My Science School

This young author of the books "The Positive Poetry Closet' and "Fantasia Adventures" used the lockdown to hone her writing skills. She's also been a TEDx speaker. Priyankha Kamalakannan, living in Germany. She speaks about her journey.

How did your journey as an author start?

Writing started as a skill at school. One day, I randomly wrote a short story called The Bucket List Detectives'. My parents printed it as small booklets on my eighth birthday, and gave them as return gifts to guests. Everyone loved the story, and I was motivated by the appreciation I received. So, I wrote another story called 'Liana's Adventures In Wonderland. During the lockdown, I re-read my previous works and realised I could write them in a much better way. So I rewrote 'Liana's Adventures In Wonderland', which turned into a newly sculpted tale very different from the original story. Rewriting this story resulted in my first book, 'Fantasia Adventures.

Tell us about 'Fantasia Adventures' and 'The Positive Poetry Closet?

'Fantasia Adventures' is a fantasy book, where the main character is a girl called Lizzy who lives on an English farm and is very special to her grandmother. One night, when she thinks about her grandma, she magically lands in a place called Fantasia, a magical land where she meets a lot of different people. She learns about an evil queen who wants to destroy all the good. She, hence, decides to go on a mission to stop the evil queen and save Fantasia and its people. This is the plot of the story, and I sought help from my friend and added illustrations to make the book more interesting for readers.

My second book is The Positive Poetry Closet. I had numerous poems written and piled up, so I thought of compiling them into a book. I gave the book a fun title and published it.

How was your experience as a TEDx speaker?

When I was in Class III, my teachers used to play TED Talks on the smart board. When I was in Class IV, my school got a licence to conduct a TEDx speech, and my teacher allowed us to participate in it. Only a couple of people were selected, and I was surprised and happy that I was one of them. We had mentors and teachers who supported us, and to make it more impactful, we took instances from real-life for our talks. Not having notes and memorising the speech I wrote was what was keeping me from being distracted. The whole experience was thrilling.

How do you manage school and other work?

My writing started over the lockdown period, so most of my school work was done online during class. Our teachers didn't give us much work due to which there was a lot of leisure time, which I utilised for writing my books. Our school has a system where they don't give homework till Class VI, which made it simpler for me. Apart from the time I spend on my school work and writing. I take part in extra-curricular activities too. I also started my YouTube channel during this lockdown, where I shared videos of me spending time with my friends, doing crafts, experiments, baking, etc.

If something has to be changed in society, what would it be?

Irrespective of all the work we should accomplish, we must prioritise what we want to do and what we believe is important to us. It is also important that we spend quality time on the things we are passionate about, as it is important to share our abilities with everyone. In society, I wish to change the pivotal situation of how people are not being able to pursue their dreams and passion due to age boundaries. I would like to break these boundaries that are an obstacle to people from reaching their full potential. Many people of young and old age have been proving that age is just a number and that age shouldn't be used to question one's ability.

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Through his organisation Finz, this social entrepreneur is on a mission to raise awareness about the importance of financial literacy among Gen Z He also started the Workers' Rights Awareness Project and is part of Youth Policy Collective, focussing on research and writing. Kanav Batra speaks about his journey.

What is your organisation Finz all about?

Finz was established to educate Gen Z about personal finance, investing, entrepreneurship, and economics. With the help of a tailor-made curriculum, we provide courses that enrich students' financial acumen. We also provide an environment where Genz can gather real-life lessons along the way. At Finz, competitions are held for students to collaborate and compete. We will also conduct webinars with industry experts, college students, personal finance influencers, and youth entrepreneurs, and boot camps to reinforce what we teach through courses and mainstream learning instruments.

What made you a social entrepreneur?

Till I was in Class XI, I spent my time writing, reading, and just sticking with school. In Class XI, I felt there were many opportunities for students like me who wanted to become changemakers but didn't know how to. That's when I started pursuing my academic interests and hobbies outside of school too, starting my journey to becoming a social entrepreneur. Along the way, I saw many other young changemakers creating impact and bringing positive changes to society. This motivated me then, still does, and pushed me to be a social entrepreneur. To be fair though, my interests were always in economics, and this was one of the key reasons I started Finz with my friend Niranjen.

