on such a big scale before. But I did enter the National Science Fair and Ireland, were actually won the category twice in the years before then. But those were different projects. And one of them was like, a machine to test for antioxidant levels in any food sample, which which I built using a bit of Lego, Podcast Host 08:42 a thing that a young man should be doing, because we always get told eat it. It's got antioxidants in it, you're like, Okay, I'll just take your word for it. Right? I don't even know what these antioxidants are really, 08:52 the thing I learned was that so many things are not true. Like, you know, you can get the same amount of antioxidants, which you get from an orange, you know, vitamin C's, and you can get in about like six leaves of parsley. So, you know, I thought that was really interesting. Or an espresso was actually incredibly high in antioxidants, like something like 14,000 oranges worth something like that. Podcast Host 09:15 Well, I must be packed with vitamin say that I must be doing very, very well, because I do enjoy 09:20 It's not vitamin C. It's it's beta carotene. But that's another podcast. Podcast Host 09:24 yeah, yeah. No, it sounds pretty good. But so you've done a couple science fairs before so you kind of knew what that were looking for. But it was I guess, the process of turning this particular project into a Google Science Fair ready one and one that would, as you say, kind of fit with the nature and what Google Science Fair was looking for. 09:42 Yeah, and I think what's really important there in that stepping up process and it for me, I always felt very daunted by this process because you look at your like little things. They're like, how am I going to present my like, you know, mixing things that kind of look like they work and and really What I found something that was really, that always worked for me was just to test. If I see a project, and I've tried to add on the small scale, I think first is really to test the thing a lot. And something that always impresses judges is when you have done a very large amount of testing and using different variables. And that's what I did. So I tested my thing like 5000 times, I decided that was enough. Podcast Host 10:23 Wow, 5000 times. 10:26 Yeah, I did build a robot to do it for me. Yeah, I am a lazy person, I decided to build a robot instead. So I tested a lot. And then I had tons of data. And with data, you can all of a sudden talk a lot. So I looked at data and looked at trends, and look to see if my ideas had worked or not. And even if they don't work, you've still done an investigation, you still need to work in showing your scientific capability. And I think you can actually still win science fairs, even if your technology doesn't work. So then you arrive at this process where you've got all this data. And then it looks really overwhelming. You've got this type of an Excel spreadsheet where you've got like, gone to roll like triple Zed or something. Yeah, then you then you're going to have like five days of like really severe headaches. What I'd actually recommend is taking a couple of espressos and squeezing in some lemon juice that helps with me, right. I know, it sounds disgusting. It is disgusting. But it helps for me, it's a good tip. But there's another thing that you can do. And that is much more effective. And that's actually cleaning up that spreadsheet. Yeah, well, you have to look at is the trends in your data. I can't tell you how to do that, because it's different for everybody. And then I guarantee that after all of that, one will find these trends, which you're excited to talk about. And I think, really, if you've gone to the trouble of doing a couple of thousand tests, you've probably kind of liked this topic. And I think there, it's then just about putting your own voice on paper, what you think about your findings, and really to bring across your enthusiasm. And I, I think that's what really got me into the fair was just that I always brought across my enthusiasm, how I enjoyed what I did, and how I learned and what I learned while doing it as well. Podcast Host 12:10 And I think people would have appreciated the fact that you created a robot to do the testing for you. 12:14 Yeah, so so I do like that. And, for instance, something that I did in a lot of science projects, which people always like to say I always did. Surveys as well, where I looked at with people. So sending out to this case, plastic companies and asking them what they do with their micro plastic waste. Do they have contaminated water, things like that? Yeah. And I really like to do like a multifaceted approach. And as much as possible. Podcast Host 12:39 I think that sounds fantastic. And it sounds like a really interesting approach to science fairs. One thing I'm interested in is can you give us a layman's term explanation of your project, and a more advanced explanation of your project? So I how do you dumb this down for, say, a podcast host who doesn't really know too much about market plastic extraction and what exactly you did? And then perhaps like a, you know, the type of explanation that you'd give to someone who does no chemical science and those kinds of things? 13:11 Yeah, well, the process is simple for both explanations, the first explanation, the layman's explanation. And essentially what I've done is created a liquid. This liquid is made from vegetable oil. So like cooking oil, yes, and rust powder. And together, it makes this gunky, black looking liquid. But when I add it to water, it can attract microplastics out of the water, it sticks to the liquid. And because we've got rust in the liquid, you might remember iron is magnetic. If we ring magnets close to the liquid, we can simply just lift the plastics mixed with the liquid, and using a magnet from water. So like that we can use magnets to move microplastics from water. Podcast Host 13:55 Right. So the vegetable oil kind of collects the microplastics, but it's mixed in with the rust powder. So the rust powder kind of coats the microplastics is that's what's happening? Fionn 14:06 Yeah, absolutely. So the rust powder is like mixing the vegetable oil. And you kind of have to imagine a bit like a glue that can attract microplastics. And then it kind of binds them together and makes them magnetic, you've got this type of lump that you can then remove using a magnet. Podcast Host 14:20 And what kind of scale can you do that on? 14:23 So I tested it first on a very small scale, like milliliters, and it worked really well. So I had like 87% extraction in overall after my a couple of thousand tests. But then I tried on bigger scales like a liter and more. And really, it worked as long as the water has time to come in contact with the plastics and my liquid. So it's all about agitation and and how much you mix it together. So that's why it really is quite applicable to larger scales. And in my next summary, my advanced summary, essentially the method works because in chemistry, we've got polarities, yeah, this is Fairly fundamental concept, but you can have molecules that are polar or nonpolar. So a polar molecule is one that has a formal charge, or has an uneven distribution of positively and negatively charged things. And polar things really like to be together with polar things. And water possibly is the most polar thing we have. Because it has like its V shape. It's got like a super negative oxygen on one side, and then two hydrogens like sticking out the other side. And because we've got a lone pair, so like two electrons sitting on, on one side, it's a V shape, it's not a straight line. And that means that it's on equal, you've got a positive side negative side, and they do what's called hydrogen bonding. And yeah, it gets really exciting. I get excited by that. But I won't give a chemistry lesson now, I promise. But essentially, what it does is, it's super polar. And things like plastics are nonpolar. They're just carbon and hydrogen. And they really don't have those charges, attributions, and they tend to reside with nonpolar things. And oil is super nonpolar. That's why it doesn't mix with water normally. And that's why if we add oil, something nonpolar, and those nonpolar plastics will migrate to the oil phase, they'll get stuck in the oil phase, because they're just much more stable. They're then in the water phase, which is polar. Podcast Host 16:27 Does it work the same in seawater as it does in normal water? 16:32 In seawater, we have the added benefit of having a salt in there. Yeah, and there's salt is even more polar than water, because we've got these two like something that's positive split from something that's negative, like sodium chloride, and seawater, and a plus CL minus, but super polar, which means that it works better in seawater, and I've actually had higher results in seawater. Podcast Host 16:53 Oh, that's awesome. So it could be something that we could take out to the ocean, potentially, and extract microplastics on mass, is that something that you see the potential of the project being like, taking it out into the Pacific was that was that thing in the Pacific? Where it's like that massive track? Yeah, the Pacific 17:10 Garbage Garbage Patch? Yeah, I think, I think that microplastics I'm talking about things we can barely see here, those plastics in the sea are really difficult to extract. And I feel that the place where the intimacy is for wastewater, so whether it's from us washing our clothes, and plastics falling off to the tires of our car is slowly turning into Titus. And that ends up in the wastewater. And I really feel that before we can start cleaning up to see where it's in a dilute concentration, we can look at wastewater treatment centres where we've got a large influx of plastic coming all the time. And that means that immediately there we could have a bigger benefit. And I also feel like that you wouldn't be impacting wildlife, I still feel like it would be more difficult and we would have a lower impact in general removing plastics if we were to do on the sea. And that's why I'm focusing on wastewater treatment turns me Podcast Host 18:04 Okay, okay. So you don't want to impact negatively wildlife and it's probably more practical to be at the wastewater because as you said yet, we're dealing with very, very small plastic so for people who don't know, micro plastics or things like I know that a very common one is face wash, where it has like microbeads in the face wash or it's like a you know, microdermabrasion type of thing and they're rubbing their face with these little tiny plastic beads, which I know a lot of the companies are now trying to take out because there's still products with the men and then there's like the little threads of your clothes that might come off in the washing machine and as you said tire dust. I never even thought about that right like so when when it rains you know the the road is probably packed with this tire dust. Is that right? 18:48 Yeah, absolutely. And so tires is is one of the really, really big so I think over 40% of all the microplastics are actually coming from Titus 40 percents. Yes, if we look at when you drive your car, you release tires quite often and you can see the level going down. Yes, and if you've got millions of cars driving around, that's an awful lot of dust from these tires. I think also a really major one is actually paint so all our paint is a polymer plastic. And either if you wash away paint with water or if it's like it's peeled off a house, or for instance them the paint on the bottom of boats, and all of that can have a huge release of plastics as well. Podcast Host 19:31 Crazy I've never even thought about that. I've How did you get involved in all this? Can you just kind of take us through your personal journey from West Cork, getting interested in the environment and then becoming like a micro plastics extraction expert. 19:45 Well, I wouldn't quite call myself an expert. I playing with science. Yeah. But what I really love doing as I said earlier, is building things and for me, I never set out at the beginning To build something that would change, hopefully the way we can interact and live in our world. However, what I really like doing was just little contraptions that were fun to build and would give cool results. So, as I said, earlier, I did other projects where for instance, I built a contraption where I was looking at antioxidant levels in in foods. But when I was walking along the seashore that was just so close to where I lived, which I would walk along every day, I would always see increasing levels of plastic washing. And the more I read about this, the more worrying it was because I heard about that, yeah, under influence of sunlight, and bashing and stones on the seashore that can break into small bits of plastic, which we can't see but are eaten by fish and eaten by us and not very nice. So that got me thinking. And I really wanted to find out how much there was in the sea water around where I lived. So I said I'd building a machine to find out how much there was. And what I built was this thing called a spectrometer, essentially, it shines light through a sample, that is layman's summary, Chinese light sample, and, and it analyzes the light that comes back and tells me if there's plastic in the south or not, because essentially, anything of a different color absorbs light in a different way, the slightly more advanced suddenly, is essentially that we've got a it shines light, and it's like a UV vis spectrometer trying to UV light on the sample. Because plastics often have large conjugated systems of double bonds, electrons in those double bonds can be promoted to higher energy levels. And that means that it absorbs a bit of light energy. And that is carried characteristic wavelength for the plastic. And then we can use a local debris Lambert law to determine the concentration of plastic in water, which I did. Podcast Host 21:54 I'll take your word for it, but I'm sure some of our listeners know what you're talking about. But for me, I really got lost there. I prefer the layman's one. But continue. I love this. 22:03 Yeah. So essentially, what this went on to was just the fact that I had this machine, okay, in the building process, our house almost burnt down. And the electricity for my whole town got turned off because I made a short circuit. And there were a couple of minor setbacks. Just my nose. Yeah, just very minor. But essentially, that resulted in that I had this machine to test microplastics. And I found microplastics in the water. So I thought, well, I've got this machine. Great. What can I build next? Because I was like building things. Yes. And it's actually the saddest part of my process is when I'm done, or when I feel like, you know, it's kind of done, because I like the process rather than the finished product. So then it comes to the level where, essentially, I wanted to do more, and I looked at ways I could remove plastics for water. And it turned out there weren't really any. And that's what I thought, well, the worst thing that can happen if I try out is that it doesn't work. And people will laugh at me. But people are laughing at me all the time anyway, so it doesn't really matter. Podcast Host 23:05 Especially when you're short circuiting the city. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Fionn 23:09 Well, remember, it's only 2000 people, so I wouldn't really call it a city. Yeah. Okay. Podcast Host 23:13 Well, still, I'm sure yeah, people were like, geez, that fear and kid is pretty crazy doing all these awesome experiments in his room. But yeah, I wish he didn't short circuit the town. 23:23 Yeah. And also, this happened in the middle of like, one of those television shows that everybody watches now was in everybody's particularly good book. But, but really what happened then was I thought, well, I can try things out. I tried like filtering it through sand. And that didn't really work and it made a mess. And then I at the same time, so this YouTube video, actually by Diana cow, a corn or physics girl. And she was playing with this liquid called ferrofluid magnetic liquid. And I kind of thought it looked cool. Like if you it's a magnetic liquid, that's already cool enough. And I thought, well, I could try making some so I found this really old research paper from like 1860s online where they were extracting metal from stone and then being a toil which I followed reversely I didn't realize that actually, I could just buy the magnetite powder for rust powder online from eBay, but that was already after spending a month kind of hacking stones apart. Yeah, and then I played with this and I added it to water samples and saw that plastics migrated and that's what sparked the whole process of then trying out a bigger sale trying trying to add in different plastics, I added to water looking at the type of plastics it likes to take up how much it takes up, how can be improved and this is so many variables that I looked at them. Podcast Host 24:48 When you are trying to create something new like a spectrometer or like FIFA fluid, as you said and hacking about rocks which is interesting. What is your go to resource is it your own Brian, and you're like, how would I do this? How should I solve this? What can I do? Or do you go to YouTube? or Google? Or what's your go to initial resource or research phase you go through usually? 25:11 Yeah. So what I find really difficult actually, as an amateur scientist, and I think as a creative science, maybe he doesn't have access to Labs is that whenever you Google how to test for microplastics, they're going to get some research paper from some sort of like, academic institution where they have machines that costs like an arm and a leg and a bit more, and stuff that you don't understand. And it's so difficult to get that if you go into E, or YouTube, you're probably going to get like some really old Professor talking about something, some like math, the thing with some machine that you can't get, that was really difficult. So my actually go to resources, looking at very old academic papers, when, essentially back to the times where they didn't have the modern equipment that they have nowadays. Podcast Host 25:59 Right, right. And wouldn't have plastics, though, would they? 26:02 Know, but they did have spectrometers? Okay. Okay. So you know, it's a bit of a combination, I read a lot of papers would watch videos to figure out the science. And then I would just, yeah, a browser and Google, it's quite ironic that I got the Google Science Fair, I would browse around Google look at, let's say, spectroscopy, how it works. And then I thought, well, you know, they use a laser, I can just try, you know, normal light bulb. And like that I can, I just tried things out and learn from my mistakes. And I think what's really wonderful about that process is, is that you're almost following the footsteps of some of the great scientists who discovered these things. You start with such a crew, let's say with a spectrometer, and very quickly, and you can create a spectrometer like my one, which creates comparable results to one that you'd get in a lab. Podcast Host 26:50 And you're finding these old reports and research papers in a library or online? Or where are you going to find these, like, 1860 science report? 27:00 Yeah, so Google Scholar was really, really good, right. And Google Scholar is a really great resource for that type of thing. But often, you know, you kind of lose the will to live halfway through reading one of those things. And I also felt that often, it was interesting to look at other DIY scientists and, and, and reaching out, but also to professors at universities and reaching out to them, because often they have understanding. So actually, what I really like doing is, is coming up for ideas for people who want to investigate things. So maybe if there's a listener out there, if they're really wondering about how to investigate or, or build something, well, perhaps if you reach out, I might be able to, to help a little bit, or at least come up with some ideas. Podcast Host 27:44 Yeah, so you're like a, an ideation kind of guy, you've got the ideas. And then you are also not just the ideation guy, you'd love to build things as well. So you like the perfect combination? For a lot of scientists, you like to come up with an idea you like to build in your life to test you're like the ultimate amateur scientist, right? 28:04 I guess. But, um, I think that combination also is completely up to the scientist. And I know some people who just think, and you know, they'll have different projects. So it's really up to you and what you like, that's what I think these projects are so much fun, because you can exclude the bit that you don't like, except, okay, very old fashioned fairs. So I'm naming, for instance, the Intel International Science and Engineering fair, Intel isef, which I actually entered and got some awards in a different here, but I just found that was very old fashioned. So it felt very much like I was writing a PhD, although I haven't written a PhD, I can just imagine that it would feel like that. That's right, you know, a very long dissertation and very serious academic notes. And for me, that was a bit too strict, and, frankly, a little bit boring. And I just feel that, um, I like to focus on what I enjoy. Podcast Host 28:56 That's a really interesting concept about finding if you are a scientist, and you do want to enter into science competitions, I think a lot of people are attracted to Intel, because it is, you know, quite a big name. I know it's regeneron science fair now. And they've got another sponsor, but it's about finding the competition that suits you and the type of science that you like to do and the type of presentations that you see yourself giving, right, like it's isef might not be for everybody, even though as you said, you did enter and win awards in your category. But it's like comparing the two, if you were to compete in just one sounds like Google would be more your fit, right? 29:33 Yeah, totally. And like I've competed in several different ones. And I really found Google was my fit. It was fun. And we really celebrated together. They brought the 20 finalists together. We had a week where we were all doing fun icebreaker activities, and it wasn't like, whatever. It's regeneron now, but it was very strict and very competitive. No, this was we really became friends. And I think something that we have to look at is it's not about the award. sees face, it's really about connecting with other people, because I can't stress enough that the biggest resource of all is being able to talk to other people or like minded like you and talk about your concepts freely, and together, be able to benefit each other's ideas and come up with ideas. And that togetherness is really what makes it fun. Yeah, Podcast Host 30:21 I'm sure. And so you've probably got a lot of good friends from that experience, right? Like from all around the world who are doing cool projects, and you kept in touch. 