My Science School

It is said that nothing in this world is constant, except change. This could be a change in situation, a change of place, a change in friends, or even a change in ideology.

This is the story of two siblings – Hans and Sophie Scholl – who were executed 77 years ago, on February 22, 1943 for speaking up against the Nazi regime in Germany in a non-violent way, using the power of language.

Growing up in Nazi Germany

Hans and Sophie Scholl were two among five children born to Robert and Magdalena. Hans, the elder of the two, was born in 1918, and Sophie in 1921.

The siblings were still in school when the National Socialist German Workers’ Party’s (the Nazi party) leader Adolf Hitler took power in 1933 as Chancellor of Germany.

Robert, their father, was a liberal man and taught his children tolerance. He did not approve of Germany’s new leader. However, Hans and Sophie grew up being fascinated with the idea of National Socialism. Both of them joined the youth wings of the party – Hitler Youth, and Union of German Girls – and quickly held leadership positions.

A change in views

During their time with the youth wing, the siblings witnessed the party. They realised that this was against their idea of National Socialism and slowly started to move away.

By 1942, the siblings left the youth wings. The same year, Hans, who was studying medicine at the University of Munich, was called to the Eastern Front to serve at the warfront along with other Medicine students. In the three months he spent at the Front, Hans witnesses the inhumanity of his government and the massive destruction caused by war. The students were also concerned about the fate of Jews who were deported.

By the time he returned, Hans was completely against the Nazi rule.

The White Rose

Soon, at the University of Munich, where the Schools were studying, a group started forming. Hans, Sophie, a few other students, and a philosophy professor formed the core of the group that came to be known as The White Rose – a student-led resistance movement.

The group managed to acquire a manual printing press and began creating leaflets that urged and encouraged people to resist the Nazi rule. “Do not forget that every nation deserves the government that it endures,” they wrote in the first pamphlet.

The White Rose started mailing the pamphlets to random people in the phone directory, took them in suitcases with them wherever they went, and left them in phone booths. They even started painting graffiti on the walls of the University of Munich with slogans such as “Freedom” and “Hitler the Mass Murderer”. Some of their work began spreading to places as far as Austria.

The White Rose did all this anonymously, since anti-Nazi speech was being monitored carefully by the Gestapo (the secret state police).

Capture and execution

On February 18, 1943, Hans and Sophie carried a suitcase filled with leaflets to the University of Munich and distributed them anonymously. They decided to empty the extra leaflets into the courtyard and were caught by custodian Jakob Schmid, who immediately informed the Gestpo.

The siblings were arrested and interrogated for nearly four days. Though they initially denied the acquisition, they later admitted to it, in a bid to save the other members of The White Rose. However, a note in Hans’ pocket unwittingly gave away the name of a third member.

On February 22, 1943, the three members were sentenced to death by the People’ Court, led by Judge-President Roland Freisler.

They were executed the same day by guillotine.

Subsequently, other members of The White Rose were captured and executed or imprisoned. But their resistance had left its mark.

What makes them special?

The Schools were courageous. They weren’t afraid to admit they were wrong in supporting the Nazi party, and neither were they afraid to raise their voices against the crimes committed by the Nazi government.

 

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When most kids ask their parents for a puppy, they either get one or don’t. But when little Arsh asked his parents for one, he was gifted a Lego Mindstorms kit instead. While most of us would have been dejected at the thought of not getting what we wanted, Arsh made the most of it. He used his skills to build himself a robot puppy from the Mindstorms kit. This, however, is only the beginning of Arsh’s innovative journey.

The robo master

Born in March 1998 in Panipat, Haryana, Arsh has always been interested in robotics. The young boy has received constant support from his parents, and his journey robotics began with the Lego Mindstorms kit.

It was 2010 when Arsh was 12 years old, that he built the robot dog. The same year, Arsh won the national-level Indian Robot Olympiads. The next year, he won the first position in the North Zone in INSPIRE creation was an unmanned ground vehicle, which also fetched him honours in 2012 from then President Pratibha Patil.

In the following years, Arsh has gone on to build a 50 cm-tall humanoid which can do push-ups, stand on its head and climb stairs, and a hexapod (spider-like robot),among others.

Time to TALK

One of Arsh’s most notable inventions has been TALK, an Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) device that helps people with speech troubles, including those who cannot speak or communicate normally. How does it do this, you ask? The device processes a user’s breath patterns through Morse code and converts it to speech. Almost the same weight as a smartphone, TALK takes only 0.8 seconds to dictate the letter ‘A’, 0.4 seconds for ‘E’ etc. Considered one of the fastest AAC devices, TALK has nine different voices for different age groups and genders.

