Community Outreach

I'm fortunate to have had mentors, teachers, and friends who support my learning and interests. To address global challenges, everyone will need to be able to participate. I use my skills to further the efforts of others in making our world a better place on both a small scale, like tutoring or mentoring individuals in math, science, and programming, and a big scale like advocating for Education and STEM funding for every student.

Local and National Advocacy

At the California Association for STEM Advocacy (CASA), I learned about the legislation process, certain pieces of policy, and how to run an advocacy meeting. Collaborating with other students to create effective, combined messaging for state legislators was both fun and challenging. We advocated in Sacramento, CA, for ELOP funding which goes to after-school programs including robotics.

At the National Advocacy Conference, run by the Student Association for STEM Advocacy (SASA), I learned about the legislation process, how to advocate effectively, and about various pieces of legislation including ESSA Title IV and the CHIPS and Science Act. After learning how to advocate and what we were advocating for, I met with the offices of 2 Senators and 4 Representatives to advocate for increased funding to multiple STEM programs.

This event gave me a great opportunity to practice leadership, by leading the group of 4 teams attending from San Diego. This included scheduling meetings with our local representatives, communicating with teams to plan meetings, and keeping everyone together and organized while at the capital. Things did not go entirely smoothly, which was great because it gave me an opportunity to improve and develop skills that I otherwise wouldn’t have.

TEDx Talk

My TEDx Talk entitled “M: The Most Important Part of STEM”, encourages others to find value in learning math, and asks teachers to engage students in more meaningful ways.

Science Fair Club

I partnered with my engineering teacher to establish a science fair club to introduce and engage other students in the science fair. Mentoring another student through the development of their project and presentation at the fair, where he won a first place category award, was incredibly rewarding.

Breakthrough Junior Challenge

I created a two-minute educational video explaining a complex math concept to educate others, and hopefully to excite them to learn more.

Presenter for FLYSET 10th Annual FTC Workshop

I'm grateful to have been invited to present Cuttlefish, my open-source robotics software. I developed and donated this software to the FIRST robotics community as a way of giving back to a community that's taught me so much.