30:29 Yeah, exactly. And we, for instance, particularly the Google Science Fair group, we would have regular calls where we sometimes Yeah, talk about what we're up to. And we try and chip in on each other's projects and come up with different ideas, to try and help each other. And that's a really, really nice thing to be involved in. Podcast Host 30:46 That's awesome. That's awesome. Now I know a lot of people who are listening to this would probably think fion sounds like a genius. He sounds like a guy who can have an idea. And within a week or Well, you know, even within a couple of days, he's got like a working model in his room. Does that title sit well with you? If people do think Oh, God, Fionn, you're a genius! Fionn 31:08 I know. Podcast Host 31:09 I gotta tell you a quick story. Actually, just yesterday, I was I was catching up with a friend of mine. And she's like, oh, how's the podcasting going? I'm like, Oh, that's great. I'm really excited to chat with this guy Fionn tomorrow. And she's like, oh, what, what is going on, dude? Like, what's the story? Then I read a bit about your bio. And I'm like, oh, he speaks three languages. He's got a planet named after him. He's in her. He's created this microplastics thing. That one, the Google Science Fair. And she's like, Oh, my God, He sounds like a genius. And I'm like, I'm like, Yeah, right. So it's like that, you know, I guess that's why we do the podcast, right? where it's like, what is the story behind these headline achievements that often get attached to someone like yourself, right? And people see those bullet point achievements and unattainable. This guy's like, on another level type of thing? And how, I guess Do you dispel that, that title, if it doesn't sit well with you? Fionn 31:59 But that's actually a really good question. And actually, first I'd like to add here for your listeners is that if any of them have questions, reach out to me, because I'm not overloaded with questions. The main platform I would use for engaging is Instagram. So but yeah, I'm really happy to answer questions. And actually, anybody who has questions, or if you think, you know, young scientists reach out to them, because chances are, they're not as busy as you think they are. And I always remember that, you know, there is a time when I watch Netflix as well. And I could just be looking at your emails in that time, as well. So it's always a bit of time in life. But to get back to the question, well, I feel like what I talk about in a lot of keynotes and things I get is really that we all I have, on average, the same brain size, and the same activity going on in there. And we all just use it for different things. And I really feel that genius is a bit of a weird phrase. Because I personally find that all I've done is done what I've enjoyed, and still do what I enjoy. And I just happen to be somebody who's managed to talk about it, and that some reporters, I still don't know why have decided to pick up on them and tell other people about. So I really feel like what I still have is a very simple project. Yeah, currently, I actually this week just started working with engineers on scaling it. But it's still a simple project, in essence, and anybody could have come up with it. It was not an overnight thing. I can't stress this enough. This is like months, if not years of kind of trying things out and annoying my neighbors, although the the nearest neighbors to our houses about a kilometer away, and years of trying stuff out, a lot of things did not work. And during that time, nobody ever called me a genius, except my parents. So I think one should never be disheartened by not being called a genius. But I think the word genius shouldn't be used. Because we're all geniuses at what we like doing this. Podcast Host 33:56 I like that I will go forth into the day feeling a bit more positive about my brain power. Fionn 34:01 One question I have for you in terms of the people who are around you, parents been one right? You know, they say you're the average of the five people you spend the most time with, who are those people for you? So for me, I lived I'm an only child. So I live with my two parents, and then I would have a lot of contact with my grandparents. And that was kind of it. So those I'd say are the five my parents and grandparents were really the biggest number of people I would have contact with because essentially, it was really difficult to like hang out with people of my own age because I lived in the middle of nowhere and it just made it complicated on that sense, which I never missed. Maybe because I'm an only child I just like you know in my bedroom sticking wires together and seeing your things will explode. And and and yeah, maybe the neighbors see like a mushroom cloud, although that hasn't happened yet. Podcast Host 34:51 No, that hasn't happened yet. touchwood it doesn't. 34:54 Yeah, let's hope but I really am fans that I was spending a lot of time with them and They would just I would be enthusiastic about things and they will also become enthusiastic about them and read about microplastics or look at ways that they can be more sustainable. And that kind of boosted what I was doing. My dad was a woodworker, and he still is he builds boats. So whenever I needed like something made out of wood, I would go to him and like, tell them exactly what I needed. And then we build it together. My mother is a model maker. And she makes smaller models that paper. So there I could like do the micro scale building stuff, which was also really fun. Podcast Host 35:31 You're a family of builders? 35:33 Yeah, in essence, and actually, my grandparents are. My grandmother is an architect and my grandfather, also architect and builder, so completely building. And yeah, it came from their schooling, I found really difficult because actually, for me, first of all, I didn't really have that many friends, mainly because it was a bit different. I think I want it to be different as well. Yes. I the school actually didn't really support my ideas that much. And I really felt it was difficult to get time to, to work in them. But also, I actually didn't really get on my chemistry teacher so well, mainly because I was always enthusiastic and just wanted to do way more than we have to do. And however, I did get a lot of advice from them. And particularly one teacher helped me on the like dissertation aspect and, and the formalities of it. But I really think that I have to give my credit to my family. In this because I I really felt schools in general, should do more to look at maybe incorporating the extracurricular investigation of projects in their curriculum, or, Podcast Host 36:34 particularly for science, right? Like it should be an investigation of an application of what you're learning. And a lot of the time it's learning to get a good score on a test, right? Fionn 36:45 Absolutely. And I really feel that that's flawed. Because science is all about thinking outside the box, or playing with ideas, and associating them with different things and playing with them, putting them together in different orders and seeing where it takes you. And I really think that studying for a test does not follow that. And it doesn't promote that. And I think science is a mindset. It's not necessarily a big host of chemical names or knowledge that you've learned. But I really feel that that science is a way to think, as a method to think. And I think that that can be applied. If you can have that method, you can figure out the names later. Actually to add, I was really bad at learning stuff off at high school, like learning Spelling's and things like still my spelling is very bad. In fact, at the moment, it's still so bad that spellcheck doesn't recognize that I've spelt it wrong. Podcast Host 37:37 Oh, well, Spellchecks the problem, not you. Fionn 37:38 Oh totally. Blame spellcheck. Podcast Host 37:41 One thing I'm interested in is what you had in your room, as like an amateur scientist and a builder and a maker and a family of builders and makers. What kind of science equipment did you have in your room? And what do you think other amateur scientists should have is like, their go to build a maker science toolkit type of thing, because you can buy these things at like, you know, a National Geographic store or something. And it might be, you know, like a baker or something like that. But what were your go to tools that you had around the house that helped you to become you know, an amateur scientist and test out all these things? Fionn 38:15 That's a cool question. Actually, I've never been asked these questions. Actually, I really love this podcaster really researching it well, and it's really fun to speaking. But um, yeah, so what I had in my room would be tools. I love sensors, I love being able to like autonomously send stuff and work with data. So for me, I had a big box of like bits for an Arduino and Raspberry Pi, where I could like, make my own sensors and robots. Podcast Host 38:41 Can you just go back Arduino and Raspberry Pi? Fionn 38:45 Yeah, so there are two like mini microcontroller computer things that you can hook up to like any sensor you can imagine. So like, you need the sensor, like for air pressure, humidity, light color, you name it, they've got it. And it's super cheap. Like, I'm talking like three $4 for a sensor. And then what you can do, you can hook them up, and you can, if it's in a titration, looking at the color change. Yeah. And you can plot these doubters. You can import them and play with science. And, and I really find that for me, seeing what I could measure, using the capabilities of technology, widen my horizons on on what was possible. And I think for any good science project, you really need to be good at collecting data. And by using sensors to so useful, Podcast Host 39:31 I'll put the sensors in there, I'd never even heard of those things. So I'll put those in the show notes. I'll try and find something if you can send me a link to them or something. Fionn 39:38 There's so many bits for Arduino. Yeah, I could give you like a list of things that are useful, but it really depends on the project and you can research it. And it's it's really like open source. There's like billions of things you can add to it, and marketing here. That's an open source platform. But what I also then had was a computer is kind of useful. Lot of books and notebooks I can scribble down I really like like a three really big things. Yes, I don't know why I like to have a really big overview. And then like a really big desk. So I got my dad built a desk all the way around my room. And then my bed was really high. And I was always covered in stuff. And yeah, bit of wiring, couple of LEDs. And then it's also really useful is things that you can build boxes out of select cardboard, and, and maybe a cutting knife and a scissors. So that kind of like mechanical building materials are also useful later, Lego, a lot of Lego, I'm a real I have boxes of Lego and Lego so useful because that's a good prototyping material. Yes, we're, I think Macondo is also quite useful in ways as well. And then in addition to all of that, yeah, laboratory glassware is not so important, you know, jam jars do the trick, as well. And, really, I think that it depends on what you're researching. But I think in essence, you will find the materials you will need by a research. And I think somebody to stay away from is you always see these kind of expensive kids with stuff to build with. And I think in almost every circumstance, you can build those pieces of equipment, whether it's a microscope or something on a really, really tight budget, and I think you will learn more, and it'll be more fun for you to do it that way than to just buy already made things. Podcast Host 41:29 Yeah, it's funny how students will say, Oh, I'm great at chemistry, or they're great at physics, but I say to them often, oh, how would people know that you're great at physics and chemistry is like, blow get great scores. Okay, that's interesting. How is your application of that? And how do you go about turning the scores into the science? Otherwise, it's really just memorization? Right? It's not really science. It's just the memorization of chemical equations. And you know, that kind of mathematical equations in physics? How do you think students should go about turning their knowledge into actual science? If they don't have a desk all the way around their room, for instance? Fionn 42:12 Well, actually, I don't. Currently, I'm living in my student accommodation. I also don't have a desk all the way around my room. Essential. Okay, good, good, good. Yeah, actually, there came a point when all of a sudden, now I love organizations, I like everything organized, but I still do a lot of invention. So great, it's fun. But I really feel that one has to look at what one is passionate about. And for me, at least, what I'm really passionate about is the environment and the place where I grew up and seeing that destroyed. And I think, in essence, looking at problems and finding solutions is almost always science based. And I think that if you really enjoy science, and if you're good at science, you can apply the concepts that you're learning at the school to those different things. So whether it's in biology, you're learning about the Krebs cycle, and and like Hollis as well, one can immediately look at how intricate that processes and and see the world around you, the environment around you and research it that way and like that learn in a different way. So for me, it's always kind of illustration based learning. So I think really, one has to look at what you are passionate about what you love doing. And I think from that science projects will come naturally to you. If you just do a bit of research and a bit of reading. Podcast Host 43:27 I think it's always fascinating as well, how students, you were probably what how old? Were you at the time when you started investigating? microplastics do you think 1617 microplastics was 16? round? Fionn 43:37 But I had other projects before then. Podcast Host 43:39 Right? So you've been doing projects for a while. I think it's always a barrier for students to get over is that mental switch of I'm a student, I can solve this type of thing. I think a lot of students look at a problem. And I know when I was at school, and still today, sometimes when I'm looking at problems, I say, Oh, well, I'm sure someone else is already working on it. What's the point type of thing? You know, I'm here in my bedroom clinking together beakers and that kind of thing? Am I really going to make a difference? And am I just wasting my time? So how did you approach it where you felt like you could have a solution to the problem? And I know that you were researching microplastics? And you didn't say anything particularly out there? Did you kind of think well, why then Could I have the solution to this problem. And you know, putting it on yourself to come up with a solution. Fionn 44:27 So I always was daunted by this, that it felt like it was really far to get to like the frontier and to the end of the field, like you need so much knowledge, so many years of study, like it was unattainable. That's not true. That's something I've learned since that, essentially, if you read a couple of papers about something, and if you spend a couple of months researching something, chances are you're going to be in the top of that field really, really quickly, because you're just looking at a very focused niche and you can get to the front very, very quickly of that. So I think we have the expertise and, and the at least the possibility of making an impact and through our innovations. And I really feel that after investigating and after that research phase, you will probably have fresher ideas because you haven't spent half a lifetime researching that, you will have completely new ideas, because you've very quickly got there. And you still have other thoughts in the background, you're not kind of trained to this one way television. So I think that perhaps one actually has an advantage. So don't feel like you are left out because you haven't done all this research. And because I really feel that it's very easy to get to the top of the field very quickly. And that can result in you coming up with very fresh and creative new ideas, and to combat or working on a problem. That's really good advice. Podcast Host 45:49 I think students should definitely take heed of that. And I always say to students, there is a distinct advantage to being young, you know, when you're contacting professors, people are like, Oh, how impressive like a, you know, 1516 year old kid like investigating this thing, which is usually university or professional level science, or I'll give them my time, right? There's a lot of advantages to being a student. And sometimes it is in just the way you think and approach problems. Where you're not. Yeah, we haven't been trained out of it, so to speak. Fionn 46:15 Yeah, I am feeling that now, actually, because yesterday was my birthday. Happy birthday, yesterday. Thank you for that, essentially, now I'm like, Oh, I'm 20. Like now I can't call myself a teenager anymore. Now, when I come across some like this young adult, it's kind of depressing, Podcast Host 46:32 right? Because for the last couple of years, they're like, Oh, this teenager is microplastics Fionn 46:36 oh well done you little child. And now all of a sudden, it's a different ballgame. So definitely make use of that advantage while you can. Podcast Host 46:46 Yes, yeah, exactly. And I think some of the students Yeah, just if anyone listening out there is thinking, Oh, I'm just a kid. That's a good thing. Right? Like, that's a that's a commodity, but you need to use, because that doesn't last forever, that's for sure. Fionn 46:59 Yeah, totally. And I think also that as a kid, you don't need to often worry that you know, how a job and how you need to work on money. And, and for me, really, the whole concept of investigating something felt so much easier, because I had the time, okay, he's going to school, but I, I had the time. And that's great. I still have the time I still study, just my studies are a little more intense. And now I just have the pleasure of being able to work on a lot of parallel projects. And that's really, really fun. Podcast Host 47:28 Awesome, awesome. Well, yeah. Talk us through about what you're doing. Now. You're in the Netherlands. Why did you choose to go to the Netherlands for uni? Yeah, so Fionn 47:34 I really looked at unis for chemistry, I like chemistry. And I wanted ones which are very research based, but also pretty good. So when I was looking around this, this was 2016. And I was majoring looking. And actually, a couple of years before a professor from this university at the University of Groningen, in Netherlands where I live, he won the Nobel Prize for chemistry. And his his whole concept is that universities are places for play. And we play with molds. And he's made a molecular machine. And he actually lectures first year is here. And that's really, really great that we just have this research based university, I also really wanted to go abroad, I thought it would be fun to go to a place where I can understand language, okay, I study in English. But you know, when I go to the supermarket, it will take me at the beginning, like an hour to find butter and things like that. Yeah. And that was really fun. And also immerse myself in a different culture, make a different friend group and just get out of my comfort zone. So that was great. What I also then found and worked on was just as I moved here, I went to Google Science Fair. So when I arrived at this university here, university newspaper decided to do like an article about me, and all the like information screens. In the first week here is a picture of me, and all the newspapers everywhere in university, the picture of me, and it was like, I was just making friends. And everybody like I'd be waiting in a lecture. And like everybody, like recognize their face. It was terrible. And actually, more recently, I got to be part of the HP commercial. So yeah, for HP, their commercial that's running in the US and EU. And the other day, we had lecture we've got in person lectures, again, we're showing a YouTube video. And it played this commercial, as like, as the ad for the YouTube video. Oh, terrible. So like, you see, like all the faces in the lecture hall turn towards you. That's hilarious. But then all of a sudden, a huge load of possibilities came out. So like giving keynotes to different audiences about my experiences, being able to go to the World Economic Forum, and in January, were some of the amazing things I did. And now I'm at a stage where I have so many connections from that, that I've been able to stay on my technology. And this week, I'm starting work with engineers who are going to make a product out of my idea. I and we're going to really look at how we can use the idea of To make your filtration device for my classics for water, then in parallel, I'm actually looking at perhaps writing a children's book in the near future, where I go through the process that I go through, but also like, it's a nice aspect where I can just sketch and, you know, play a little bit with it. Yes. And also I would really like to work on is a platform where I can put together some tools that I found for amateur scientists, and hopefully inspire others. But what I would also really like to do is to be able to educate and hopefully tell stories, not just about my research, but explain chemistry and other things. And what makes me so excited about it to other people. Yeah, well, I Podcast Host 50:43 think that's what helps you win the Google Science Fair, right? It's that enthusiasm, and I can feel it and everything you say, right, I can't believe we've gone like an hour. And we haven't even spoken about the fact you've got a planet named after you. Fionn 50:58 It's pretty crazy that we've been chatting all this time. And I think students will be very interested in that. So maybe, before I ask you one last question, I would ask you this second last question, which is how do you get a planet named after you? That actually came from Intel, International Science and Engineering fair? Okay, in 2018, where the MIT Lincoln Laboratory, select some projects that they think, have made a considerable contribution to science, and they give minor planets to them, or don't give them to us, but they named them after us. Yeah, minor planet, Fiona Ferreira, and 34497 is its number. And it's in the asteroid belt, just between Mars and Jupiter, actually quite close to Ceres at the moment, and six kilometers wide. And it's just really nice to be embodied there. And let's just hope that my planet doesn't crash into Earth anytime soon. Then in the information manual, they do say that they predict that it won't crash in the next 2000 years. And let's hope I'm gone by then. But hopefully, people will remember me if it does crash into earth. And if humans are still here. Podcast Host 52:01 Well, that's a lot of ifs. But yeah, let's just hope that it doesn't and stays out there and whatnot. And people can look upon it and be like, Oh, that's Fionn Ferreira, how did that happen? And what did he do, and they can look back and say he was trying to solve a really cool problem. Any other advice you would give to students and our listeners, before we depart? Fionn 52:19 And for your listeners, I would just really like to emphasize that it's so easy. If you are passionate about something to come up with ideas and to you those ideas will not seem like much at the beginning my one didn't either. But I just tried it out just for the sake of it, just like I did when I was a really young child. And by trying it out, I didn't just box it off, didn't just say didn't work. And that process of trying that made me discover something that I didn't expect. And that's what sciences. So I think never ever box off something. Never, ever take something for granted. Always try that if you possibly can. And I think that that is what embodies the spirit of investigation. And hopefully like that we can get a whole new generation of young people who are coming up with incredible ideas Podcast Host 53:10 for you. And it's been an absolute pleasure. It's been really great to hear that. Fionn 53:14 Yeah. And also for me, I always see these kind of things like I see something. And I think well that's kind of cool to work with. That's a kind of a cool tool. I don't know what I'll use it for yet, but I'm going to learn it like whether it be I know Excel because it's kind of cool. And maybe it'll come in useful later. And for me inevitably, all those things have always come in useful later. Podcast Host 53:36 Thank you so much for your time and it's been awesome chatting, and yeah, wishing you all the best for your time there in the Netherlands. I can't wait to see what you do next. Fionn 53:43 Thank you very much. Podcast Host 53:44 Awesome. Thanks, Fionn. Have a great day.