In 2014, TALK was selected as one of the Top 15 Projects of Google Science Fair. Arsh was the only Asian in the final round of the Fair.

While he didn’t win the top honours, his innovation won the Voter’s Choice accolade at the Google Science Fair.

Arsh, who is now pursuing his studies at the Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey, the U.S, has been in talks with manufacturers for commercialising TALK, and continues to innovate and build robots.

What make him special?

His passion for innovation. Since a young age Arsh has stayed focussed, pursued his passion, and continues to innovate and build things.

 

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It’s not how expensive or fancy something is that matters. Sometimes, a small backpack can make a big difference in someone’s life.

When 11-year-year-old Kylie Simonds, now a teenager, from Connecticut, the U.S., was asked by her fifth grade teacher to come up with something that solves an everyday problem, she knew just what she wanted to create – a backpack. But why?

Facing everyday challenges

When she was just eight, Kylie was diagnosed with rhabdomyosarcoma, a rare childhood cancer that affects the connective tissues in the body. Kylie had to undergo chemotherapy, radiation and surgeries while attending school.

After 46 weeks of struggle, Kylie was given a positive prognosis from the doctors at Yale Cancer Centre in Connecticut. Ever since, she has remained healthy.

However, having undergone cancer treatment herself, Kylie realised the everyday struggles associated with it. She started to lose hair and would fall sick easily. She would usually feel too weak to move around and do things. But on days when she was bright enough to go out and play, she faced the issue of immobility. Kylie had to carry intravenous (IV) poles with her everywhere she went. Often, the bulky pole, coupled with the IV drip bag attached to her, would come in the way of her play. She would often trip over wires, get tangled up in them and have to drag the pole around.

An innovation from a personal struggle

Thus, in 2014, her fifth grade teacher asked the students of her class to come up with something that could solve an everyday problem, Kylie had the answer.

From her personal struggle, she knew just how much happiness a compact backpack, which could carry the drip bag, help a child with cancer. In her words, “I would have loved this thing for myself.”

She worked with her parents to design the bag. She sought tips from her doctors and nurses to design the best version she could. The one thing on everyone’s mind was the weight of the bag. It had to be light and portable.

A few weeks later, she had her prototype ready. The backpack, which featured a Hello Kitty (cartoon) design, included a metal drip bag protection cage to prevent the drip bag from puncturing. Kylie also built-in an IV controller for the drip bag’s flow rate.

Kylie and her parents then created an online fundraiser to raise money for the backpack design. They managed to raise close to USD 55,000.

Kylie also filed a patent application for her design and has been screening companies to make her idea a reality.

What makes her special?

Having overcome cancer, Kylie drew inspiration from her personal struggle to design something that could prove useful for others undergoing something similar. It might not be a cure, but her innovation manages to provide someone a chance to play without the worry of getting tangled up.

 

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The defining moment

Thus began Licypriya’s activism. Though her father supported her, her mother was wary as she was worried about her future. But Licypriya decided to move forward and raise her voice against climate change and for disaster-risk reduction.

A year after Licypriya travelled around the world, having been invited by countires to address at events, her mother decided to extend her full support.

Licypriya garnered national attention in June 2019 when she protested in front of the Indian parliament. She protested for weeks, holding a placard urging Prime Minister Narendra Modi and other Members of Parliament to pass the climate change law to control and regulate carbon emission. In doing so, she also became the one of the youngest climate change activists and earned the title ‘India’s Greta Thunberg’.

Soon, she was invited by several organizations and countries to talk about climate change. In September 2019, she was invited by UNESCO Partners’ Forum 2019 in Luanda City, Angola. She addressed the topic of climate change along with prominent leaders from African countries. She also took part in a climate strike in Luanda City along with over 50,000 children and youth.

In October, she started the Great October March 2019 at India Gate, New Delhi, with thousands of others. The March, which took place in various locations in the city, requested immediate action on climate change and the enactment of the climate change law in India. The same month, she brought out a device called SUKIFU (Survival Kit for the Future) to curb air pollution. The zero-budget kit (a portable mask) is designed from trash to provide fresh air.

From Manipur to Madrid

In December 2019, she was invited by the United Nations to speak at the 2019 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP25) in Madrid, Spain. Though she was invited, she had to find a way to get to Madrid. Her father wrote to the Indian government requesting sponsorship, but there was no response from them. He then decided to crowdfund the tickets for them to Madrid. Her mother had to sell her gold bangles to book hotels for them. However, just as she was set to leave, the Spanish government intimated her about them sponsoring her accommodation.