You set up WRAP - the Workers' Rights Awareness Project.

It is a social impact initiative that started with a team of nine other fellows as part of the Take the World Forward' Fellowship, a six-month programme by 'Learn with Leaders. Our motive is to improve the livelihood of daily wage workers by helping them become financially literate and spread awareness about programmes, policies, and organisations already in place to help them. Over the last couple of months, I underwent Social Impact and Leadership Training to nurture and grow WRAP as an organisation. We are commencing our move towards making WRAP an independent organisation away from the fellowship.

Tell us about your work in research, focussing on your time with Youth Policy Collective (YPC).

As part of the Economics and Trade Committee at YPC, I worked on the environmental economics and disaster management research paper, 'A Case-Study Based Analysis of the Implications of Natural Disasters on the Indian Agriculture Industry From 2000-2020. The premise of the paper and the journey of writing it were quite interesting. After a year of research, editing, and rewriting, it is now publicly available on Social Science Research Network. I am also working on two new papers with YPC, which I aim to finish in October. Outside of YPC, I am working on a behavioural economics paper surrounding consumer behaviour.

Do you think the youth of today will bring change in this entrepreneur world?

 I believe that in the next few years, there will be a changemaker in every house, and that changemaker will be a student. Students are now raising their voices by bringing more awareness to society. I strongly believe students will bring positive change and maybe one day provide a solution for our nation's problems.

What other projects are you involved in?

Under YPC, I'm also editor-in-chief of the newsletter and a member of the Steering Committee, which is essentially the top management of the organisation. I am the vice-president and one of the founding members of The Scribble Society, a creative writing dub that brings together budding writers into a community where they can publish and discuss written work. Recently, I helped organise a = writing competition on self-growth, which brought over 30 participants to compete for the top positions.

How do you manage your hobbies?

First of all, I'd like to say I am horrible at time management. Though, in contrast, I'm very committed to my work. No matter what time it is, I work and don't leave it until it is done. I think this is my best quality as it shows how much I love what I do. As for my hobbies, I am a big basketball fan; not only playing but I enjoy watching it too. I'm grateful to the sport as it helped me get better with things such as teamwork, leadership, perseverance, and resilience. Besides that, I also like writing. Writing is something I've been doing for a long time, and I feel that words have always helped me stay true to the storyteller in me.

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This Class XII student is the founder and CEO of Visard.org, a youth-run, not-for-profit that aims to empower small businesses through technology. Varun Arora speaks about his journey.

What fascinated you to learn about Artificial Intelligence (AI)?

When I was a kid, I was always engrossed in building new things and using my imagination to innovate. I first heard about Al when Intel conducted the Al for Youth programme and got selected for it. I did not have any idea about it, but decided to give it a try and I loved it. I was also intrigued, and so decided to pursue Al on a deeper level.

How was your experience at the Al for Youth programme?

It was a four-month-long programme, and at the end, we were asked to build a project that would be helpful to society in some way and contribute to the welfare of people. Recently, I had the opportunity to present my project to the CEO of Intel, and it was a phenomenal experience! Overall, the programme was beneficial and I consider it the turning point in my journey.

What was your project about?

An Al reading assistant, I made it for kids in the four to eight age group. It aims to develop essential skills in children without any increase in screentime.

You run an organisation called Visard.org.

Our organisation's main aim is to empower small businesses through technology. We do this through a range of initiatives, one of them being providing solutions such as creating websites for small business owners at rates lower than what many agencies charge. Apart from this, we have various other initiatives that cover areas such as support for artisans, educating/training business owners on tech tools, etc. We have impacted over 100 businesses and have helped small businesses save about Rs. 1 lakh. Additionally, the team size too has grown to over 25. The organisation is also backed by advisors who are alumni of reputed institutions such as Stanford, MIT, NYU, Microsoft, etc.