Ep #15 Winning Olympiad Medals and Life at Harvard with Ben Zhang

🗓 DEC 2, 2020

See transcript

Jamie Beaton: 0:00 Welcome, Ben. Ben Zhang: 0:51 Hey, Jamie. Jamie Beaton: 0:51 Now, Ben is a very humble guy. So to get us started to give you a sense of his really exciting achievements, he was a IBO, International Biology Olympiad gold medalist, an International Chemistry Olympiad bronze medalist, he came first across New Zealand in three A Levels, top of the country and chemistry physics, English Lit also scored top in the world and biology. Switching to NCAA, he was a premier scholar, not only in year 13, but actually also in year 12, which is very unique, and was top scholar in physics and chemistry, and is currently rocking it at Harvard, with an almost perfect GPA. So to kick things off for us, take us back to your childhood, your early upbringing, when did academics become a thing for you? And how did you kind of get the inclination, this could be something that you're pretty passionate about? Ben Zhang: 1:03 For me, academic really started kicking in I thi k, end of year 11, or like yea 10 actually, I should say, bec use we did things one year ahe d. So I was doing year 11 curri ulum in yet 10 but it was real y when I started doing the exte nal exams, like IGCSE and Camb idge exams that I really w s like, oh, I really got to l ke, study hard because these ar like actual exams that really m tter. Because before that poi t, I think the New Zealand ducation system does a really g od job of like, sort of coddling kids into thinking like, Oh you know, like, everythi g's fine. Like, we have these li e school projects. To be hones , I wasn't really sure like, wh t exactly, we were learning at many points, especial y in like Intermediate School a d primary school. So my whole ap roach to school has really j st been like very focused n like sports and other extracur icular activities and hanging ith my friends. So it wasn't r ally until when there's this loo ing sense of these grades a e going to matter that it reall started to kick in and honestly and like yeah, nine and even through yet 10. Like, I was, lik , I would say, like, in the top uadrant of the class, but neve really been too outstand ng in terms of academic . Um, yeah. Jamie Beaton: 2:19 That's my best reading. Because often students that do so well, at the back half of high school go pretty hard, quite early on even an intermediate and things like math and English, they can build these kind of good foundations. So what do you think enabled you to just kind of switch it on when it came to gear? 11? Do you think you already had some pretty solid fundamentals? But you weren't really pushing as hard as you did later on? or How did you kind of just switch it on like that when it came to game time in year? 11? Ben Zhang: 2:44 Yeah, I really liked the thing you mentioned about fundamentals. And I think that's really, really important. So why whole experience has been so I life with my grandparents. And my grandmother has always been a very staunch advocate of like, education and getting me ahead in my schoolwork. And in fact, she would often whenever she goes back to China, she would buy textbooks like intermediate high school textbooks from China, and then bring them back and then to demand like math and chemistry and biology. In fact, she was a chemical engineer in China. And she had like a lot of experience, tutoring like relatives, and other family friends chemistry, so she was already very well versed in like pedagogy and has like a really good approach and teaching things intuitively. And I think that's really helped me like, not just like, starting in high school, it really started when I was like five, or six, starting with math and Chinese and then slowly progressing into the sciences. So building that foundation of having like, really good studying habits from a really early age, where I think most people if they had just studied at school would just be like, you know, like when I was doing at school, which is just like playing around for eight hours a day, and then not really thinking too deeply about school. So I think I had that foundation, it wasn't just it was just like not translated. And this will work because like I said, up until that point, there was like a disconnect between the material that I was learning from Chinese textbooks and what I was learning in class, which is focused on like, I don't know, like the social sciences. And even in math, it was like, very, very fundamental concepts and problem solving, like the sort of method style questions that you see, which is really different from like, formalized mathematics courses, in like, pre algebra, pre calc and straight into calculus. So yeah, so that disconnect, sort of converges in year 11. When we do igcc in Cambridge, this really this alignment between like the different international standards, and that's when you really, that's when I really realized, Oh, I already have really strong fundamental knowledge of what's going on in school already. And I think that's what really allowed propelled me ahead in that sense. Jamie Beaton: 4:49 Wonderful. I think it's really insightful. That's fascinating, actually. One thing I see amongst many high achieving students is the parents are heavily engaged from a young age. Interesting that it was your grandmother To me was my mother. But there's often that that trait among students that are pushing pretty hard. So in terms of motivation on a spectrum, from, you know, extrinsic thinking about getting into top colleges trying to win awards like dux to intrinsic, where you just love the subject innately. How did you find your motivation over the years? So what initially motivated you? And you know, in say Year 11? How did that evolve by year 13? Did it change much? Walk me through kind of how motivation existed for you? Ben Zhang: 5:28 Yeah, I think growing up, obviously, the motivation primarily came from like, just wanting to impress my grandparents and my parents and wanting to like, make my parents proud. That's sort of like the fundamental drive of many kids and young adults. And I think over the years that sort of progressed into like, like, sort of like a self challenge, self motivation, it wasn't really ever about the glory, or the recognition, it was always about pushing myself to see what I can achieve. And I think that's what I find the most satisfaction working in. Because like, after starting college, and Harvard, there's a lot of wonderful people I, I'm sure, you know, and I think the really toxic culture of comparing yourself with others, which is also prevalent in New Zealand high schools as well, it's really not the way that you should be approaching your learning, I think the way that you should be approaching your learning is one out of like self motivation and wanting to improve on your own and comparing yourself to how you achieve and your potential versus what other people are able to achieve, right? Because everyone is starting off at different points, it doesn't make sense for you to compare yourself against someone else that has been like getting the fundamentals and doing extra work at home, versus someone who might have just stumbled into an organic chemistry class like I see now. So currently, I'm actually a teaching fellow for Harvard's introduction to organic chemistry class. And it's really interesting, because from the teacher perspective, you can immediately see the kinds of kids that already have a really strong background of everything, versus the kids have never seen this topic before. And the improvements that they make versus the often sometimes the kids that already know the material actually slipped behind because they don't prioritize doing the problems as much. So I think it's really a matter of finding that intrinsic motivation. And that's the most important thing, even after school, right? Even going into the workplace, you're not going to be able to chase the next achievement or whatever. Once you start working. Jamie Beaton: 7:31 I think it's very well said to kind of give you a bit of challenge on that. In high school, ultimately, there is a degree of relative competition where a school like Harvard is going to look at, you know, all of the kids that are a particular year group, and they're going to look at who is thriving relative to the normals of med school. And they're going to think about things like class rank. So when you are the highest achieving student, and you're kind of setting your own pace, so to speak, you know, you're the best runner in the race, you're running ahead, you know that that narrative makes a lot of sense. And I think it makes sense generally, but for the students who say sitting in school, and they, you know, say, doing well academically, but they're not the top student, they're thinking about, you know, how they can balance academics and other activities. You think they should be looking at their classmates to get a sense of how hard they're pushing to help get a sense for in their own life? How they should allocate time academically? Or do you think you should just not look at other students around you, period? I guess pragmatically, where do you sit on that kind of spectrum? Ben Zhang: 8:33 Yeah, I think I think it's helpful to look at where you are relatively often, because that tells you like, where your strengths and weaknesses are, right? I think comparing yourself is a really good tool of self diagnostic. And you shouldn't really be beating yourself up over a particular area. That is, in fact, just not something that you're interested in that like school prioritizes, right. Like I think New Zealand, high schools really, really prioritize the natural sciences, which is really, really interesting. Because that prioritization, I guess to a certain extent, I'm not too sure. But speaking to friends in America, there is also this prioritization, natural sciences, but less so I would say there's more emphasis on like, digital technologies, for example, economics, entrepreneurship, possibly due to the larger economy as a whole, but also just a different perspective. And I think in high school people, like oh, like, we're gonna do chemistry and biology and physics. Whereas when you reach college, a lot of people will be studying like economics or applied math. And I think this shift really represents that really represents something where you should be learning the skills of how to learn as opposed to the content of what you're learning if that makes sense. I think I went off on a tangent there um. Jamie Beaton: 9:49 That makes a lot of sense makes a lot of sense. And building on that point you made about this kind of different cultural expectation and New Zealand part of the US. I think that's particularly true of computer science and AI find it very funny. So in New Zealand, computer science is seen as a bit of a, you know, easy subject, not many really motivated kids take that as an A level, a lot of the time. But yet I look at all of our Crimson alumni who are, you know, gone to schools like Stanford, Harvard, other great schools around the world. Many of them go to work in tech and Silicon Valley, other parts of the US they work in finance doing quant trading firms like Citadel de shore, and they use computer science as one of the most popular skills in their toolkit. So what do you think about computer science? in particular? Do you think that's like a sort of chronic gap in New Zealand? Do you think it's just fine, people can self study it later on? What's your attitude towards kind of computer science education in high school? Ben Zhang: 10:42 Yeah, I think it's, it's really representative of the wider economy, right? Like, if you study computer science in New Zealand, your job prospects are a lot poorer than if you study computer science in the US. Well, obviously, if you leave New Zealand, I guess your job prospects are great. It's just that parents, schools, teachers don't really see what's possible when you study computer science. And it hasn't really taken off in New Zealand to a certain extent, right. Like, if you have kids that are like a lot of my friends grew up in Silicon Valley, their parents are like execs. They're gonna know the importance of studying CS studying math, math is another thing. I think New Zealand does have like a pretty strong math education program with like mathematics. And that excitement, but I think that's sort of wears off in the later parts of high school. And math is sort of de emphasized. But I'm going to hobbit I'm really surprised like how important math is in a lot of different, really high paying in demand careers, which is really interesting. At one point I considered studying maths just really shows how important is as a skill, whereas in high school, the sort of sentiment at least I and a lot of my friends had and we ridiculed a math teacher four is like, when the hell am I going to use these skills? When when am I gonna like, differentiate something? Right? Like, when am I gonna do this like obscure math concept. And the truth that's it's actually relevant in a lot more real world applications than what kids are made to think. And I think that perspective of like, who's doing well in high school, versus who's doing well, later on, there's also a large disconnect, because the brightest kids in New Zealand tend to go into like medicine, law or engineering, which is like, I guess the same story as America in the 1950s. Those were seen as the traditional upper middle class professional careers. Whereas nowadays, there's a lot more emphasis on like, the professional substance, like consulting, banking, as well as tech. So I think it's a wider shift that hasn't really hit New Zealand yet. I mean, it's slowly is it's slowly especial, but not to the same extent. Jamie Beaton: 12:45 I can totally relate to that when I was going through school, I really loved math, it was something that I put a lot of time into. And I just never saw it as a career pathway. So when I was 14, I thought I was thinking of medicine, you know, almost for sure, with a New Zealand because, you know, engineering didn't seem as interesting compared to say, medicine for me. And it wasn't until I came across economics, and I set a link about careers in America, like on Wall Street, that I thought, wow, actually being quite good at math can really be a big advantage. And I think it's fair to say that that is probably the most critical skill for many of these modern economy jobs, whether it be finance, tech consulting elsewhere, even entrepreneurship. So I think you're very right in the need for those fundamentals. Do you think that everybody, regardless of kind of career pathway should be getting to a decent level of math, and what level do you think is acceptable? Yeah, Ben Zhang: 13:33 I think basically, like college introduction, like when referencing the hobbit curriculum, then it's like 21, a 21. b, which is introduction to multivariable. calculus, and introduction to linear algebra, I think those once you have those fundamentals, it's pretty, you're pretty set. But being really good at those as well as knowing some probability. What helps statistics I think statistics is incredibly powerful. And understanding the world that we live in, and as has so many applications in business, as well as many other careers like even medicine, right? Like if you have an innate intuition for statistics, then you can much better assess how well you're doing as a physician, or like how well treatments are going without falling prey to a lot of the probabilistic fallacies and mis assumptions that you get. If you absolutely know nothing about statistics. Jamie Beaton: 14:23 I think back to classes like step 110, at Harvard, with Professor Blitzstein, and basically the funny examples, he gives us, you know, these very smart doctors who make big mistakes and vaccine probabilities, or, you know, type one, type two errors and stuff. So I think it's really interesting that even people that have risen to the top of their field, even in law, for example, without a basic grasp of statistics can really interpret a lot of evidence quite incorrectly. And so I think it's a very apt recommendation for people to learn statistics. So I guess we've kind of jumped into this and we talked a lot about you know, Harvard already and you know, this Halfway and some of the difference between New Zealand and America, but I guess the question exists, you know, when did you set your sights on going to America? What was the trigger that made you realize this was the pathway for you? And at what age did it become the goal? Ben Zhang: 15:14 I think, um, for me, it really crystallized my desire to go to America after doing the international chemistry Olympiad. And yet well, I think that was a really formative experience in several ways. The first of which is I got to meet so many different people from around the world, with so many different experiences and thoughts and insights that I just didn't get back home in New Zealand with my friends, like I love my friends back home, but it's just really different. And I think I wanted to be in an environment where I'm constantly challenged by other people's experiences. And I'm constantly learning new things and being made a little bit uncomfortable, because I think I am someone who don't really like change, but I really do thrive in a changing environment. So I think it's just this desire to put myself in a place where I'm going to grow a lot as a person. And I think I grew a lot. As a person, I also think everyone should move away if they could, and they have the means to for university or college. Because you really do learn a lot about growing up and living on your own and forming friendships and relationships with people and a adult way that's removed from like the sort of friendships that you've had in high school. So there was that. And then second of all, OSHA, seeing the caliber of students from around the world and seeing what's possible, as well as hearing about the students in America about the experiences that that they've had doing research, working with world class professors, and research institutions on some of the coolest science projects in the world has just been enlightening. Jamie Beaton: 16:58 I think this idea of being exposed to the world stage, and what it means for your ambition is so crucial. I think, there are many people around the world who just simply don't know people in these environments, and so don't know how just how high they can aim. So, for example, as recently, you know, you've also been working on this as well, we've been trying to build this Crimson Global Academy. And one of the foundational principles here is that, you know, if you're in a school that's totally global, I think this consumer in 20 countries now, early on in your life, you're going to be exposed to ambitions from many different countries, you're going to hear about all kinds of different career ambitions, and you're not going to think about your home country as your kind of opportunity set. So I think the earlier we can sort of systematize, you know, the act of say, a 13 year old to meeting smart minds for America, or China or Russia or other countries, the better for that ambition. And I think it's also really good for cultural understanding as well, you know, I think it's hard to imagine huge amounts of racism would exist in a world in which very young age, you're exposed to people from all different, you know, ethnic backgrounds, and you grew up with these people. And I think that's very radically different to the world of, say, our parents or our grandparents, who typically, you know, grew up in one country lived in that country, there's a lot of homogenous communities around them, etc. So I think the sort of magic of these high achieving global competitions is that they often do elevate ambition, in quite a big way. So I guess, let's look deeper into the Ico, you know, you didn't just participate in the Ico, you know, you got onto the international stage, you know, winning a bronze medal, which is, you know, very difficult to achieve. And you did it from New Zealand as well. So, how did you train for the Ico? You know, what were the tactics you used? How much time did it take kind of walk me through what it actually takes to get a medal on one of these Olympiad competitions? Ben Zhang: 18:39 Yeah, that's, that's a great question. And it's, it's really a long process. Well, usually students start I would say, in year 12, because that first entrance exam in the September before the competition, the following year is going to be on Yeah, 12 material. So because I was a class, doing the accelerant program, I was one year ahead. So I actually did it in year 11, because I had already done the material already. So there's a first round exam in September, and then you get selected for the training group. And over a summer break, like December, January, they'll send you like, a booklet with extra problems, extra theory for you to study on your own. I think now, they also have a more formalized training program with like problems online on like education, perfect for you to walk through yourself just to keep yourself accountable. So you do that. And then in March, you're going to have well, February or March, you're going to have a camp selection exam. And in that exam, that's basically administered at school and you do it and that's testing both the material that you would have learned in school unlike yet 12 chemistry, as well as this new material, that's often just Yes, chain chemistry that they've sent you as well as any other relevant concepts. And then after that, Around a group of 20, people will be like the national finalists, and you'll attend a residential training camp, often over Easter break. So in April, they'll bring you to Auckland, you'll love in one of the partner schools that they've got set up for about, I would say, like five days, five, six days. And then each day is structured like lectures in the morning labs in the afternoon, you'll learn a lot of the lab techniques to make equitable. If you haven't seen a lot of the lab techniques at school, they'll teach you all the lab techniques. And then the final two days, you'll have a four hour practical examination. And then the following day, you'll have like a theory examination. And out of those, the top four students will be selected to represent New Zealand at the international competition. And I guess, July, and from there, your travel to all of the wonderful countries that are hosting this competition. So in my year was held in Georgia, which was an amazing experience. And then in the actual international Olympiad itself, you also sort of have the first few days of just settling in they have a lot of social events, so you know, mingle with the other competitors from different countries, you're encouraged to like, exchange gifts, and tell stories about where you're from. There's also a lot of traveling and a lot of excursions to like the local side. So you do get to see a lot of the city and a lot of the country itself, because Georgia is not a big country, you can essentially drive everywhere. So we got to see a lot of the old churches from like the early turn of the millennium. And that was really fascinating and fun. And then finally, you'll have a full day, essentially, six hours of theory, and then the practical examination, which is like doing lab experiments. And then the following day, you'll have like eight hours of very examination. So it's a really grueling process, if you think about it, but I'm definitely really worthwhile. A lot of it has to do with intrinsic motivation, that's the thing that we keep coming back to, because this is something that's like, you're not going to get a grade for, right. It's not something that you're doing in school, where you're doing it with a lot of other friends. So you might have friends that are also studying for the same exam. So I was fortunate enough to have a friend in my class who also made the New Zealand team. So we were sort of studying together the whole time. But other than that, it's really a very isolating process, you do a lot of really, really difficult chemistry questions like chemistry problems that as me as a third year in university, I still haven't like studied the full range in university. Yeah, so it's really like a bringing you up to speed in the world of chemistry. And you're sort of expected to learn that really quickly. And a lot of the times, the teachers and mentors don't even know the problems, and you sort of have to go online and try and find the necessary resources, often in Russian about how to solve these particular chemistry problem. It's a really fun experience in that sense of that you're learning a lot independently. But with that also comes the need for you to be really self motivated and really wanting to do well. And this, I would say the preparation itself, it's like, you just have to chip away at it, it's not something that you could study the night before, there's just way too much material. And it's just really, really difficult. And there's a lot of critical thinking involved. Oftentimes, it's you'll get the theory, and then they'll figure some really convoluted spin on it, that will be impossible to do unless you just know the inside out of the theory and apply it. Jamie Beaton: 23:21 And I guess one thing that jumps out to me is if you think about, you know, people that compete at, say, the Olympics, board, they often begin these sports very edge trainer for a very long time. And they go and compete. You know, in this case, you described how you kind of hopped into this, you know, incredibly competitive initiative, basically in year 12. And so my question for you is, if you were to go back and you know, you were to train somebody whose goal was sit on, you know, an ICL, gold medal or something, do you recommend they start many years younger? Do you think they should be gone through this process, when they're like 1314, they've got many more years to mask the content, because it just seems like an incredible rush to get through all these complicated concepts to be not only learning new content, but also trying to apply it to these difficult theoretical problems. So do you think that you know that that would be kind of how you would you know, optimally prepare? Ben Zhang: 24:08 I have some thoughts on this, because I think this is what math does, at least in New Zealand, and also overseas. So in the math Olympiad, you often have a kid come in, who's really good at math, who had really, really brilliant math preparation, and Intermediate School and start up high school. And because the international math Olympiad never covers calculus, it's always precalculus and number theory, set theory etc. You have these Yeah, nine kids that basically can come in and represent New Zealand at the math Olympiad. And I think that's good and well, and that's usually the case because math is such a difficult when you get to the theoretical levels of it, it's like very difficult to grasp, unless you just have some sort of intuition that's either brought up at a really young age, or you just study the heck out of it. I think with chemistry, it's a little bit different and that the concepts of there and there's a lot of rules and that's just being able to under Stand the fundamental concepts in a way, that's really well, and oftentimes kids don't start learning chemistry until yet. 10 1112. Anyway, so that's the barrier there. I think if you started learning chemistry early at my help, but the thing is that it also requires just general science intuition, right? It's not like math intuition, which sort of is like, abstract and doesn't build on itself, chemistry, intuition sort of builds on your understanding of the natural sciences sort of builds on physics, and a lot of math as well. So you're going to need that math. So a lot of the chemistry problems that we do in the end ends up being math problems, while just like more simple math problems. So having that foundation is also really important. And I think, because of the, the cumulative nature of it, it's going to be harder to do at a super early age. But I do think that if you prepare well for it, it's really important. It's also about like, knowing the right resources, because we officially get preparation from like New Zealand chemistry, Olympiad trust, but the materials that we get as often like, not as complete or not as comprehensive as kids in other countries get all like, they just know a heck of a lot more like, for example, organic chemistry. And that's just the nature of the curriculum, like they're told to just read this textbook. And that textbook is often like what I'm doing now in college, like introduction to organic chemistry, at the college level. So being able to know a lot of these more advanced concepts that they don't cover in high school in New Zealand, and what the New Zealand Olympiad committee has decided, it's like, it's just not worth its time, would would really just be the way to do it. And I think the other caveat of studying too early is that you will learn the material really well. But you have to try and hit your peak knowledge and lessons for Olympic athletes as well, right, you want to hit your peak fitness, add around competition time, you don't want to train really, really hard, and then be at a level where you're like, Okay, I'm happy. And then you can't maintain that level. So I think I kind of, that's what happened to me in the international chemistry Olympiad is that like, I sort of really, really gone hard for the selection exam, and I was really, really prepared. And then in the month afterwards, I really grinded away on the problems to the extent that I finished a lot of the preparation, about a month or two out from the competition. And then I sort of just tried to keep going, but there wasn't really more questions to do. So I wasn't training like the same mental muscles, as well. And then when the competition actually came, and I look back through some of the problems, I realized that like, I sort of couldn't do them will kind of remember some of the things that I easily could remember before. So it's about finding the balance between like the right timing, and the right preparation. Jamie Beaton: 27:48 Very well said, very thoughtful. Okay, now dig into this. One thing about the Ico both the final round, and the selection that existed within New Zealand you described is that you go on these kind of, you know, week long, multi day long type activities, and, you know, there's social time, there's dinner time, etc. Now, when I'm approaching something that's quite high stakes, for me, I'm often super focused on on bed, so you know, whether it be the exam or you know, key interview, often I won't, you know, eat the morning a fair assessment, to keep me even sharper. And, you know, I'm really not so pumped about any kind of like socializing or anything that will distract me from ultimately the high stakes, you know, mission, I have a hit. So what's your attitude? When you go to these kind of environments? Can you sort of, you know, socialize in a chill way? No, you've got an exam tomorrow? Or do you get yourself quite wound up into quite a high performance mindset? How do you kind of sit on that spectrum? Ben Zhang: 28:46 Yeah, I think I'm really a mixture of both, I think and then ucln selection camp, I really was sort of like anti social kept to myself just studied the whole time. And like, in the end at work, but it wasn't, it didn't make the candle pleasant experience. And I think, learning from that I made the international experience, I really focused on like connecting with other people, there were still people at the international competition, who just like didn't want to talk to anyone, they really just wanted to go back to their rooms and study, you know, they were bringing the books with them on excursions to like the different tourist places, and they were reading as they were going. And I think that's the two different approaches. I don't think necessarily last minute studying will help much. It's more about, like you said, getting into the right mindset. And I guess everyone has different ways of doing that. And I think my way is really just trying to relax and getting on top of my emotions for something important or high stakes. And sometimes that's like, hanging out with other people and like relaxing. I think I want to read a guide that a few x McLean's people have made of the chemistry Olympiad. And the final one was like, you