When she made it to COP25, she became one of the youngest climate change activists in the world to address at the forum. She also got the chance to meet her inspiration Greta Thunberg, the Swedish activist.

For her activism, Licypriya has won several awards including the Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam Children Award by the Khwad Foundation and World Children Peace Prize from Global Peace Index – Institute for Economics and Peace.

What makes her special?

Licypriya persistently worked towards her passion of speaking against climate change despite lack of support, first from her mother, then from the governmental activists in the world and has world leaders listening to her speak.

 

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Sometimes, great businesses start from a small idea. And if you keep an eye out, you might just spot the idea, like Akshay Ruparelia, the teenager from Harrow, London, did, Akshay set up an online real-estate business when he was 17, after he realised the hefty sum charged by high-end real estate agents in the U.K. Today, his business is one among the many successful ones in the U.K.

The idea

Akshay is from Hemel Hempstead in Hertfordshire, England. Living with his parents, both of them hearing impaired, Akshay was shocked to discover the costs.

After finishing his GCSEs (equivalent to Class X) he developed an app called HouseSmart. The app was aimed at connecting property buyers and sellers. However, he scrapped the idea even before launching it.

Then, when he has studying for his A-levels, Akshay came up with the idea of doorsteps.cp.uk, a real estate website that he developed.

Setting up the site

Still a teenager, Akshay needed money to make his dream reality. He turned to his family and relatives for loan and they obliged. Akshay managed to obtain a 7,000-poind loan, a majority of which was provided by his uncle who had started and sold two online businesses of his own.

With the initial amount, Akshay managed to set up a very basic website and have it up-and-running from the bedroom of his house in 2016 when he was just 17.

The first client

Akshay knew that he might not get a client immediately. And he was patient. A few months after starting his website, he got his first customer from East Sussex, England. The customer wished to sell his house and some land, and Akshay decided to pay a visit to the place himself. He had his sisters, friend drive him since he was underage for a driver’s licence.

He met the client and got to work. A few weeks later, he managed to sell the house for a good rate, and Doorsteps received its first five-star review. Akshay, though, could not celebrate his success immediately since he had to study for his A-level examination.

Slowly and steadily, Akshay’s business began to grow. Still in school, he enlisted a call centre to take calls from clients when he was in school. Once home, he would attend to them. As his business began to grow, Akshay employed a network of mothers who show clients houses that are up for sale for a fraction of the cost that other real estate agents charge.

 Akshay’s business became so popular that in just over a year since it was started, it was listed as the 18th biggest estate agency in the U.K. This also made him the country’s youngest millionaire.

Today, Doorsteps continues to sell houses and is among the top companies in the U.K.

What makes him special?

Akshay identified a problem when he was helping his parents move homes and decided to devise a solution to tackle it. He worked hard, balanced education and business and managed to set up a successful business at a young age.

 

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If you were stung by a bee, twice, around the same time, you will probably run away from them the next time you see them. But four-year-old Mikaila from Austin, Texas, the U.S. became fascinated with them and is today selling lemonades and donating proceeds from her sales to organizations fighting for the survival of honeybees. This is her story.

Two stings and a cookbook later

In 2009, when she was just four, Mikaila’s parents, both with business degrees, encouraged her to come up with a product for an upcoming children’s business competition and for Austin Lemonade Day. She put on her thinking cap and was coming up with ideas when two interesting events happened in her life – in a span of two weeks, she was stung by two bees, and her great grandmother who lives in Cameron, South Carolina, sent the family a cookbook of hers from the 1940s.

These two moments were to define the path Mikaila was going to choose.

After she was stung by the bees, her parents encouraged her to read up about them and the things they do for the ecosystem instead of becoming averse to them. When she did her research, she learnt about the importance of honeybees and that their population was declining.

That’s when her great grandmother’s cookbook came in handy. Mikaila decided to use a special recipe of flaxseed lemonade her great granny used to make to start her own lemonade stall and help honeybees by contributing proceeds from her stall for their conservation.

This is how her company Me & the Bees was born.

An entrepreneur and a bee ambassador

Mikaila’s company made and sold flaxseed lemonade sweetened with local honey sourced from local beekeepers.

Year after year she would sell out of her Me & the Bees lemonade stall at youth entrepreneurial events and donate a percentage of the profit towards bee conservation.

As the business kept growing, her parents helped her strike the balance between her business and her school life.