How do you manage your time between school and your organisation?

Due to the pandemic, my classes have been held online. It was a blessing in disguise because I was able to focus on my project and build my organisation. Once the physical classes start, the actual challenge will begin. But with proper time management and organisational skills, I think I will be able to balance everything.

When we talk about Al, the most pressing question is can humans be replaced by Al.

My answer would be a no. 1 would like to stress the fact that Al is just a displacement and not a replacement. I do agree that in some aspects Al does much better than us humans. We need to understand and accept the fact that it's going to replace humans in some jobs. But then again, certain jobs such as nursing can never be replaced by computers. For job security in the competitive world, we need to be aware of the latest technology. We need to realise that every day, we are one step closer to the point where humans and robots will coexist, and that this evolution will lead to our co-dependency.

What are your hobbies and interests?

I started cycling recently. With the pandemic locking us inside our homes, there hasn't been much activity on the road, so why not give cycling a go? I also collect ancient coins and currencies. Other than that, I have been quite busy with school and Visard.

What are your plans for the future? And what would you like to change in society?

My end goal is to be an entrepreneur. I realise that often when we start earning, we stop learning. But it shouldn't be so, because education gives wisdom too. Also, it is very important to apply what you learn in real life. For example, there is no use in learning to code if you never get to actually code. So the one thing I would like to change in society is the architecture of the Indian education system, which currently focusses more on theoretical concepts than practical application.

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Meet Gourav Khunger a 16-year-old Android app developer. He runs genicsblog.com an open source platform for developers to share technical knowledge. He speaks about his journey .

What fascinates you about technology?

The ability to turn my imagination into reality. Having a solid technical background helped me build software tools and apps that didn't exist. In this modern world, having basic tech skills is a must.

Tell us about your journey of finding your passion.

Until Class VI, I had almost no involvement in extracurricular activities. One day my father showed me an advertisement for an Indian digital payment company. and pointed out the things they are doing with their app. This kindled my curiosity to learn about the interface of their app and about the tools used to build websites. This, combined with the basic web development lessons in Class VI, got me to explore different kinds of technology using the computer we had at home. I used the Internet for the first time to learn about website development. I set up my first website by leaming about coding from an educational website. This was about five years ago. But I soon realised web development wasn't something I wanted to pursue as a career. I wanted to do programming languages such as Java, Kotlin, Ruby, etc. So in Class VIII, I got into app development, and since then I have worked using many coding languages on different levels of projects. Today I maintain 20+ open source projects, and also write technical articles to help others become better software developers.

Recently, you became one of the youngest to receive the Google Associate Android Developer certification.

It is a certification that says I have the industry-level skills required to be a professional Android developer. It is not a course certification, but an eight-hour-long programming test where one has to work on tasks on a real Android app project that Google provides. There's a coding interview too, and that's how one can be certified.

What projects are you currently working on?

I'm currently focussing on my developer publication genicsblog.com and my open source app JekyllEx. Genics is a public blog and open source platform where software developers can share their technical knowledge by writing on topics they are passionate about. It has about 600 monthly readers now; in January it was only 200! JekyllEx allows people to manage their Jekyll-powered blogs from their smartphone without the hassle of needing a desktop.

What's your vision for this fast-growing world?

My vision is to build software and also create content that would help people upskill their knowledge in software development. I believe that free and open-source software is powerful. Most of what we see on the Internet today would not have existed if it weren't for open source. So I would definitely continue to work on my open source projects.

Do you have any message for society?

I would like to change society's mindset that kids can't do anything without formal education. During the recent lockdowns, we saw a lot of people with mind-blowing ideas that have the potential to change the world. I believe that people should have an open mind and trust their kids by letting them pursue careers in any field they find interesting. Teaching kids to be passionate about what they want to do is a lot better than forcing them to change to something they might regret later. As for the kids, my message is believe in yourselves because you can do anything you want. When you know that you have the potential, go for it and earn your place in this world!

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