know, before the final camp selection exams, opponents like relax, have fun. And this person was like, you know, I always play my friend and at game of table tennis, and I beat him that morning before the exam. So I was feeling pretty good before the exam going in. So I think I always take that as an inspiration. Jamie Beaton: 30:13 I like it, you kind of do your preparation, get into high intensity state and sort of relax right before and kind of put those butterflies at ease as you get into that game state. That makes a lot of sense. Okay. Now, we talked a lot about the chemistry Olympiad. Let's switch gears now to the international biology Olympiad. One thing I should say is it's quite rare. And I see you know, many of the world's smartest kids from many different countries who are really offering the top of their game. But it's rare to see you know, one person really succeed in two different Olympiads and two consecutive years. And I think the reason for this is that often the level of mastery you need in one domain is so high that you just can't specialize in two different Olympians. So I guess first question, and why did you decide to go off for the biology Olympiad? And and sort of have have both Islam kids versus focusing on one? And I guess what was it about your preparation or your mindset that let you kind of, you know, 60 to not just one but both is Olympiads. Ben Zhang: 31:08 Yeah, I think the real reason why I did the Biology Olympiad is quite, it's quite funny, because the Chemistry Olympiad told me that I couldn't compete again, because I'd won a medal. And that was just the policy of the New Zealand Chemical Olympiad Trust. And I was like, okay, that's fine. I guess I'll find something else to do. And at the same time, I was looking into summer, Northern Hemisphere summer opportunities, like the London International Youth Science Forum, which I also ended up doing right off the Biology Olympiad, fortunately. But I think it was really like my parents, like, oh, like you're interested in medicine, and like biology is great, and you're taking biology, like, there's this biology olympiad, you should, like, look into it. And like see, I was like, at that point, I was like, okay, whatever. Like, let's, let's have a go through this exam. And I think I did the first round exam, I must say, I did not do that. Well, in the first round I got in, but the exam was not to fly. And then afterwards, it was more of like, just studying the material which again, like chemistry Olympiad, you got you have the summer to study the material, they send you a textbook, and essentially had the mantra is just memorize the textbook, which was really interesting. Because like before, then I have haven't really had a lot of experience in formal biology, education. And I think biology is different in that. This there's a real disconnect between high school biology, education, biology, education and college because the and even the field as a whole now that I'm at a place where I see research being carried out. It's really going from memorization, qualitative description, gross anatomy into the more quantitative analytical problem solving, the shift, and the great up biology Olympiad, the style of questions as well, you'll see, you'll see like, if you look at problems from 10 years ago, it's like, name this one like structure in the kidney. And then now it's like, has a graph from a scientific paper about renal function and answer these three questions about the features of the study. And I think that's really just representative of where biology is moving. And I think I found that really, really interesting. I have really more interested in thinking and problem solving, doing all that as opposed to just rote memorization, which apparently New Zealand has a really nice add that New Zealand kids like we can't really compare to like kids from like China or the US in like rote medical, like the Russians and rote memorization. But apparently, New Zealand does quite well in the international biology olympiads, because we have kids that based on our education system was really, really good at critical thinking good at analyzing data good at interpreting new things. So that's the nature of that. And I think because there was such an emphasis on interpretation and problem solving, as opposed to just content like math, or chemistry or physics laws, I think I was able to do quite well just because I had a really solid foundation and like problem solving, that had a really strong work ethic and be able to do the problems and getting their basic level of foundation down. But after getting that basic level foundation down, it was more just like really critical thinking. Jamie Beaton: 34:19 Well said and what will be some of the key differences in preparation process for ICS IBO so if you're a student sitting here in high school, you're 15 years old, thinking about which of these two areas to go down? How would you to determine kind of what fork in the road to choose? Which Olympiads right for who? Any thoughts on that one? Ben Zhang: 34:36 Yeah, it really comes down to personal preference because both of these things will require you to spend a lot of time and a lot of energy just doing one particular thing or in one particular area. So you really want to make sure you you do enjoy doing it or else it will be an absolute drag. As you can imagine, like if you just are doing something that you're not enjoying, it's just not going to be worth the time no matter what Going to achieve. So I think really finding like, what you enjoy out of the content isn't like the satisfaction of solving a particular problem has a little aside, I remember while studying, this is for the International Olympiad, they, each year they publish like a set of practice problems to all the contestants internationally, to get them prepared for the type of questions that you'll see on the international competition. And there was just this one really, really, really, really difficult question that I just couldn't understand. And like the, the tutors in New Zealand couldn't understand either my friends, my teachers school couldn't understand. I was just sitting there thinking I couldn't do it. It was like the late afternoon, I just had lunch, I was sleepy. So I just like sat back in my chair and basically had a nap. And when I woke up from the nap, like, for some reason, it just all came clear to me and I just solved it in like five minutes. I was like, Wow, it was a very interesting formative, whatever you want to call it experience. I think that's what's really makes it enjoyable, which is being able to solve these problems that just seems so impossible and so, but like sometimes the solutions actually really like beautiful and delicate. Jamie Beaton: 36:08 I love that that brain blast, that inspiration, that's good. And I guess that speaks to kind of being in that headphone mindset as well. You know, it took some time off you you were sitting on that couch relaxing there, bam, hit you. So let's transition now we've spoken a lot about kind of how you master these two really pretty high stakes Olympiads and really thrived in both of them. And I guess the alchemy really stands out about your academic record in high school is, you know, you're able to get into a premier scholarship not once but twice, you're able to top the country. And you know, basically all your core subjects Kim physics bio English Lit. So I want to take a bit of a deep dive into some of the tactics you would give a student around consistency and exams, you know, what are some of the classic things you do to make sure that you know, morning, afternoon, Monday, Wednesday, Friday,you know, back to back, whatever you're on your game? And what is it about your mindset, your preparation, walk me through how Ben Zang prepares for these exams? Ben Zhang: 37:03 Yeah, I think the most important thing, right, like superstitions aside, whatever, I have a bunch but like how well they work. I'm a skeptic. I don't believe in any of that. But I still do it. I think the most important thing is just being really well prepared, right, like with the good thing about Cambridge. So the thing that I love about Cambridge is you can find paseos online, you can ask your teachers will pass papers, they have access to like unstarted past papers. And that's the most important thing. Because these exams, they're really designed to test the key learning criterias in the syllabus, and there's only so many ways that they can do it. So when you do these papers, you're going to reach a point where you have seen essentially every single iteration of a problem that they can give you and in the office that they throw a wrench into, chances are you're going to be better prepared anyways than the rest of the people at handling this wrench. So I remember in my Yeah, a letter. And so I was doing as physics. And it was just a really, really difficult answer because it's short answer paper. And like, people were struggling, and I thought I struggled. But it turns out that because I had done essentially every single paper in the past 10 years, I was able to do quite well and actually surprised myself by getting top in New Zealand that year. Like I was like, What is going on? I thought I did awfully, but apparently, that's still better than what other people did. So really, if you have the preparation in place, you shouldn't be nervous at all. Because even if you see something that you've never seen before, chances are, you already know how to solve the problems. And I think a lot of the times people really just go into these exams, they underprepared. They haven't done all the available revision material to them, given to them. And then they're struggling. And they wondering, Okay, what else could I have done? And the answer is, you probably should have just revised more and came up with a better revision schedule where you're spacing out past papers, as you go. The same goes for scholarship exam scholarship, also released like the past seven years or something ridiculous like that, for each exam, so you have access to just so many problems. They have like a textbook with even more problems, or like stuff that you could study. So there really is no excuse to not study the material that you're given, obviously, if you have like five exams, and you're gonna have to prioritize on the exams that are coming up, or the old subjects that you're less familiar with. But other than that, I think revision is really the most important thing. But I will say with one caveat, it's like you shouldn't be doing pass papers. If you do not have mastery of the material, right? Like if you're doing pass it around, you don't buy like 50% of the problems, then that's just wasting your time and you could better spend that time first learning the material and once you've actually learned how to solve these types of problems like know the material itself, then you move on to pots and pans. And also a lot of the times you can learn theory as you go but like that might not be the most helpful thing for everyone but yeah. Jamie Beaton: 40:00 I guess the other thing that I would say here is because you studied so rigorously for chemistry and biology Olympiad, your base of content is going to be so high that there's probably a lot of synergies we're getting across these different fields. So, you know, your, your deep expertise in chemistry is naturally going to help you nail the scholarship exam. I found, for example, in my case, you know, one of my strings is English literature. So, because I put a lot of time into English literature, I could do English language thinking skills, General paper business, that is economics, like, you know, things like Media Studies and geography, because it all use the same core set of skills. So I think the other thing that probably helped you here is just that muscle memory built in the natural sciences. It's just really giving you this kind of edge across all the different exam formats, even though scholarship and a levels, you know, testing some different concepts sometimes. Ben Zhang: 40:43 Yeah, exactly. Well said. Jamie Beaton: 40:45 Okay. Now, to dig into this a bit deeper. Every year, I think it's true that most kids don't do the preparation required to get through all the past exams. And so that's a really good point, I think super accurate for most people, that's just something that they need to do. But at the highest level of competition, right? Like take the top five kids that McLean's, the top couple of kids at King's, etc. And these are New Zealand schools, for reference, you know, everyone will probably have done all the past papers. So at that point, what do you think differentiates you know, different students? You know, what, differentiate sort of the 93% in A Level physics from a 97? Or 98, for example? And what is it that kind of gets you over the line? Ben Zhang: 41:21 that's a that's a great question. Honestly, if I know the answer, I would start my own tutoring agency, right. Like, it's like it's, it's, it's a, if you think about it, it might be a statistics problem. Once you reach the edge of the curve, like you have some certain percentage of getting a certain grade, and you can study and it'll narrow the range of possible grades that you'll get. But you can never do anything with certainty right, I guess. Other than the general exam advice of like, check your answers as you go, like, like find different ways of like, seeing if you have right like really sanity checking your answers like, do your answers make sense? Are you solving for the mass of a person and you get like 500 kilograms, right, like stuff like that, and stuff like that, I would say, like, at the very top, you're sort of getting kids who are really, really similar, and that grade distributions are honestly probably due to chance. And this is something that we see in like interviews, and like when you're accepting people for different clubs, because I'm on like, the Board of a few different clubs. And we'll interview people. And we're like, there is no useful way of being able to differentiate these top candidates. But we're going to have to make some arbitrary selection. I think that's what I'm saying one person has the absolute top mock, essentially does. So it really, I think at the top, there is no way of knowing that you're going to get the tama guy very surprised that I was able to get a top mock now that i think i think they actually, I'm not sure if this is true, this could be has to be me sparing heresy, but, um, say actually, we'll go back and look at the papers of kids who get like at the very, very top and look at the quality of your answers, as opposed to just the absolute pure grade, even in the natural sciences. Not sure how true that is. That could be the case. I'm not sure. Yeah. Jamie Beaton: 43:18 Interesting. Interesting. Okay. The other thing that jumped out to me about your exam results was your English literature performance. Because, you know, obviously, you're a master of Natural Sciences, but you also topped the country in English Lit, which is, you know, really quite impressive, because it's rare to see somebody that's strong in STEM and also humanities, generally speaking. So if you compare your preparation for these natural sciences, how would you go about preparing for English Lit? And is this something you're consistently good at? You think you had a really good exam, you're naturally strong in that area, as well kind of walk me through where that performance in English literature came from? Ben Zhang: 43:52 I think, yeah, the results in English, English literature, is really due to classic overcompensation. Like I was really bad at English, through intermediate and early High School. And that was an area that I really, really dedicated a lot of time studying. In fact, there was at one point, I think I was studying like more in English and reading the text and annotating and really understanding what's going on more than like, I was studying the science, it's just because like, that was the area that I knew I was the weakest that it's getting to a point where like, in English literature, you have like your set text, right? Like I could essentially just pull quotes out of my brain, I can, if you give me a quote that I would know exactly where it is, because I've read the book, like three or four times and I have everything annotated based on themes and whatever. So I'm like, like during orchestra practice, like whenever I have some spare time, I'll like whip out my book or whip out my pen, and I'll start like annotating good notes. And really, it just comes down to practice. And it's sort of practice that I've led up a little over college, which I really need to get back into. It's just being able to write because the thing about writing is if you don't practice it, if you don't write it your writing would just deteriorate really, really quickly scary quickly. So I was essentially writing practice essays, practice paragraphs planning essays, like I was writing like a practice paragraph a week, and I was getting my English teacher to grade it, just sort of like turning up to the class and be like, Hey, I wrote a practice out, I can give you some feedback on this. And I was doing that, like the exam is in like December, I was starting to write practice paragraphs in like, May, April, right, and it just carries through until the end of the year. So it's really a long process of like, wanting to get master of English, I also found it really fascinating. I do love reading. And I do love the themes that we discuss in these texts. It's just something that doesn't really come as natural to me as the sciences. Jamie Beaton: 45:46 Now hearing you speak about this kind of intensive preparation, you know, study in May for exams coming up at the end of the year, for example. First of all, I think I think back to this classmate of mine from Harvard called Jason Dong. He was at Westlake in New Zealand, he was the highest achieving student there. And he won a scholarship to go to UWC, I think world college somewhere for his last two years scoring an almost perfect IB score. And I remember him telling me about his approach to Cambridge exams, because he's got a number of top in New Zealand awards, I think, at IG level. And he had basically already been through the whole course, by the time school actually even started in February, right. So he literally was sitting in class, and he'd already seen it all, it was just all revision for him. And when I first heard that, I was pretty mind blown, because I like to think of myself back then as a pretty intense academic student. But the idea of kind of getting through content a year in advance was, you know, was pretty intense. But I guess what I see consistently is, if you plot a graph of academic achievement, and then work ethic, at least some high school, it's almost all the case that the kids that have the highest shading within any school or country are often those who are also putting in the hardest work, you know, the idea that there's this, you know, super genius kid who just rolls into exams and bangs out perfect scores, you know, it's just a bit of a mess. So, to what extent do you think you know, the highest performance in high school academics? is, you know, really a function of hard work? Or do you think there a lot of other variables like genetics or, you know, other factors that come into this, like your parents background? Well, how would you decompose kind of high achievement if it was like a regression equation, for example? Ben Zhang: 47:19 Yeah, I think it's really yeah, the most important, if you look at the factors that influence that the most important is for sure, hard work. And I would say like with that, you have to be in an environment where you're able to spend time doing this hard work, right? Like, we talk a lot about equity and education. And some of the times like, you might be in a situation where like, you have to hold a part time job, you have to look after your siblings, you have to like, do housework, and you're not in an environment where you can have access to this hard work. And I think that's also really important. And that's why we talk a lot about giving kids equal education opportunities, and really increasing the quality of education, because like, if you are able to give everyone at least the opportunity to do their best work, then I think everyone will be able to do what they're really good at. Right? Like they're gonna be able to do something that they're proud of, and an area that they're really interested in. And I mean, I don't think we're there yet, obviously, with all the inequality that we have. And it really comes down to a function of like, hard work, but also access. And I think if we have those two, then really, kids will be able to perform at a really high level. Jamie Beaton: 48:36 Very true, very true. Okay, now, let's move a little bit to kind of college decisions, you know, coming out of high school with all these different, you know, wonderful accolades, you know, you're going to be a very competitive candidate for you know, the world's top schools, MIT loves Olympiad medalists who tick these boxes, you know, Stanford, loves to see people that are kind of pushing the intellectual vitality, ie. taking things outside of school. And then Harvard loves to see just consistent execution, you know, dux every year, premier scholar early, you know, national level accolades and academics, as you're really taking a lot of these different boxes. So why did you ultimately choose Harvard, particularly given your natural science focus? What was it about that particular school that resonated with you? You know, would you make the same choice again, how do you think about that? Ben Zhang: 49:21 Yeah, I mean, I think I didn't put that much thought into I didn't really like, analyze too much into it. Harvard's obviously an amazing school. I think, talking to people from the US and talking to people from McLean's who've gone there. I learned about like the wonderful research opportunities, not to say that there's a lot of wonderful research opportunities everywhere, and different schools, I think it really comes down to just I want it to be somewhere really far from home just to be in a completely different environment. And Boston is sort of like a really old town. It's like red brick, I'm sure you'll know. It's really really different from us in every single sense. The winters are cold and there's a lot of snow it's just very northeast us and bringing in guys yeah, it was like that like a few weeks ago the lease was still four colors I had like a few photoshoots my friends it was lovely and I think that's really what sort of cemented my decision is just essentially like the strength of the school the strength of its research on the sort of people that I would get exposed to as well as I think financial aid is like a big factor like hobbies essentially can bank anyone attending which is nice and also the Northeast environment. I think it was it was it's obviously like kind of tough because it gets really cold and really dark in the winter time but ultimately I'm grateful for the people that I've met and the experiences that I've had. Jamie Beaton: 50:47 Well said, and wondering Harvard Square you know after the 2am problem situations and stuff. What are some of the favorite spots you like to go on campus? I definitely love Pinocchio's for example, Philippe's as though some of the, you know, Insomnia Cookies. Also that was that that was a classic. What are some of your go to spots on Harvard Square food? Ben Zhang: 51:04 Yeah, yeah, I know, Pinocchio's definitely, I think tasty burger. Jamie Beaton: 51:10 Still open to 4am is it? Ben Zhang: 51:12 Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's it's one of the only places that like cuz I'm not too big of a fan of like Mexican food. So like Philippe's phase. didn't really have that much of it to to me. So like tasty, but it was really like when my friends and I would go, we would reward ourselves after like, a satisfying piece that session. So yeah, they recently opened up a kung fu tea in the square. That opens pretty late as well. Wow, that's cool. Yeah, back when Jamie Beaton: 51:37 I was there, basically, there was tasty burger up into for him. And then I hop as well, which was, which is like an American International House of Pancakes place. And so I hope we'd go if we were really desperate, but generally tasty. Was the was the winner? Yeah, very good spots around them. Okay. And, um, I guess one of my last kind of questions for you been a lot of students, I see they go hard in high school, they get into the dream colleges. Anyway, when they get to college, they take the foot off the gas a little bit, because they've already sort of, you know, achieved a big milestone for them. And they no longer feel the same kind of burning impetus to keep keep driving. But if I think about what you've been able to do at Harvard, you know, you're working for the broad Research Institute, you've got an almost perfect GPA in the natural sciences, I guess, what keeps you going? And particularly how have you maintained that academic GPA? And how do you balance difficult classes with, you know, classes that you can sit down? And for example, walk me through some of your psychology and decision making at Harvard? Ben Zhang: 52:33 I would say it's that inconsistent had best my doesn't make so yeah, is that a lot of like back and forth deciding what I want to do? And who I want to be in that kind of question as you would going through like a big transition in your life? I think, my approach freshmen, yes, I did a really, really difficult intro life science, computational biology, it's like this comprehensive course called lsst. And it actually took up two class slots, and you do it for the whole year. So that's sort of like four courses, essentially gone your whole year. And so that was really intense, but also really rewarding. And I met some of the people that I'm closest with on campuses across some very grateful for that. But I think I also have learnt about my own limits, like in my family, obviously was doing was really difficult class, I was doing x files, which is Jamie Beaton: 53:21 Expositry Writing, that's painful. Ben Zhang: 53:23 I did not enjoy, I was also in a really, really difficult section talking. So I'm a PATH now, which is paired advising fellow and fellow which is what Harvard does. It's like a program where upperclassmen students will mentor the first year students, and speaking to some of my pet fees for first year doing xlarge. Like, it's just such a wide range of expository writing experiences, and I definitely got the short end of the stick with mine. My preceptor was really, really mean writer, and he would leave like really harsh comments on like, objectively Alright, writing and, um, and it was just very painful my first year adjusting for that. And as well as taking like two writing courses. There's a lot of papers, a lot of like, 3am writing sessions. And I think that really burnt me out a lot at the start of the first and so I think I really had to learn about how much I was able to handle my plagues. I was also doing like a whole suite of extracurricular activities that took up a lot of my time. And I think at the end of the day, with, with our DOS, people taking their foot off the gas, I think people's priorities change, and I think that's fundamentally okay. I don't think anyone ever will fault themselves or for other people for like, letting themselves relax in college. And I think that's along with the sentiment that you see, like you still have. It's almost this sort of sentiment where like, if you're still really really cutthroat and hotter in college, then it's just it's just not a great time because you're at a stage where you really should be working for something that you enjoy and you should be working for like specific goals right like if you want to work in like investment banking or consulting Yes, you go hard for those positions, but you should also know what you actually enjoy. And really value, like a whole suite of other things that make you who you are, as opposed to just keep doing things for the sake of doing things I I personally know, people who are like that, who are still just doing things really, really aggressively, and I don't see them at all, and they look miserable. And I'm really glad that I am not one of those people. So I think that there definitely needs to be a balance, especially when you're in an environment like this, where you have so many options to overwork yourself, is to realize that you don't have to, which is really valuable. And I think I do that, and balancing my classes like I do do like really difficult classes. But I think in choosing my concentration or major, I really made the decision of doing something that gives me the most flexibility, and really reduces the amount of required courses that I have to take. So I do have that flexibility to be like, Oh, I want to challenge myself with a difficult class or Oh, I just want to cruise and take some like more chilled requirements, for example. And I think finding that balance has been really helpful. And it's really helped my mental health a lot as well. Jamie Beaton: 56:05 Yeah, well said, when I was at Harvard, I really was... Ben Zhang: 56:09 Were you one of the hard ones Jamie? Jamie Beaton: 56:11 I think what you said earlier about how at college, you define what really motivates you and find that path you really care about, that really hit me pretty early on. So I wasn't kind of chasing like the four oh, GPA, you know, just taking easy classes to get a high, you know, high grade, I would probably say I have a slightly more respect for that approach. In that, I kind of get it why some people do this, like if they want to work in banking, if they just, you know, nail, the high GPA, you know, will open a lot of doors, if they want to get to law school, the game rewards a high GPA. So I understand why people do this. And I definitely don't hate it. But my approach was very much to have a GPA target in mind, and then take really challenging classes that I enjoyed that challenge me, but also mix in some other ones that you know, were a bit easier. So some of my favorite classes were things like, you know, negotiation, things like business in China ethical reasoning, I even took like a global health secondary, which was just, you know, a piece of interest. So I would definitely say I found that balance. And I was putting a lot of time to finance like, you know, stock stock investing for a firm called tiger. And then I was closest board and crimson. So I think I found my priorities, fortunately, pretty early on in college, and I really was quite dedicated to them. So I cut out a lot of random extracurriculars and focused on on a handful. And I think broadly, the point that I'd make is, in high school, kind of the objective function, or the goal you're optimizing for is a lot more clear, you kind of need to know your academics get your good score, you know, work out, you know, you're really interesting extracurriculars. But basically, there's a pretty clear narrative, you've got to go down, when you get to college, you know, you just have so many choices, you just have to start making those big life calls. And I think the people that get stuck in an arms race of just chasing the bank and get the vet or know what's next are probably not gonna be that happy down the line. So I think I really do believe that insight you have which is in college, find the path of impact, find the path of meaning and you know, start to kind of carve out your own trajectory and sense of, you know, long term goal that's going to make you happy. I think that that is definitely what I've seen work for well, definitely to wrap things up in. We have a lot of ambitious kids listening to this podcast around the world, you have a very inspiring journey. Obviously. Any final words your impart for our listeners? Ben Zhang: 58:16 Yeah, I think to to kids who are still in high school, really just prioritize the thing that you're good at, know what you're good at early on, and really try and do really, really well at it because I think that puts you ahead of like a lot of other people if you know there is something or a few things that you can do better than others, then just make that your thing and really go hard at it and believe in yourself. Jamie Beaton: 58:40 Well said Ben, love it. Thanks so much for the discussion today. Ben Zhang: 58:43 Thank you.