In 2015, Mikaila’s business made a breakthrough when it won a contract to supply lemonade to supermarket chain Whole Foods Market. The same year, Mikaila appeared in the U.S. reality show “Shark tank” where she pitched her product to investors. Making an impact, Mikaila found an investor who invested USD 60,000 in her company.

Two years later, a consortium of current and former American football players invested USD 8,00,000 in Me & the Bees lemonade.

In 2015, Mikaila was also invited to the White House by then U.S. President Barack Obama.

Today, Mikaila has sold over a million bottles of her lemonade in the U.S. and is giving speeches at entrepreneurial conferences and workshops. In 2017, she launched her own non-profit – the Healthy Hive Foundation – to conduct research, education and protection projection for honeybees.

Her company continues to donate 10% of all profits to bee conservation groups.

What makes her special?

Her dedication, presence of mind and thought. Despite being stung by bees, she decided to read up on them and help towards their conservation by coming up with a business based on a recipe her great grandmother had sent her around the same time.

Today, even after being in business for nearly 10 years and selling millions of bottles, she continues to donate towards bee conservation.

 

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Hannah Herbst from Florida, the U.S., is a teen inventor and social innovator. Currently studying Computer Science at Florida Atlantic University, Hannah believes computers provide a great platform to make people’s lives better.

Hannah has been involved in extra-curricular activities since she was very young – she has dabbled in singing and athletics. In her seventh grade, she was introduced to engineering as a platform for problem-solving when she attended a summer engineering camp. She was the only girl at the camp, which involved building robots. She learnt from her peers and online articles about how to program and build robots. Hannah found the camp interesting and started to develop an interest in engineering.

Later the same year, when she received a letter from her pen pal in Ethiopia, she realised how engineering could be used to solve problems such as energy poverty. This led to the birth of what was later called BEACON.

What about the letter inspired her?

When Hannah was in the fourth grade, her teacher introduced her class to a programme called Compassion International, where kids can connect with other kids in the world through a pen pal letter-writing system. During this programme, Hannah befriended Ruth from Ethiopia who was a few years younger than her. Ruth and Hannah would exchange letters every now and then.

Time passed by and when Hannah was in her seventh grade, Ruth wrote to her about the problems she was facing due to energy poverty. These included lack of electricity and access to clean water.

Hannah was moved by the problems faced by Ruth and people living in similar situations, and decided to use her newly found interest in engineering to create a device that would solve Ruth’s problems.

A BEACON of hope

Living in Florida and being surrounded by big bodies of water, Hannah decided to focus on using water her source for power. She started building a device called BEACON (Bringing Electricity Access to Countries through Ocean Energy), which would tap energy from moving water and convert it into usable electricity. This could be used to charge batteries as well as a way to purify water using a process called two-phase microfiltration.

Initially, Hannah built a big, complicated, wave energy-collecting device, but the device would keep breaking. Her Science teacher urged her to take a different path, but she found it difficult to move away from the first prototype she built. She thought it would work.

However, she moved on, and working with her mentor, she finally built the prototype. BEACON fetched her the title of America’s Top Young Scientists in 2015, as she won the Discovery Education and 3M Young Scientist Challenge. BEACON was exhibited at the White House Science Fair, and Hannah has spoken about her invention at the United Nations Science, Technology and Innovation Summit.

She wishes to make BEACON a commercial device soon.

What makes her special?

Hannah empathised with Ruth’s problems and decided to use her interest in engineering to help her. Despite her prototype breaking several times, Hannah never gave up until BEACON became a reality.

 

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Children are considered innocent and playful, obvious of the evil around them. But today, these same innocent children are standing up to speak against the menaces that plague society at large.

Payal takes a stand

Payal Jangid from Hinsla, Rajasthan, was only 11 when she almost fell victim to child marriage. At an age when her parents should have placed a book in her hands and encouraged her to study, they planned to get her married.

But Payal decided to put up a fight – she refused to be one among the many little girls who are married off at a tender age. She contacted local activists in the village and shared her plight with them. They, in turn contacted Sumedha Kailash, the founder of the Bal Ashram Trust, a rehabilitation and training centre for the Save the Childhood Movement (Bachpan Bachao Andolan)

With her encouragement and support, Payal protested and raised hr voice against her family’s decision. Eventually, her parents relented and her marriage was called off.

But not everyone is this lucky. Several girls in rural India are trapped in the web of child marriage, and Payal wanted to put a stop to this.

A voice for others

Local activists spoke to Payal and other children about the plight of their peers. They also introduced them to the concept of a bal panchayat or child parliament in which local kids are elected to a village council.