Ep #14 Figuring Out Your Post-School Path

🗓 NOV 30, 2020

See transcript

Podcast Host: 0:17 Hello, and welcome to the Top of the Class podcast. I'm your host Alex Cork. And in this episode, I chat with Australian student Hannah Ahn. At 18 years of age, Hannah is the founder of y compass, a platform designed to help you make more informed decisions about the future. We chat all about the changing workforce, and the importance of being okay with not knowing what you want to do after high school. Let's chat with Hannah Ahn. Hannah, tell us a little bit about yourself, perhaps your age and where you are calling in from today. Hannah Ahn: 0:48 So I'm Hannah, I'm 18 years old, and I am calling in from Sydney, Australia. So I am a recent high school graduate. So I graduated last year. And I'm currently taking a gap year at the moment. So my gap year I've done a few things such as interned at a company called Canva. So they're a large startup company in Australia. And also I've started an email newsletter called YCompass, which is focused on getting young people to figure out more about what they're passionate about, and what kind of careers they want to pursue in the future, and how that achieves their own film it. So we provide things such as like job opportunities, and careers advice, and also information on new and upcoming industries that you can kind of get excited about and learn more about. During high school. I also started my own company cardiaca, which connected high school students to quality work experience opportunities, and I was also heavily involved in extracurriculars, such as being co captain and also doing a lot of different things in my community. Also going along with the challenges of being in final year of school. So yeah. Podcast Host: 1:48 Wow. Yeah. So it's been a busy last couple of years for you. That's awesome about the Canva internship. But I think we're we're really looking to talk about is your work in the career space, because I think for young students right now, people who are in year 9, 10, 11, 12, or that kind of 14 to 18 age range, I think a lot of people are a little bit stressed about what the future of employment looks like, particularly post COVID and online world. And I saw some documentaries recently, where a lot of arts students were, you know, stressing because they were thinking, Well, does the world really need art students at the moment? Yeah, it's quite a stressful time for a lot of different people for a lot of different reasons. But I think it's fantastic that someone who is I guess, the youth, right, an 18 year old, yeah, is feeling as though that they can have a say in that career space. Because so often in the careers conversation, it's usually teenagers taking advice from people who are significantly older, who have been there before and done that before. But now the world is changing so fast that even someone who is you know, 10 or 15 years older, may have had a very different experience in a career path than someone who is a teenager now. So can you talk to us a little bit about what made you get more heavily involved in the careers and decision making space? And why that's so important for teenagers to be really involved with? Hannah Ahn: 3:09 Yeah, for sure. Um, so I guess what kind of involved me in this space was really just my own kind of questioning and confusion on what I wanted to do. After high school, I felt that what I was like what I was learning during school, wasn't that relevant, and I wasn't quite sure what I was going to do with what I was being taught in classes. And so I kind of had this whole thought where I wasn't really sure what I wanted to do in the future. And I just kind of dove into going to a lot of events and figuring out and talking to a lot of people and trying to get advice from different places to figure it out and kind of set my own, I guess, compass. But what I wanted to do in the future. So me going to the entire experience, I felt that, like similar to what you've said before, Alex, just in terms of the whole frustration, where it's like a lot of this advice I'm getting from much older people who give me kind of things like, Oh, just do whatever you're passionate about, and all these kind of generic kind of pieces of advice, which may be helpful to some people, but also for me at that stage didn't really help me in my journey. So I felt that the current advice that was getting, particularly from places like careers advisors and websites on career weren't that helpful. And I thought we could do something better to actually get people a better careers, education, and also think more about their future. And the reason why I think that's just so important is because, well, it's kind of you spent 80,000 hours of your life working. You might as well make the most of it, do something you enjoy. And I felt that I also knew a lot of people who were in jobs that they weren't enjoying, they weren't getting a lot of fulfillment and I thought what can we do to change this? Podcast Host: 4:46 I really love how you reflected I guess and didn't take phas value the advice of do something you're passionate about because that is so often what teenagers are told. It's just me like just Follow your own path, just, you know, follow your heart and this kind of stuff. When you heard that kind of advice, what was your reaction to it? And how did you feel when people were telling you? Oh, hang out? Like, don't stress? Yeah, do something you love? Like, what was your emotional response to that? Hannah Ahn: 5:16 Um, I think for me, when I first got that advice, initially, it was kind of like, well, I don't know what that is, right? I haven't explored enough. I don't know what my passion is. And kind of, to some extent, was a bit disempowering in that all these people are telling me do something you're passionate about, but I didn't know. But this kind of Oh, my do this. I'm, like, I guess put on a pedestal I do have passion was for myself. And it was hard to kind of figure that out. And it just kind of led to even more confusion. So I think that kind of advice really empowered me. And I think a lot of people also when they hear that advice, it's quite confusing. It doesn't necessarily help them in any direction to what they want to do. Podcast Host: 5:56 Yeah, so it is empowering is I guess, not the way that you want high school students to feel when they're looking at their career path. So yeah, what are you trying to do with YCompass? What kind of advice are you providing in that newsletter that you think is different from the more generic Find your passion type of advice? Hannah Ahn: 6:13 Yeah. So I think, why can't this kind of an underlying theme or idea that we come up and try to push forward is that career fulfillment doesn't come from doing something you're passionate about, like, sure a lot of people do find passion, like, some kind of passion that they can pursue as a career. But for the vast majority of people, that's a bit hard to come by, and also even harder to get paid for. And so I think what we kind of tried to push forward is this idea that group filament comes from having high expertise in a field, and also being able to make an impact. So I guess without bias, we try to push that forward. And also, so that's through our careers advice newsletter, so we send out three different letters a week. And we also have our emerging industries kind of thing. So it's like, you also can't find your passion or things that you're interested in, if you're not exploring different things. So we try to educate, we try to inform people of like new and interesting problem spaces that are arising, that people should be paying attention to. And maybe hopefully, something will click, and they'll kind of deep dive into one of these areas. And then last of all, we also have our kind of job opportunities and opportunities that people can kind of find things that they're interested in and get employment and explore what type of work is like, Podcast Host: 7:25 One thing that I want to go back to what you said was, you didn't see what you were learning in school, and how that could be relevant to the careers that you might be interested in, in the future. And I think that disconnect is such a, you know, that's not just you, that's a lot of people. I remember sitting in math class being like, why are we learning this? And my math teacher? That's like, Where am I use this? I think it was like, you know, something to do with tangents, and circuito, or whatever it was, Hannah Ahn: 7:50 Yeah, Podcast Host: 7:50 It's like, well, if you want to be a maths teacher, you can use this, like it was so narrow, right? And it just didn't seem to have any relevance to the world or the interest that I particularly had. So what do you think students should be doing when they're at school and they might be good at subjects, but they still haven't found their passion. How important do you think it is to keep looking outside of that school bubble? and outside of the subjects per se, and more kind of real life applications of subject might have? Hannah Ahn: 8:19 I think your example with the whole math class, so real, they're just saying, you said like, I literally remember asking my teacher like, Why weren't learning Pythagoras theorem? And they're like, Oh, well, if you want to be an architect, blah, blah, blah. But to be frank, no one no class probably is studying architecture or anything, right? So I think in terms of your question, just like how people should go about finding, like, I guess, careers that they're interested in, I definitely think the outside of the classroom is your best bet. Of course, there are areas where maybe you're interested in biology, like what you're learning in biology is relevant during school. But most of the time, that's not necessarily the case. And I guess the reason why that is, is just because schools don't necessarily, at least from my experience, teach it in a way that shows relevance to what's happening in the now like, what's the newest tech, what's happening in the news and all this sort of stuff? So I think in terms of exploration, I think I'd really urge students to see what type of things on the internet engaged them and interest them, what type of areas, maybe in tech, or in policy or anything like that, because I guess, like you can find anything you would want to know, if you just do a quick Google search. And I think just like dive into your curiosity, right. So if you're interested in tech, what type of areas and tech other, which kind of, I guess, make you pay the most attention to and just like, start from there, like see if there are any events New Year, whether that be online and see if there are any experts that you can talk to in that space, or even just students that are studying that because like just reaching out and having the initiative to kind of explore outside of school is gonna put you in a better position to know more about the things that you're interested in and see, this is something I actually want to work in. Podcast Host: 10:01 Yeah, I think a lot of students get kind of trapped in that school bubble. And they see only what's around them in the classroom and what their classmates are interested in. And it can be quite limiting in some respects, where I've seen other students who have gone way beyond school and they don't even think of themselves as a student anymore. They say, Oh, I'm a researcher, like I chatted to one student on episode two, who was a medical researcher. She's 15. Yeah. And she's gone. She's like, yeah, I go to school. But first and foremost, I'm a medical researcher or an innovator. And so it's that kind of mindset. And that kind of mindset really pushes the boundaries of school. And it goes very, very far beyond that, which I think is a very good advice. And there's obviously some great communities online, whether that be on LinkedIn, or some other student communities where there are like 14 year olds looking at AI, and there are other students looking at machine learning. And I think a lot of students kind of think, Oh, that's a university thing, or that's like a professional career thing. Obviously, like you started a company, or you started yakka, when you're in year 10, was it? Hannah Ahn: 11:05 Ah, yes, so, round year 10 or 11. Podcast Host: 11:08 yes. So what was that experience? Like? Because that's, I guess, one of the things we're talking about, right, where you could have the idea, but just sit on the idea, because you think, Oh, well, I'm only in year 10. I'll wait until a couple years later, before I actually go out and make this a reality. But what made you kind of take that idea to reality when you were only 10. Hannah Ahn: 11:27 Um, so I guess what made me push that idea into reality is just kind of the realization that the barriers to starting something, having initiative or working on something you care about is a lot lower nowadays. And the reason being is just because if you have an idea whenever you can set up like a website for it, and probably like an hour, two hours, for free. And so I think I just had that realization, and also that, I guess, the thought that if I wanted to do something that I gained a lot of fulfillment out, or I cared about, no one else was gonna force that upon me. And I had to kind of make that happened myself, it's kind of like the idea that, like, no one is gonna really save me through this, and there's no teacher, there's no one who's gonna help me kind of go through this process on this, I have the initiative to start it. And like, that's just kind of, I think, something I've realized, like, it's just like eating off the university, no one is going to push you to do something that you really care about. So I think that's what made me involved. And also just like the idea of having a problem in the community that I really wanted to solve. Because if I didn't have the initiative, then no one else would also solve that problem. So I think that's kind of what urged me to start. Yeah. So yeah, Podcast Host: 12:40 Talk to me about that timeline between the idea and the website launch. So if you let's take Yakka for the example here, you're in year 10, which in Australia is the typical year where students go and do work experience, they go spend a week or so at a company doing filing or some other menial task, and hopefully they find a little bit, you know, they're working with a company where they're not just doing menial tasks. And I think that was the purpose of Yakka. Right, like to find purpose for meaningful work experience experiences. Is that the Yeah, premise? Right. And so it's obviously very relative to you or relevant to you just talk me through I guess, like, you've got the idea. What kind of research did you do? Who did you speak to? And what kind of decisions did you have to make before you were like, yep, this is something I really want to do, and actually no publish a website for. Hannah Ahn: 13:29 So I guess kind of the whole process was, when I was in year 10. I did work experience and I thought it was menial, I thought it was kind of crap. And I was just copying code the entire day, because I was at a software gaming kind of company. And so from that, I was like, well, this is like, really shit. So I kind of reached out to my friends and I started interviewing them. I was like, Hey, you did work experience? What did you think you didn't do at the expense? Why didn't you do it experience and I kind of did like a whole, I guess, problem diagnosis, see what was going on in the community, at least the student community at that moment. And then I also found someone who was really passionate about working on the problem as well. And so we kind of came together. And we're like, Okay, so this is problem, how can we go about solving it because we realize, like often talking to about 40 other students that they either found it really hard to find work experience, or the work experience they did. They were, like you said they were just filing papers, or they were buying coffee or something. And so what we did was, well, we kind of had the idea initially as like a student internship thing, rather than a work experience. But then we realized it was more about businesses like finding any value or finding ways to get value out of it. And that was only from reaching out to different companies and talking about their experiences as maybe like a CEO or an HR manager or whatever. Podcast Host: 14:48 Yeah, like people who have actually hosted work experience students before, which I have done as well. So I'm interested in your thought process of how you got the company's point of view as well. So talk to me a little bit more about that then how you went about Reaching out to them? Hannah Ahn: 15:02 Um, yeah, so I guess initially it was kind of I was talking to a lot of business owners that I knew personally as to why they didn't take work on work experience students. And I guess it was a lot of commonality in that. They found it hard to organize or when they did get work experience students over they weren't better not to do the students themselves or the businesses. And so it wasn't like a win win situation was more like just a flat out lose lose situation, right? Yeah. So we kind of was like, then I guess in terms of making my experience better, we need to provide some kind of framework that's like the conclusion Me and bhagavathy, my co founder came to. So after that, we kind of, I guess, brainstormed a lot of different models for how we can make work experience more meaningful for students, and also the employer. Because if the employees weren't getting any value of it, then they had no incentive to actually take on students. So that's kind of the whole process that we went about. And we kind of landed on this idea that in order to give students and businesses value, give a student like a problem, like a business problem for them to solve. That way, they're practicing some enterprise skills. So they're actually researching into the problem to try to devise a solution. And then they also get to pitch it back to I guess, maybe a board or the business of the last day of their work experience. So it's kind of just an intensive process for them to figure out and I guess, practice some entrepreneurial skills, in terms of how they can solve this business problem. And this is like, very applicable to when you're working as well. And at the end of it, we found that when we talked to a few employers, they got a lot of ideas. And they thought that the things that the students came up with were quite innovative and pretty interesting solutions. So yeah, Podcast Host: 16:43 okay, so it was creating that framework, what kind of framework does I mean, not to say you weren't a brilliant student already in your 10? But what kind of frameworks or ideas in terms of structuring work experience at a young Hana put together with egg about your name? Is that right? Yeah. And you put these frameworks together? Did you kind of bounce those ideas off anybody or like any other teachers get involved or career advisors potential? Hannah Ahn: 17:13 So I guess the main people that got involved in building our framework was, we actually tested a few before we landed on the thing that I just talked about, and we test it out what if like, a student shattered, like the CEO, or some team member in a business, and we actually test it out, we got some a student and a business to go through that process. And we realized at the end of it, we still had the problem where students business, they didn't really know what to do. And the student either just got bored throughout the entire week in the business was just like, well, now I just have this one student that I don't know. So we've tested out those models. And then we just kind of got some feedback and discussion with that business who went through that process. And realize, we need to find ways to facilitate the process more, give a bit more guidance, which is why we landed on the whole thing on giving a student a problem, a business problem to solve, and also trying to implement workshops in between the week. So how they can actually learn more about pitching or devising a solution to a problem and researching more of that problem. So yeah. Podcast Host: 18:16 Yeah, I think that's super relevant. And I think for our listeners around the world, if they don't have a structured where he experienced week, I think these lessons are still very applicable, particularly if they're looking to get, you know, whether it be a summer job or something like that, or a, you know, volunteer internship, whatever it might be within their high school experience. And that's like a highly sought after thing, right? You know, like as an extra curricular to be able to say that you spent a week or two weeks or whatever it might be, like a pretty legit company is like a big feather in your cap for a high school student. And I think one of the things that I experienced on my side, as someone who did have students come and work with me as it were, he experienced student number one, I always found that like, if a student knew about the company first, it was always a massive class, and you think that's a given, but some students rocked up and literally didn't know the first thing about what it is the company did or what Crimson did, yeah. And I was like, well, this is gonna be a long way, right? Whereas I had other kids come in, and we're like, bang, I've been following you guys on social media, like, I know exactly what you guys do. I know the areas that I think I can help you in. Like, yeah, let's chat, right. And then so in the first day or so, we were establishing you know, what this student or what value the student could provide within that first week, I guess, kind of we kind of came along to that idea as well. That's Yakkers framework, which is the student was asked to solve a business problem. And so like I had students work on, you know, what kind of presentation Do you think students would like to hear? I mean, you're that target market, right? 16, 17 year old who's about to go into university? We're talking about US, UK universities, and students like oh, yeah, well, I think students would really want to hear this, this and this. And I had students put together entire presentations and entire events that do really well. Right? Yeah, yeah. But it was like giving them I also think there's something to be said for companies who are looking to take on students for internships or for work experience, that you've got to give them some kind of legit responsibility. If they're just filing or coding or, you know, data entry, that kind of stuff, they're going to get bored. But if you like, involve them in some kind of level of responsibility, that certainly elevates the student's interest in what they're doing. And they're giving away like, oh, gosh, I feel like a staff member already. Right. You know, they really loved it, it was yes. And we ended up continuing some of those relationships ended up hiring one of the year 10s for like a six month period. So how did you get yakka? out to the public? And how did you roll it out to you know, schools and students and businesses. Hannah Ahn: 20:52 So kind of, I guess, initially, we tapped into our network in that we asked people who are now in school, to see if they'd be interested in the Work Experience Program. And then we also did a lot of social media and reached out via that kind of, as well as that we reached out to a lot of credit advisors. So we saw that we asked like, friends from other schools, if we could get in touch with their increase advisors. And so we have this whole kind of List of careers advisors that we could kind of reach out to about these, like experience opportunities. So I guess in terms of just finding our resources, finding, like the key people that would be able to kind of spread it spread that network effect in terms of sharing our business. Yeah. Podcast Host: 21:34 What about that experience and being involved in yakka, as that influenced what you're doing and why compass now, because you're continuing, you could have left the kind of that Korea space, obviously, like, you're still interested in how Korea is evolve, and how students come to that decision and their kind of transition from high school to university and beyond into employment. So how has that been a continuing journey for you, like is yakka, the first piece of that puzzle, and then it continues on or the two unrelated. Unknown: 22:07 So I definitely see it as kind of the first piece of the puzzle, just like a prototype in getting to learn more about this whole career space is going like taking a gap year, I still kept in touch with a lot of my friends in high school who have gone into university. And I've just definitely seen that the problem is so much like so prevalent, if not more in university. So I guess that's kind of what inspired me to keep pursuing this kind of like venture into the Christmas, just because I guess how I see it is that if people aren't doing things that they care about, or working in this space, I guess, we're kind of just seeing like a misallocation of, I guess, like you could call it resources or just like people not doing the things that I care about, we're just going to have like a massive effect on just economically. And they're like individually as well as people live in their own fulfillment and mental health. So I guess I kind of just explore more on like, how this problem is essentially becoming like bigger, particularly with COVID. And I guess that's what like, kept me going in terms of working in the creative space. Podcast Host: 23:15 What's been the initial response to YCompass? Unknown: 23:18 So I think the initial response has been pretty good in that. I think, what I found that a lot of people during high school, even though they have careers advisor and all that, and just from talking to some of my friends and people that have subscribed, that I don't actually know, they've been getting a lot of value from it in terms of getting advice that they've never heard before, or had been really helpful in terms of their career journey, whether that be through networking, or finding the things that they care about, and things that they want to work on. And that sort of stuff. And also just job opportunities and places that they can work. Podcast Host: 23:50 Do you think students put themselves under a lot of pressure, or they get pressure from external sources, whether they be parents or other friends or career advisors, those kind of people to make a decision, rather than to embrace, I guess, the indecision? Because I always find that students put themselves in a box or they point themselves in the direction just to say that they are, you know, that they do have direction. Yeah. And he kind of like gets people off their back. They're like, I'm gonna study medicine, you know, okay. Yeah, it's like, that's awesome. And internally, the kids like, I don't know why I'm saying this to people, but I'm just saying it right to kind of get people off my back. I think it's kind of like a very cultural thing more broadly. But is that something that you tried address in, in YCompass at all? Or is that something that you've found is an issue that people I guess, are worried about embracing the indecision? Hannah Ahn: 24:42 So I guess, as of yet, in our newsletters, we haven't like, immediately addressed that kind of point. It is something that I definitely realized. In fact, I wrote like an entire blog post about it on my own personal website. And just like the whole idea that I think the whole question of like, what do you want to do in the future? What do you want to do when you grow up? I think it's a completely relevant and in my opinion, like, I guess, this empowering question as well, in that, I do definitely agree that people do feel this rush, oh, I gotta find a job or find some kind of work by the age of like 18 or 21, or some arbitrary number. Whereas that's not necessarily the case. And I think it's something that I definitely want to address in the future with like, on this, it's just that like, sitting in that uncertainty, can actually be quite serendipitous, in that you get to explore more, and you're not necessarily trapped by this one idea that you decided you wanted to be when you're 16 or something. Podcast Host: 25:37 Yeah, I think that's a very, very important point. For students who are getting that question, and who do feel that pressure to make a decision? What advice would you give them? Hannah Ahn: 25:49 Yeah, kind of what I would advise them is that you don't have to feel this pressure to specialize or pick your major or your degree at your current age. because realistically, you probably haven't explored a lot of the different things out there that you might be more interested in, or that piques your curiosity. So I think what I'd recommend them to do is kind of think of, I guess, the next five or 10 years, just like a period to explore, become a generalist, like figure out the different things that are available that interests you learn more about them? What are the fields that you can learn in those fields? And what are the things that just generally you want to spend time on? and spend time on those things, right? And don't feel this need to have to specialize? And just like deep dive into this one thing for the rest of your life? Because you're probably not going to enjoy that. Podcast Host: 26:42 And what advice would you give to parents? I think this is like an A very important part of this conversation is Yeah, parents are often saying, hey, you're going to become a, or what are you going to be done, they're either like pre determining what their child's going to do. Yeah. Or they are strongly encouraging their child to pick a path. And I feel like parents kind of give themselves a bit of a gold star once their child has chosen a path. And until, right, the parents feel this pressure, sometimes just as much as the child, which I think is wrong, you know, I think I think parents shouldn't feel that pressure and shouldn't put that pressure or hand that burden over to their child to make a decision. You know, I think parents would love to say, Oh, my child studying law, my child studying medicine, like they love to have that kind of kudos moment among their friends as well. Right. And I think that kind of continues the cycle of this pressure. So what role can parents play to help their child to really be okay, with the opportunities that come with having no decision as yet? Hannah Ahn: 27:48 Yeah, I can definitely feel you in terms of like, the whole parent thing, just like, on my own hands. And just like a lot of my own friends, as well. So kind of what I'd say and like, this is my one like, fluffy piece of advice I have, like, another piece of advice is like, I really just trust the process. I know, it's quite ambiguous, and things are unclear and uncertain for your child and for yourself. But really, just like trust that your child will be able to kind of explore and get into something that they care about, or something that, I guess provides them with, like, financial stability, or these sort of things. Um, I guess the other thing I would say is for parents, really just like the whole economy, and the whole world is really just changing. I think, in the next, like 1020 years, we're really going to see is that, like, we're shifting to like a, like, a greater economy and be like, there's going to be great advancements in tech and all that. So I think it's like giving your child the option of not necessarily like funneling them into, say, engineering, law or medicine, because I think there's like the top three, yes, um, like, in the future, we're going to see a lot of occupations that have never existed before. Yeah. And if you give your child the opportunity to explore these different things, you might actually come to a better outcome than these traditional pathways. In fact, it could be said that these traditional pathways, even things like accounting, are going to become more and more obsolete in the future. So it's just keeping those kind of changes in the future in mind. Podcast Host: 29:25 What did your parents want you to do? Hannah Ahn: 29:27 I just remember probably when I was eight, sitting around the dinner table, or whatever, we had to do show and tell and I was I Oh, come on firefighter, like, so cool. That was just because across the street, it was like a fire station. But my mom was like, No, don't do that. Hannah, you should totally become a lawyer. And I was like, oh, what's the lawyer and they're like, Oh, well, they help people and like, that's kind of the way that she sold it to me. And so for the next few years, I was just kind of set on this path. I'm going to do well. And I guess just kind of learning more about the other things that I was interested like, I started doing programming I started doing all this other stuff like design. I was like, Look, praying for me. Podcast Host: 30:05 Yeah, no, that's so what what is for you now? Have you chosen? Or have you? Like, where are you at in your own kind of decision making process for your career? not putting any pressure on you? Of course, yeah, you have to have an idea. Yeah, I think I always say to students, it's better to leave more doors open then to close doors off. But has your decision making process going, you're on a gap year, you've spent some time in Canva? You've started up two different organizations yakka. And why campus? So there's a lot of different strings to your bow at the moment, like you've done some really cool stuff, and you have some great skills and expertise. And where do you think that leads you personally? Hannah Ahn: 30:44 Yeah, um, so I guess where I see myself in the future is I just constantly want to be a creator, whether that be content, so through this newsletter, and potentially want to kind of evolve it into video, and potentially podcasting as well. And just like a lot of different formats. So I constantly want to be experimenting with that. So that's one part of me, like I just constantly want to be creating, I think as well as I want to keep my focus with design and project management and working with a team and potentially coding, as I'm learning that at the moment, they're trying to become more technical. And so I see myself potentially like building a startup or company, it could be in the creative space, also very interested in education and environment. And more recently, just because I've been on my gap year, I've just been doing a lot more research into things like AI. So I think that's kind of just the what I'm interested in, moving forward in the future. I think at the moment, though, it's more about seeing if I can go to campus and seeing where that takes me as a creator and potentially doubted the future. Podcast Host: 31:51 Who's your student community at this point? I mean, you're you're doing a gap year. And I know that some people do and some people don't. But I'm guessing most of your friends from high school have already started uni. So what kind of community Do you have around you right now? I mean, they say that you're the average of the five people you spend the most time with? Yeah, and you're a creator? Are you around other people who are doing similar things kind of like investigating AI or creating cool content and doing all these kinds of different fun, awesome things? Hannah Ahn: 32:23 I think this is great question, because I think just for anyone, like totally agree that you are the sum of i guess the five people around you. And I have been trying to reach out to a lot of people that are interested in this space, what they've been working on education, or AI or tech projects in general. So I guess I like to keep those kind of people in my community. And I've, while I've had friends from high school, I still, of course, keep in touch with them. I've been trying to explore like, reach out to people on LinkedIn and try to grow my community in those spaces. Podcast Host: 32:56 Yeah, I know, there's a LinkedIn is a rich source of students. If I think if people have been listening to my other episodes, this comes up fairly often, actually, where young people are on LinkedIn, is that the best way that students get in contact with you is through LinkedIn. Hannah Ahn: 33:11 Ah, yeah, for sure. So LinkedIn, also, Hammond has a website, you can reach me on my personal email as well. So yeah, we'll be in the show notes. And if students want to sign up to y campus, how do they do that? Yep. So to sign up to like compass, you just need to go to y compass.io. And there'll be an email sign up from there. And then we'll be sending three emails a week. Podcast Host: 33:35 Great. And what what should they expect to learn as a result of those three emails? Unknown: 33:39 So I guess what you should expect is we'll be sending curated careers advice, so the best career advice that we can find on the web, just so you can learn more about how to find things that you're passionate about, and also advance your own career. And also, we'll be sending through Friday, find sir, our job opportunities, internship opportunities, and different events and interesting things that you should kind of be kept in the loop about. And we'll also be sharing our whole industry is making waves segment, which is new and upcoming things in tech problem areas that you can kind of explore and learn more about, and see if that's potentially a career area for you. Podcast Host: 34:18 Well, maybe this podcast episode will even make it into one of the YCompass newsletters. It's been awesome to chat and I think it's really interesting to explore. And I think it's so relevant to so many students who do feel that kind of deep uncertainty with what their future looks like that there's a lot of different opportunities out there that are waiting for students, so it's best to kind of keep your eyes and options open as well. But it's been awesome having you on the show, Hannah, thank you so much for joining, and I'm sure students would love to connect with you on LinkedIn, and the y campus newsletter as well. Hannah Ahn: 34:49 Yeah, thanks for having me, Alex, that was really nice chatting about this and I hope people find a bit more serendipity, I guess, in their whole careers journey, I guess.

Ep #13 How to Approach Any Application and be an Effective Student Leader

🗓 NOV 27, 2020

See transcript

Podcast Host: 0:00 Hello, and welcome to the Top of the Class podcast. I'm your host, Alex Cork, and in this episode, I chat with Australian student Magnus Mulhall. At 16, Magnus is a member of the New York Academy of Sciences and received the best delegate award at the Harvard University Innovation Challenge. We chat all about crafting applications for any situation, and discuss what it means to be a student leader. Let's chat with Magnus Mulhall. Hi, everybody. Welcome to the Top of the Class podcast today. I'm delighted to be chatting with Magnus Mulhall. Is it Mulhall? Magnus: 0:50 Yeah, it's Mulhall, Podcast Host: 0:51 Mulhall, fantastic. Your I guess what many people might term as well, I term you anyway, as a bit of a consummate all rounder, as someone who's got strengths in sport, music and leadership, you're involved in some different programs and societies. Let's first start off with your interest in sciences, you said you want to be looking at doing medicine in the future. Tell us how like a 16 year old starts setting themselves up for a future in medicine. Magnus: 1:18 Yeah, absolutely. So I'm particularly interested in sciences in general. So not just medicine. And I think what brought me to medicine, just to start off with was, you know, it's that crossroad between interacting with people. It's quite a social job if you go into the clinical side of medicine, and then which is something I particularly enjoy. And then also sciences. So I found that crossroad, and that was obviously medicine. So that's first and foremost, why why I'm particularly interested in medicine, in response to what you asking how does someone prepare as a 16 year old? Yes, it's an interesting one, because, you know, don't start studying medicine syllabus, or curriculum, don't do that don't do those types of things, I would say, get involved in things that are at a 16 year olds level. So things that you can access, like the New York Academy of Sciences, like these societies that really foster passion for science and things that you can, you know, ultimately, in your interview, or, in your application reference, say, you know, I'm this really passionate individual about science, I've been able to get involved in these societies. And then, you know, another benefit that comes out of being involved in all of these societies, like the New York Academy of Sciences, is you discover all of these new fields of science and these new practices and different areas of science, really. So it it broadens your understanding of the entire, you know, field of science. Podcast Host: 2:44 Talk to us about the New York Academy of Sciences and how you got in and why you decided to apply and is it an application? Or do you just kind of like, sign up online? Like, well, what's the deal there? Magnus: 2:56 Yeah, absolutely. So um, I think it's approximately, I haven't looked into the the details of a bar, I think it's approximately 1000 students from across the world, as selected. In short, it's essentially a society. So it's based in New York, and they have scientists ranging from, you know, Junior scientists and breach researches, which is what I am to senior scientists who win Nobel prizes and stuff like that. And it's just like this one large community of science scientists who have, you know, a general passion for science. And in terms of the application process, all of its conducted online. So you can, you can essentially sign up to the New York Academy of Sciences from anywhere across the world. And you go through a written application process, and that that's it. All it is, is a written application, you submit your written application lists, co curricular achievements, passions for science, what areas of science, success in academic success in science, all of those, you know, trademarks or hallmarks of an application, all of the general criteria, and then you submit that, and I think you wait a few months or so. And then they get back to you with a letter of acceptance, obviously. Podcast Host: 4:14 Well, not obviously, unless you get a good application. Yeah. Hopefully they get back to you or literally to get back. Yeah. Right. So how much did you know about it prior to applying and what benefits have you seen from being a part of it? Magnus: 4:27 So in terms of applying, interestingly, I only discovered it, I actually discovered it through LinkedIn, or someone that I was in contact with and for all of the aspiring, you know, entrepreneurs on professionals even who are like 16 or 15, definitely get on LinkedIn. It's it's a goldmine. Yeah. So I discovered it through LinkedIn. I was in contact with someone who was currently in the New York Academy of Sciences and I said, How do you go about applying for this and she essentially just directed me in that general direction, submit an application. And in terms of benefits, I think one of the benefits that the application process will yielded was, it encouraged me to create a list of and this is something that I've continued throughout all of my applications. Keep a list of all of your co curricular achievements, your academic achievements, whatever they may be leadership positions, academic competitions, keep a list of them in a Word document or somewhere accessible, so then you can just reference them, drag them across your application, instead of having to wrack your brain for all of those achievements that you, you know, achieved five years ago or three years ago. So that's one of the benefits that I saw it through that application process. I actually, I think that was where I started my you know, log of achievements, I guess you would call it in terms of benefits from the actual society itself. Something that they do that's really interesting is they host these hackathons on like a monthly or two monthly basis, where they allow students they propose this problem to the students. And I think the problem for this month or this, you know, few months is telemedicine. Are you working on that hackathon? Podcast Host: 6:10 Are you producing anything for it? Magnus: 6:11 So I'm planning to currently you know, with exams and everything, I'm studying for that. But after exams, throughout December I'm planning to look into there's this new technology called haptics. And haptics is essentially like the physical equivalent, so that the feel equivalent to a sound recording. Podcast Host: 6:31 Well, I know haptics from my phone settings. When I go through my phone settings, and it says haptics, it's like how, how much the phone buzzes back at you or something. So okay, so now you're telling me what it means. Like, I'm glad because I never knew exactly what it means. I just thought it was the buzzy thing on your phone. So tell me more about haptics. Magnus: 6:46 So haptics does have a bit more depth to you know, not just, it's not just buzzing on your phone. What haptics is, is, you know, you've got your recording for sound, and sound allows you to replay all recordings allow you to replay sound without it actually being there in the present. So you can record something and play it, you know, hours later, and it's still there. And haptics is essentially the same, but for feeling, so you can create technology that allows you to feel things that aren't actually there. What I'm looking into in relation to telemedicine is how can you use that to interact with patients physically, when you're not actually interacting them physically. So you use haptics to, you know, do physical examinations and things like that? Podcast Host: 7:31 Wow. So that's an interesting, yeah, piece of technology that you look into? And you say, how do you submit that? Do you just kind of write them a, an essay about what you're thinking? And then send that off? Or is it more in depth project would have to a presentation or anything like that? Magnus: 7:46 Yeah, absolutely. So it's quite an in depth, actually, there are multiple, multiple stages to it. The first is obviously just develop a general outline of your idea, you create an abstract on, and they require you to submit the abstract by a due date, and then they assign a mentor, an older member of the New York Academy of Sciences, to your group. And, and they essentially could guide you along the process of developing your idea, you know, testing it out, they guide you essentially. Podcast Host: 8:16 Yeah, of course, yeah it's their job as mentors, right. Magnus: 8:18 What you do from there is you develop this whole robust plan of, you know, what, what does it entail, you do research into the area of science, and you do actually develop quite a strong understanding of that field of science. And then finally, you present it through a presentation, you present your idea. And then obviously, if it's something that's quite promising, as an idea, you'll have stakeholders that are interested and potential investors that are interested in it. Wow. Podcast Host: 8:46 And and most of these students, so you're paired up with a group, you said, No, no, no, you're just doing this solo. Magnus: 8:53 No, I will be paired with the group, but later in December. Podcast Host: 8:57 Okay. And are any of these other people that you know, from the New York Academy of Sciences from Melbourne, or from your school or anything else, or it's just elsewhere around the world? Magnus: 9:07 Yes. So from Australia, there were only 27 students selected. It was predominantly from America and more northern countries, I suppose. But yeah, there was one other student from Melbourne high, who's selected. And I have done a bit of collaboration with him in the New York Academy of Science, but it's predominantly students from other countries, which I think that's the real value to it. You know, you get to interact and develop these networks with students from countries and cities, kilometers away from you. And I think that's the real goldmine of what has been the biggest learning experience from that interaction because I hundred percent encourage students to find an international community of like minded people, and it's always I think, hard to get outside of your own school bubble sometimes and your schools always like, well, there's Podcast Host: 9:55 so many opportunities here like why would you need to go anywhere else, but there is so much better in finding a community outside of your school, what have been some of the things for you that you've noticed from being able to interact with students from around the world? Magnus: 10:07 Yeah, I actually might tie this a bit to the Harvard Innovation Challenge. And what something that we did in the Harvard Innovation Challenge was, it was essentially 300 students from across the world. And we were paired with just randomly paired with a few students from random countries across the world. And we were put in this group. And, you know, they said, develop this up solution to this problem. And my problem, our group's problem was education, challenges in education throughout remote learning. And something that I really found interesting was the cultural differences, the social differences, and then also the, you know, financial opportunity, the differences in opportunity, as well, between all of the all of us, because, you know, Australia is a fairly privileged country were quite developed. But there were students from rural Vietnam and India and think places like that, that, you know, weren't as developed and established as Australia. And it was really interesting, you know, we had all of these amazing ideas for technology, and, you know, these complex, quite expensive ideas, right. And, you know, it was interesting, because these students were kind of that would grounding the project and keeping us to reality, because we're like, okay, we're targeting rural Vietnam, they're really not going to be able to afford this virtual reality, or augmented reality technology, we have to think more realistic, we have to, you know, scale it to who we're targeting. So I think it was, you know, just an understanding with so many people from so many different places across the world, they had a group had an amazing understanding of how we could translate these ideas across to different areas of the world, and places that didn't have necessarily as much developed infrastructure. Podcast Host: 11:54 Okay, well, we're talking about the Harvard Innovation Challenge. So let's keep talking about that. Because I do think it's a really interesting thing. Were you on campus at Harvard for this particular challenge? Magnus: 12:04 Unfortunately, we weren't, I was stuck in my room, because it was returing remote learning, obviously. So we were, you know, rooms for like, seven hours, days, you know, on a cool collaborating, but I think, from my understanding, they do actually have a physical Harvard Innovation Challenge. So they've got one in Dubai, obviously, one in America. And that actually allows students from those regions to actually congregate on hobbins campus and actually interact physically. But for this one, it was a global challenge. So we had people from all over the world, and we weren't actually able to, you know, venture into the campus and collaborate then physically. But what we were able to do was, you know, extend the duration for which we were collaborating, because it was remote. Yeah, we didn't have to, you know, travel places we could do. We could sit at our desk and have seven hour days of just collaborating and working on our project. So in some sense, there were some benefits that did outweigh the, you know, negatives of being stuck in a room chained to your chair. Podcast Host: 13:09 Yeah, that must have been exhausting, just I mean, zoom calls and those kind of things they can get so tiring, and seven hours for how many days in a row? How long is the challenge? Magnus: 13:19 It was? Four days, four days. Yeah. Podcast Host: 13:23 Okay. So that's, yeah, that's a long time sitting in a chair. And by the end of that challenge, you're supposed to come up with, you know, it's a kind of a hackathon style kind of thing. You first come up with a project by the end of it. Magnus: 13:33 Yeah. It was essentially a hackathon. Podcast Host: 13:35 Yeah. Okay. And, again, like, how did you find out about that? Was it LinkedIn that you saw that pop up on? Magnus: 13:43 It was yet again, LinkedIn? Yeah. LinkedIn, as I said, is a genuine goldmine. Like, you will find so many opportunities on LinkedIn, I think it was a week before closing date again. And I was scrolling through my LinkedIn and it just popped up. Someone had liked it. And obviously, I had shared interests with that person. So it worked quite well, you know. Podcast Host: 14:03 Was it an ad or someone else posted about it? Unknown: 14:06 No, someone else posted about it. And one of the people that I was connected with, actually liked it. And I saw and I was like, Oh, interesting. Podcast Host: 14:13 And you saw the application, what was that? Like? What was it is a difficult application? Is it competitive to get in? Magnus: 14:19 No, actually, it's not competitive whatsoever. I think one of the great things about that challenge was it catered to all students from across world regardless of their opportunity and that privilege. So you didn't actually have to have many achievements. You didn't have to have much of a knowledge in areas of science or education. You could literally just write 300 words, expressing why you're interested, they would review that and then send you an email based off whether they selected you or not Podcast Host: 14:47 Something related to Harvard that's not competitive? Really? Maybe more competitive than you might think. I'm sure there's a lot of students applying him he still might not get it and I'm going to guess it's not limitless like the number of People who can take part. So I'm sure they've got some kind of cap on it based on what people are writing or whatnot. But how many students take part? You know, it must be hard to know when you're all doing it online. Magnus: 15:10 I think from my recollection, and this is, you know, the new form of measurement, the new unit unit of measurement. I think there were seven or eight pages of zoom. Yeah, however many that is there were seven or eight pages. Podcast Host: 15:24 Okay, that yet well, okay. Assuming that probably like 40 ish people can fit on a zoom screen, I think maybe at any one time. Magnus: 15:31 280 Podcast Host: 15:32 Around that. Good maths. Yeah, yeah, around that. That's okay. So it's a healthy number of students. And you got in a particular Ward as a result of your time in that competition. What was that? Unknown: 15:44 Yeah. So I was actually equally as surprised, as you know, the rest of the students. Yeah, I won the award, essentially, what the, the HSC, or the Harvard Innovation Challenge was broken up into two tracks. One was education throughout remote learning. And the other was public health throughout remote learning. What I won was the best delegate award of the education track. So that was essentially awarded to, you know, as it says, best delegate of the competition. And the person who actually won the public health Award Best advocate award was also a student at Melbourne high. So, you know, to two students from Melbourne Hye won both of the tracks for the Harvard competition. And yeah, it was just awarded to the best delegate, you know, in terms of contribution, collaboration, networking, all of that stuff. Podcast Host: 16:35 Is it the same guy who's also in the New York Academy of Sciences? Magnus: 16:39 No, it's a different one. Podcast Host: 16:41 Every guy goes, Yeah. What does it do for you personally, in terms of like, confidence, or in terms of your, I guess, global standing? Does it feel like you're kind of pushing the boundaries of your school and Melbourne a little bit more? When you are named Best delegates of a global competition? And you're part of the New York Academy of Sciences? Is there any time that you're feeling like, Oh, you know, school is great, but there's so much more out there. And I need to keep pushing the boundaries now that I've kind of got this level of achievement on a, I guess, a global scale. Are you looking for the next thing? Magnus: 17:20 Yeah, yeah, I absolutely am, I'm, I'm doing that. And then something that I'm also trying to do is, you know, keeping all of this stuff separate from school to some degree. Because, you know, I don't want to be to living two different lives. But school is something separate to, you know, all of these co curricular activities. And if you can bring these activities to school, like water polo, for instance, like music, then that's great, but I don't necessarily think it's students in your class will want to hear about, you know, I'm the best delegate of the Harvard official, so I kind of tried to keep those two things separate. And then I try to excel in school, whilst also excelling in that different area of life. So I kind of look at it as two different spheres. Um, you know, you can excel in both at the same time. And that's something that is extremely important to emphasize, you don't want to just neglect a school because school is extremely valuable it so school enables you that all these conventional things, and then you can do pursue your interests and all of these unconventional things outside in that other sphere. Podcast Host: 18:27 Would you turn yourself a busy person? Because it sounds like you've got a lot going on with waterpolo and music and external competitions and school obviously, Are you stressed? Are you busy? Do you not have time for anything else? Magnus: 18:42 I'm quite often quite stressed, actually, to be honest. But I kind of enjoy the stress to as strange as that sounds, it doesn't motivate me on having things on a list to do. Because I feel like if I didn't have those things on a list to do, I'd get complacent. And then I, you know, just wind up on my bed watching Netflix or something along those lines. And I think it's also important to emphasize that I do do those things sometimes. And everyone does that. It's just in human nature that everyone will sometimes to some degree burnout. But it's just about getting back up on your feet. So I think I would say yes, I am quite busy. Most of the time, you know, whether it be studying at home for academics or sport training, practice, all of those things. But I do prefer it, I would prefer that a busy life over you know, a lot where I'm just sitting on my bed watching Netflix. Podcast Host: 19:37 Yeah, well, you're going into the final years of high school now. What do you say is been the path for you next two years in terms of time management, because I know a lot of students who do have very busy co curricular activities kind of wait to wait. Some of them I guess, just drop everything in their final years of high school, which is a bit of a shame, I think. Yeah. Where do you sit in that kind of category. Do you have any activities that might be closer to the chopping block than others. Magnus: 20:03 I completely agree with you, Alex, when you said, it's a bit of a shame, like I ultimately wants to say just a resounding no, I'm not gonna drop them, because they are equally if not more valuable than academics. And you know, you look at the workforce, soft skills are one of the most highly emphasized things in and highly sought after things in the workforce, you need to be able to communicate, you need to be able to work in a team, you need to, you know, understand how social relationships work. So I think those you can't learn that stuff through studying a textbook, Khan learn that through VC, biology, OVC, maths methods, or any of those things, you have to learn that through collaborating with other people. And a perfect opportunity to do that is through curriculum. So I would say an ultimate not i'm not intending to drop them. And if anything, I'm probably intending to, you know, wrap the wrap it up slightly, because I'm kind of on the fence as to whether I look to an overseas University and look to try and pursue maybe some sort of overseas university degree, or whether I stay in Australia and something that the American system emphasizes curriculum. I think, just in the grand scheme of things, it's like, this is a weird analogy, but it's like, you know, you you develop a new relationship with someone, just let's just say that they're a girlfriend or something, yes, I'm for a boyfriend, and you're not going to drop all of your other relationships with your family members, and with your cousins and with your friends, just to spend time with your partner, like you may, you may change how you do it, but you're not just going to completely neglect those other relationships that you've developed. So, you know, as strange as this sounds, see your activities as relationships, you've developed this new relationship with a new partner, but you're not going going to just neglect your family, you're not going to neglect brands. It's about you know, changing it, depending on what your priorities are. Podcast Host: 22:02 Now, you have a very strong background in student leadership. And I know that in at least my experience, anyway, a lot of the time student leadership is kind of spoken in vague terms, where it's more of a mindset than anything else. And it can be a little bit hard to grasp exactly what you should be doing as a student later. Now you're in your 10th. At the moment, do you currently have an official student leadership role? Magnus: 22:24 I do currently. So I actually came to MHS. This year, as a year 10. And I initially didn't, and then I think it was maybe two weeks in, we held an election, the entire school held an election for the school council representative. So we held those elections, and I think it was maybe 30 students applied. And I was one of them. And we submitted a written application. And something that I found interesting was, you know, I went for quite an unconventional written application, I put a lot of mine in top point format, with capslock. activated, obviously, on my keyboard, and it was just up slipped off points. And I placed myself in the shoes of a student reading these 30 passages of written applications, no student is going to read through 30 written applications or 200 words, and look at it and then read age and evaluate who's going to be the best June representative. It's just, it's just not going to happen, right? So you know, I tapped into that I thought, okay, they're going to be scrolling through the screen, looking for something that catches their attention, hence, why I put the caps lock and the dock points. So somehow, I managed to, you know, get into that position, I was elected by the student body. And all throughout this year, I've been able to, you know, create initiatives for the students and contribute to reforming the school system and the school structure, policy changes all of that stuff. And I think what really brought that about was understanding the student cohort or understanding the people that you're leading, because if I didn't know that, you know, students would be scrolling through that those 30 applications, really just neglecting each of them, then I wouldn't have been in that position. Because I wouldn't have understood how to, you know, grasp their attention. Podcast Host: 24:12 I completely commend you for that. You got to know your audience, right? But you got to write for your audience. And in that case, you did very, very well. Do you feel like you are a little less powerful in some sense, because you are you tend, I know that some students look at student leadership as being like a final year thing, you know that most people will aspire to be a school captain, all that kind of thing. Sometimes I think that a lot of students who are in that final year, they're almost too busy to do like serious student leadership stuff. So talk to us a little bit about, I guess what role a proactive your 10 or 16 year old could have within a school community. In some sense, you've Magnus: 24:51 got an advantage in comparison to those years 12. I mean, I'm actually currently working with the current MHS school captain and then it 2021 School captain of images, you know, we collaborate over a variety of different projects. And often, it almost seems as if their role is, you know, just oversee all of the progress of the policy changes of the initiative creations, all of those things. And whilst that's great when you oversee those types of projects, and don't necessarily get involved, that's when you kind of you lose out on all of the valuable skills, like organizational skills, things like that, creating events. So I think, in some sense, if you are a year 10, late, I need to find yourself in one of these positions, you really need to put some emphasis on the things that the school captains or those upper leadership roles can do, such as, you know, writing proposals, things like that. And although that seems, you know, trivial and tedious in nature, it really isn't like, I quite enjoy writing proposals now, because you get to shape how it's, you know, kind of presented to the community. So I think, play to your strengths as a year 10, later, you know, the school captains don't really have time to write proposals, and brainstorm all of these ideas. So take this as an opportunity to do that work, brainstorm ideas, write the proposals, then you present it to the school captain. And then you have an avenue that you can, you know, go through to get involved in those upper leadership roles. So that's, that's actually exactly what happened to me, you know, I wrote all these proposals, created all of these ideas, proposed it to these school captains and these SRC presidents. And they said to me, we would actually love you to be on board and kind of present this to the school Council and, you know, the school community, because ultimately, these are your ideas. So I think that's the real, you know, key to creating an impact as a younger leader. Podcast Host: 26:44 I completely agree, I think there's so much that a you 10 can do. And you're right, that a lot of the time, the school captains are like looking to do the big speeches and that kind of stuff. But at the end of the day, the nitty gritty day to day, changes that a student community might be looking for, probably best facilitated by someone in the attend who's like ready to sit down and write something out. With the whole student leadership side of things. Is it more of a mindset or a skill set? Like do you see yourself I am a leader kind of mindset? Or is it like organizational writing proposals? What do you see as being most important for you in order to actually make an impact? Magnus: 27:22 I think, ultimately, when you boil it down to it's probably the mindset, to be honest, you know, skill sets are always things that you can obtain, you can do that through actually writing a proposal, you can gain experience in writing a proposal, through actually writing, but a mindset, you actually need to intentionally and consciously change how you perceive yourself as a member of the community. And then you somehow, you know, after months, you start getting these opportunities, you change your mindset, then the opportunities come to you. And that's then when you develop the skill set. So I think you start off with the mindset, you change your mindset and tell you so wake up one day and say, I'm a little, I'm going to be a leader, you may not have these roles, but you can tell yourself that you're going to be a leader. And it's the small things that really count, you know, helping out a kid in the hallway pick up picking up his pencil case, as being a leader later. And that sounds so cliche, like I've heard that told me countless times, but it genuinely is, it's the mindset. And then the opportunities follow. Podcast Host: 28:23 Let me just quickly check on the skill set side because writing proposals and organizing events and that kind of thing, it can be something that you learn from experience, or it can be something that you learn through your classroom, I don't think many classrooms are going through an English class not really talking about writing proposals too much. So in terms of like, filling that knowledge gap on the skills side, how did you go about doing that? Is that something that you looked up online? I know, it sounds like a basic question. But yeah, how do you go about writing a proposal? Or how do you go about like organizing a school event? Is it someone who you speak to from, you know, the, the levels of barbecue? Or who do you go to for advice on those kinds of things? Magnus: 29:01 Yeah, absolutely. You know, like, I really do wish they had a subject for leadership as some sort of leadership subject, because it's so valuable, and it will become extremely vital later on in life. But that was just a bit of a side note. In terms of where I actually obtained the skills, I think, the most valuable resources mentors, like you know, you see these school captains, and these SRC presidents, and most of the time, they're actually quite approachable. Talk to them, ask them to maybe send you previous proposal that they wrote up, and you just use that as a structure really, you look at it, you evaluate, you know, what, what's the structure or how they outline the idea how they presented it, usually it's an introduction and a rationale. Why are we doing so such thing x, y, Zed, and then all of the details, the nitty gritty, so contact your mentors or those those higher up leaders in your school community or wherever, whatever type of community you're in, talk to them because often they Are approachable and ask them for some sort of previous proposal that they wrote up and just compare yours really just work on replicating it. And then later on down the track, you develop your own style. Podcast Host: 30:12 One other thing that I like to talk to when I'm chatting with school leaders is that idea that it's really important to know the different branches of your school community, you've got your student body, right, and you've got your different levels and SSC presidents and the rankings within that. But then you've got your teachers, then you've got the parent community, then you've got your, you know, you might have an advisory board that's external to the school, and you might have the old boys or old girls. So like the alumni of the school, because I sometimes think that I've seen some great student leaders who push really hard for change. And they're very, very good at it. But the problem that often occurs is that they've only taken into account one stakeholder, which is the student, but I think like a really good student leader is able to listen to other stakeholders as well during that kind of consultative process. So can you talk us through I guess, that kind of bigger than the student body type view that a student leader might have? Magnus: 31:05 Yeah, absolutely on, this is actually something that I went through, you know, Harvard, an online Harvard course code on exercising leadership, foundational principles, or something along those lines. And it's actually free. So I definitely recommend any students watching this to, you know, have a look at that. But it talks about this idea, and this, this is a really common idea of looking at things or perceiving things from the balcony, you know, taking a step back and looking down onto the dance floor and looking at all of the, I suppose people of play and things of play, and taking a step back looking at it from the balcony. And it's, you know, it's really interesting, because that, that, you know, you take a step back, and you look at all of the stakeholders. And while while that kind of does sound simple, it's, it's quite difficult to do in practice, you know, how do you consider all of these views of different students and different teachers and different old boys and alumni, like, do talk to them, to just assume what they, they would kind of think of this idea. And ultimately, I think it's just talking really, you have to, you have to do your research, you have to, you know, gauge the the interest of the student body gauge the interest of the teacher body, gauge the interest of the alumni. And often schools, for example, have mechanisms to do this, like they have structures that allow you to do this on, for instance, the school Council, when they make some sort of large policy reform or structural reform, they have to go through community consultation, yes, a really great way of doing that is creating working groups. So you create working groups within the students, you know, five or 10 students with a facilitator. And you do that maybe 30 times with, you know, five or 10 different students each time. And so then you ask for their feedback, obviously, with regards to the idea, you asked them how they feel about it. But then also, another great thing that these working groups bring about is student input and community input. You know, this is also an opportunity to gain input, they don't like an idea, how would you fix this? How would you like to change? So I think if we're talking about a school setting, there are actually tangible mechanisms that you can actually go through and policies that you can, you know, look at that allow you to consult the community, whether it be teachers, students, or whatever it Podcast Host: 33:27 may be. Yeah, I think that's a good point. And I think aspiring student leaders who are listening to the episode should take that in into account. What other advice would you give to aspiring student leaders or current student leaders who are out there kind of saying, Yeah, I've got this position, or students who are aiming to get that position? And what advice would you give to them based on your experiences? Magnus: 33:49 Yeah, absolutely. I'm a latest student, you're still a student, you're, you're a student. And you may be a leader, but you're not, you know, above the student cohort, you're a student within the student cohort. And that's the best place to lead from being from within the student cohort, all leading from behind the student corvil. You know, you lead from behind you facilitate students, you push them up instead of trying to drag them up with ideas or things like that. So I think, you know, a great way of thinking about it is, you can't hear a group of students talking, if you're 100 meters away from them, or you are 100 meters above them. You cannot hear their ideas and hear what they're saying, from within the group. And so if you separate yourself, and you create this image of all on the Lita home superior to the students, so I have a title on my blazer, then the students aren't going to come to you with their ideas they don't get you're not going to get that rich, valuable insight and input from the students. So tip number one, as a leader, don't lead from above lead from within or behind. So then you can actually listen to the students. With that said, I'm not just saying you know, don't apply for leadership positions because no one cares about the position. that aren't kept care about the title. They care about what you do with the title. And this applies to the application process as well. Students often, you know, in applications I've read a few for the recent Junior School Captain application process of my school. And quite a, you know, common trend that a lot of the students fell victim to was writing about how they experiences qualify them to be a junior school captain and how the role of junior school Captain will benefit them as leaders. Yes, leadership isn't about you, as a leader, it's about the community that you're serving, instead of writing about all this position will enable me to, you know, Garner experience in proposal writing, allow me to develop organizational skills, just get rid of the meat and replace it with you know, the student cohort, the student body, the community, because that's what the selection panel is looking for. They're not looking for a self serving leader, they're looking for a leader that can serve the cohort because that is what a leader does. So number one, the title doesn't matter. It's what you do with the title. Yes, um, it's good. Lead from within the cohort or behind, not from above, because you can't hear someone 100 meters away. Yes. Number three would be right about the the cohort and how you're going to be benefiting the cohort, as opposed to benefiting yourself as a leader. Podcast Host: 36:19 And so yeah, knowing how to apply is like, a skill in and of itself that really does take time to master. And and knowing your audience is a really big part of that. Magnus: 36:29 Yep, exactly. I cannot agree more. I think this this massive misconception that, you know, there's the perfect application, there's the model application, you want to model this application. But ultimately, like you say, on YouTube, or here's my Oxford application, personal statement, all of this thing, and then run through the structure. There is no structure to an application really, like there are a few pointers that you can, you know, target. But I think a perfect example of why there is not is actually a story that I heard at the Harvard innovation competition, one of the Harvard University students was talking about what he wrote in his personal statement. And, you know, I was expecting all he listed all of these achievements, I impacted so many people wrote about dogs. Nike wrote about dogs and cats. And, you know, there was probably more substance to it than just dogs and cats. But bottom line, he wrote about dogs and cats and how he was interested in them, and you know, how they've impacted these life and stuff like that. And then he found ways to, you know, within his achievements, but he did it through storytelling. And when you have that, you know, pool and I've sat on a few selection panels, you know, for the SRC, co presidents and the SRC cabinet, for my school. And when you get 60 applications that are just echoing the same message, and they just stayed in the same structure it, you start to really lose interest. And then, you know, the 49th application with that. There's someone who starts the application off with a question with the story, they saw with something interesting, and it's a breath of fresh air. It's almost as if you walked through kilometers of desert, and then you finally reach this oasis. And it's genuinely one of the most refreshing things to read as an interviewer or as you know, someone who's sitting on a selection panel. Podcast Host: 38:25 Yeah, and keep in mind, like 60 applications, your rating, I've spoken to people who are rating applications in the US and they read 600 and like, the personal statements are a bit longer, you know, usually 600 words or thereabout. And it's, it's a, it's tiring, and that they always remember that one essay that stands out and I've asked a couple of former division officers what their favorite essays and it's always one that has like an interesting story or one that doesn't kind of go through the whole rigmarole of these are my achievements in these areas have impacted people, but have has a bit of humor has a bit of a story about it and is memorable for a variety of reasons. But Magnus has been fantastic to chat and you know, have you on the podcast today. I look forward to having shared this episode far and wide. And hopefully the Melbourne High School and Melbourne and Australia community can get behind this episode as well. But thanks very much. I think everybody would want to connect with you on LinkedIn now that you've spoken about it quite a lot. So a welcome to contact you on there. Magnus: 39:23 Yeah, absolutely. Just Magnus Mulhall. Podcast Host: 39:25 If you want to have tips from Magnus on I guess how to make the most of LinkedIn. Just follow along and see how he goes about it because you did pretty well on that. Magnus: 39:32 Perfect. Thank you, Alex. Podcast Host: 39:34 Thanks, Magnus.

Ep #12 From Idea to Innovation with America's Top Young Scientist for 2019

🗓 NOV 25, 2020

See transcript

Podcast Host 00:17 Hello, and welcome to the Top of the Class podcast. I'm your host, Alex Cork. And in this episode, I chat with 15 year old, Kara Fan. In 2019, Kara was named America's Top Young Scientist for winning the 3M Young Scientist Challenge. We chat all about her invention, her presentation, and what she's focusing on now. Let's chat with caravan. Hello, Kara, welcome to the top of the class podcast. It's fantastic to have you on. Can you tell us a little bit about yourself maybe a little bit about your project that you worked on? Kara Fan 00:46 My name is Kara Fan. I'm a high schooler, I'm a sophomore at Westview. And the project I did for the 3M Young Scientist Challenge was the nano silver liquid bandage. And this project is to reduce the overuse and misuse of antibiotics. And after the 3M Young Scientist Challenge, I decided to raise awareness for antibiotic resistance. Because I found out that a lot of people don't know about this problem. So I decided to make an island or Animal Crossing dedicated to teach people about antibiotic resistance. Podcast Host 01:19 Right. So it's become a bit of a thing for you. Is that like your main interest now is antibiotic resistance and how technology can help solve antibiotic resistance? Kara Fan 01:29 Yeah, like I just want people to be more kind of aware about this problem. Because by 2050, like 10 million people will die from antibiotic resistance. And I could tell like, after I went through, I did like a bunch of interviews. And actually a lot of people didn't know about this problem. Podcast Host 01:46 Yeah, I mean, it's becoming even more of a problem, obviously now will be with you know, COVID-19. Realizing, yeah, I have to come up with a whole new vaccine, and it didn't respond to initial antibiotics and those kinds of things. So definitely, it's a big problem. But how does a young caravan probably at the age of 13, or 14, decide to work on a project that focuses on antibiotic resistance. Kara Fan 02:08 So actually, a long time ago, my grandma, she got UTI, and it's urinary tract infection. And she was sent to the emergency room because of that. So after that, I kind of got interested in like the medicine that had saved her life with just antibiotics. And after that, you know, I read a lot of Scientific American magazines for fun because my dad would always like, subscribe to them, and they would come to us. And I saw on one of the articles, it said that superbugs is going to be a huge problem. And I was really scared because I didn't know that such a thing existed. Podcast Host 02:45 Yeah, exactly. superbug and when you read about it for the first time, you're like, how is not everybody talking about this? This is crazy. Right? Okay, so you've got that interest in antibiotic resistance and bugs? Keep going forward through the timeline here. Kara Fan 03:00 Yeah. So after I learned about that, I kept on researching more. And I just found this one random article and said that silver can kill bacteria. And I thought that was really cool. And I researched more, and found out that copper and other metals can kill bacteria. Like the ancient Aztecs and the ancient Chinese. They used copper to, like drink out of and to kind of help with their wounds. Yes, yeah. So after that, I decided to do a project where I can use silver to heal bacteria instead of antibiotics. Podcast Host 03:32 And did you know anything about the 3M Science Competition when you started it? Kara Fan 03:37 No, I actually submitted this to my local science fair, because I just wanted to kind of share my idea at the science fair and see what other people were doing as well. And then I just came across it three young scientists challenge like on social media, Podcast Host 03:50 okay, well explain to our listeners, what the 3M Young Scientist Challenge is exactly. Kara Fan 03:55 The 3M Young Scientist Challenge is a science challenge for middle school students, where they submit a project idea, a science project idea that can significantly change the world. And after that top 10 finalists are chosen to go to Minnesota to compete for the final prize of being a top young scientist. Podcast Host 04:15 So you submitted the project for the very first time in a science fair, your local one. Did you win that? Or how'd you go in that science fair? Kara Fan 04:24 Well, for that one, I got first place in my microbiology division. Podcast Host 04:28 Okay. Cool. So 04:30 yeah, Podcast Host 04:30 right, right. And what have you learned about entering into science fairs and science competitions as a result of this process? Because you came into it as I understand like a complete newbie at the very first time, right? So can you take us through I guess, how you learned how to turn your project into a presentation. Kara Fan 04:48 First of all, for the science fair, they give us like, kind of like an outline like if your hypothesis, and I just follow that, and from my actual presentation, well, before I did the science fair, I did firstly, and for that we had to do a lot of presentations. And I also joined debate. So I guess that kind of helped me, but for the science fair, so when we go there, it's kind of like a one on one presentation. Mm hmm. So I was more prepared to do that. And like talk in front of like, hundred people. Podcast Host 05:16 Well, I saw a video on YouTube have your presentation, and it was or it look like anyway, that you were presenting in front of about 100. People like the finals are 3am. Right? Yeah, those Kara Fan 05:27 three scientists challenge. Podcast Host 05:28 And how intimidating was that word? By that time? Were you like, pretty solid on how you would pitch it? Kara Fan 05:33 Yeah. So at that time? Well, during the Young Scientists Challenge, I had to practice my project, like every single day. And I actually practice with my mentor as well. And she helped me kind of like, tweak it a little bit. And that was really intimidating, though. Podcast Host 05:49 Yeah. speaking in front of 100 people, right. And there were not just 100 other students, a lot of them are scientists, and yeah, judges and everybody who's like, there's a lot of money on the line. There's $25,000 on the line. So it was a lot of pretty high stakes. Did you do any kind of like breathing techniques to try and calm yourself down? Oh, yeah. On stage. Yeah. Kara Fan 06:09 Yeah. So one of the leaders for 3M Young Scientist Challenge, she took us so right before each presentation, she took us around the three m lobby, and we walked for like five minutes before we presented and we just talked about life. It really helped me calm down, because without that, I would have been really nervous. Podcast Host 06:29 Well, I would have been nervous anyway. But yeah, it is good to have that no chance to calm down a little bit, which I think is great. Talk to me about the actual presentation. Do you remember it at all? Because I know that there's some students who go on stage, and it's all a blur, right? They can't even remember what they said or what happened up on stage. But what do you remember from that time that you had? Kara Fan 06:50 So the presentation? Well, it was only five minutes, but there were like, I think, five minutes to answer questions. And all I remember was, well, there was a lot of people staring at me. But I just tried to look like straight and I just presented my project. And it was just really bright. Podcast Host 07:07 It was really bright. You got a lot of lights on you and stuff. Yeah. Yeah. So it's pretty intense. And I saw the you know, the footage of when you were announced the winner, and you got like the big novelty chair. Yeah. And talk us through that moment. What was it like to have your name called out as the winner of the 3M Young Scientist Challenge and be named as America's top young scientists, which is an amazing title to go along with? I mean, almost more than the prize money is having that title associated with your name, right. That's crazy. Kara Fan 07:37 Yeah. So what else announced I was really surprised, first of all, because I didn't know if I would even like place third or second. I was kind of aiming for second. But like before they announced my title. Like there is like another person. Her name's I think, Caroline, and her name is kind of similar to mine. So I thought I got second place. But when I was announced first I was like, really surprised. And like, it was really good. Podcast Host 08:02 Yeah. And what was the reaction of your parents and your family? Kara Fan 08:06 Only my dad was there. And he was just like, shocked. Podcast Host 08:11 Everybody was a little bit shocked, I'm sure. Yeah, right. Okay. Well, take us back, I guess in time a little bit to your early stages of your research, because on the top of the class podcast, what we try and do is go beyond the headline achievement, and actually try and help other students who might be interested in research as well to understand how you did your research, because I'm hearing things like nano silver and microbial copper and electronic microscopes and it sounds pretty crazy for a 14 year old to be getting into those kinds of fields. You saw the articles on a silver and copper can help kill microbes and be antibacterial. What then happened? You said you got a mentor, when did she come into the picture? Kara Fan 08:53 Well, I submitted my nanosilver liquid bandage project before I went to three among scientists challenge or mentor helps me so before when I searched up how silver can kill bacteria. I was kind of confused on how to make like a liquid bandage out of it because you just like strapped silver to your arm. Yes. bacteria. Podcast Host 09:12 So you see silver can kill. Yeah, you know, then you're like, Oh, this would be cool. If it was in a bandage format. Yeah, right, a liquid bandage for a liquid bandage format. And what did you know about liquid bandages? Did you think that there was something out there already that could be doing this kind of thing? Did you like search online? liquid silver band? It seems like see if there was any results that popped up? Kara Fan 09:33 Yeah, I would actually before this whole like project started. I always use liquid bandages. They're just convenient, and they won't really hurt when you're trying to like peel it off. Right? So that's why I kind of wanted to do a project similar to that. But I didn't really know how to apply like silver until like a liquid bandage right until I found I just searched up like really small pieces of silver like small particles of silver. And I found out about nano silver, and actually it's really easy to Make I found a lot of different people who may nano silver with like leaves and kale and just really easy to make. Yeah, I can explain. Podcast Host 10:08 Yeah, please do are interested as to how you make nano silver from leaves and kale. Kara Fan 10:14 Yeah. So for it to make nano silver, you get silver nitrate, and you can buy silver nitrate off of Amazon. And you can mix it with kale solution. So basically I just boiled kale leaves in water, and that acts as a reducing agent and it reduces the silver particles into nano silver. Podcast Host 10:34 Okay, and did you learn about that on YouTube or Hulu? Okay, so YouTube is a feature for a whole lot of your generation Google and YouTube as a teacher for everybody. So did you do that at home? Or did you do that at school? Kara Fan 10:47 I do at home. Podcast Host 10:48 Okay, so you're at home creating nanosilver pretty normal thing for a 14 year old? Who were your parents? Like, Hey, what are you doing with that? kale? Is that dinner? Like? That is over? Kara Fan 10:59 Yeah, cuz my parents will I asked my dad to buy off of Amazon. So you kind of knew, but they're both like computer scientists. So they don't really know anything about this kind of stuff. So they're, like skeptical, that would actually work. But for now silver. So when you first mix it, it's like grain. But then if it turns into like a brown color, then you know that it probably worked. So I was really surprised it actually worked. Podcast Host 11:22 Okay, fantastic. So you've got the nano silver, you've got I guess, in your home liquid bandage solution? Did you just try and like mix the two or what did you do from there? Kara Fan 11:31 Yeah, so for my actual project, I didn't really want to mix like a 3am liquid bandage. Because I didn't know if like they would allow it. I mean, they probably would. But what I did was I took a Palmer, which is PvP, and it's a waterside biopolymer. And I mixed it with the nano silver, so that when you spray it onto your hand, it will create like a thin film that can protect the area. Okay, this is pretty cool. Podcast Host 11:54 Like, are you bouncing any of these ideas of time off your friends or off like your science teacher who you chatting to when you're going through this process? Because it sounds like a pretty daunting thing to be doing on your own. Kara Fan 12:04 Yeah, so I just I talked about with my dad. And afterwards B contacted a professor at UCSD. And he helped us use electron microscope. But other than that, I didn't really talk to anyone about it. Podcast Host 12:18 Okay, I'm interested in the UCSD part. So we don't know there's the University of California, San Diego. Yeah, that's like your closest one isn't? Kara Fan 12:26 Yeah. Okay. Podcast Host 12:27 And did you know that that professor was interested in this particular field? Or were they just like a microbiology professor? Kara Fan 12:34 Oh, Tresor. He was just, he just handles the electron microscope. So he didn't really like help me with my project, like directly. He just helped me use electron microscope and look at the nano silver and kind of explained a little bit about that. Podcast Host 12:48 I can hear our listeners being like, ask her how she got to use the electron microscope and yesterday, like, wouldn't they say, Oh, sorry. That's like University property? Do you have to be like a student here to be using that? How did you get around that like, was it your dad who helped you out or what happened? Kara Fan 13:03 I went to the UCSD website, and they had a contacts list, but the people who handle electron microscope, and I contacted everyone, and he responded, and he said that he could actually help me use electron microscope, which is pretty cool. And actually, this year, I asked if I could use another microscope, the scanning electron microscope, but for that one, you have to pay so kind of depends, right? But Podcast Host 13:24 you know, yeah, I needed an electron microscope, you're able to see the nano silver particles. Yeah, kind of make this project work. Right. So what was it like seeing the nano silver particles in the electron microscope for the first time Kara Fan 13:36 seeing the nano silver particles for the first time, it was really fascinating, because like nano silver can come with like a lot of shapes and sizes. And it really signed to see my nano silver, like really small. I mean, like, it could be like a few hundred nanometers or like 10 nanometers. But actually, the smaller the size, the easier or better can kill bacteria. So it was really exciting to see, like 10 nanometers. Podcast Host 13:58 Did you have a moment where you thought, wow, this is science in action? This is an idea that Yeah, coming to life here. How was that feeling of creating science? Kara Fan 14:09 That was really cool. Because I didn't know that it would actually work because i for i made this lotion. Yes, it did turn brown. But it was just really cool to see like such simple ingredients, I guess turned into something. So cool. Podcast Host 14:23 Talk us through the research and testing side of things. So you've got the silver particles, you've got kind of solution that you can use as the bandage side of things. How do you go about testing that because you were dealing with like e coli and all these other like pretty nasty bacteria? That must have been a little bit crazy to have Yeah, all this dangerous bacteria around you. So talk me through that process and what that was like? Kara Fan 14:46 So I actually bought the bacteria from a website called Carolina calm and they sell a bunch of medical things like bacteria and his websites Podcast Host 14:55 for everything. Yeah, go websites for buying bacteria. I'd never thought I'd come around. Cross one like that, but I'm glad you did, because it helped you make the bandage. Yeah. So you found this website that sells bacteria and you buy bacteria from them? Kara Fan 15:07 Yeah. Okay, well actually, I first bought one kind of bacteria. First, it was ecola. And I bought a bunch of petri dishes from them too, because bacteria grow and PJ fishes and I used a Kirby Bauer method. So basically, it's a method where I drop a few pieces of my nano silver liquid bandage onto like, a small disc, and then I put it on the petri plate that already has bacteria on it. And then I wait for a few days. And then I just check to see if the bacteria grew or not. And there's like a diameter kind of around the circle. And it just shows how much bacteria is killed. Podcast Host 15:42 And what were the results of those initial tests, you have to adjust what you were doing at all? Or was it just like, Wow, it works. And I've got my project, or what kind of iterations did you have to have after? Kara Fan 15:53 Yeah, so I had to adjust it. Because sometimes if you have such a huge concentration or nanosolar might be a bit toxic. So I tested it with different concentrations. So I tested it with 50 100 200, and so on. And I found that the minimum inhibito