Payal was chosen as the president of her village’s child parliament, and she decided to work with the local people and the panchayat to make Hinsla at Bal Mitra Gram (a village where children are withdrawn from labour units and sent to schools) and eradicate child marriage.

She also began organizing rallies and protests with the women and children in the village, providing them a platform to voice their concerns and opinions.

Payal educated people not just about social evils such as child marriage and child labour, but also about the importance of sending children to school.

Her efforts bore fruit when her village was declared a Bal Mitra Gram. Eventually, Payal and her bal panchayat also put end to child marriage in Hinsla.

For her activism, Payal was chosen as a member of the jury for the World’s Children’s Prize in 2013, received the Young Achiever Award by Reebok, and won the Changemaker Award at the annual Goalkeepers Awards by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and UNICEF in 2019.

Payal continues to work for children’s rights.

What makes her special?

Payal raised her voice for her rights and those of others around her. She worked with activists to uplift her village, and as a result, Hinsla is today a child-friendly village and rid of the evil of child marriage.

 

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Bali’s pristine beaches have been a tourist favourite for ages. However, the island was once laced with tonnes of plastic trash. That is until two school-going sisters decided to tackle the plastic pollution in their island.

Inspired by great people

Melati and Isabel Wijsen are sisters born and raised in Bali, Indonesia.

In 2013, when Melati was 12 and Isabel was 10, the sisters learnt about world leaders and change-makers such as Nelson Mandela, Princess Diana and Martin Luther King, in school. After this, the sisters were inspired to do their own bit to change the world into a better place.

They went home and researched on problems in Bali, and decided to focus on the problem of garbage, especially plastic bags that clogged the gutters and piled up on the beach and in rivers.

The sisters, determined to make their island plastic-free, founded a non-governmental organization called Bye Bye Plastic Bags the same year.

Indonesia-the plastic polluter

When the girls founded the Bye Bye Plastic Bags, Indonesia was the second largest plastic polluter in the world after China. It accounted for 10% of the world’s marine plastic pollution.

The Indonesian government had also pledged to invest USD one billion in reducing marine waste by 70% by 2025, as part of the United Nations Clean Seas programme.

Making an impact

After founding their organization, the sisters discussed their ideas in their class and began beach clean-ups and presentations at schools to enlighten local kids about the state of garbage in their country. The girls were instrumental in organizing Bali’s biggest beach clean-up, which witnessed close to 12,000 volunteers!

The sisters also started a pilot programme in a small village called Pererenan in Bali, educating the locals about plastic and its harmful effects on the planet. Soon, they began travelling to different countries to give talks on the subject.

However, their efforts weren’t enough to evoke the interest of the local government. To get its attention, the sisters decided to start a petition to get one lakh signatories. Their petition received tremendous response from people but the local governor still didn’t meet them,

Frustrated, the sisters decided to go on a hunger strike, inspired by a trip to India and a visit to Mahatma Gandhi’s house. And, 24 hours after they started their hunger strike, the governor met them and signed a memorandum of understanding with them to help the people of Bali say no to plastic bags.

Today, the girls continue their efforts to fight plastic pollution and have been named by the Forbes magazine as one among the top inspiring women in Indonesia.

What makes them special?

The sisters identified the problem of plastic pollution in their island and took measures to tackle it. Despite being ignored by the local governor for months, the sisters preserved and finally got the governor to sign a memorandum of understanding.

 

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There are several things we do in the hope for something good. We plant a sapling, hoping for it to turn into a huge tree, we study hard, hoping to find ‘the job’, and sometimes, we take a small step in the hope for a better tomorrow.

Mari writes a letter

Amariyanna ‘Mari’ Copeny, was just six years old when the water crisis started in Flint, Michigan, the U.S. She and her friends were no longer allowed to play in the water, and had to consume only bottled water.

Flint’s water crisis started in April 2014, when, to save costs, Michigan officials decided to switch Flint’s water supply from Lake Huron and the Detroit River to the Flint River without properly treating the water. This resulted in the people of Flint being exposed to dangerously high levels of bacteria and lead, creating health complications.

In March 2016, Mari and other residents of Flint were to visit Washington D.C. to witness their then Governor Rick Snyder testify before Congress about the Flint crisis. Before she started for the trip, Mari decided to write a letter to then President Barack Obama. Addressing herself as ‘Little Miss Flint’, Mari asked if the President or the First Lady Michelle Obama could meet Mari and the other residents during their visit to the capital, Mari also detailed the ordeals of the people.

However, the meeting couldn’t take place during their visit.

The President responds

Almost a month had passed since their visit to Flint when Mari’s mom received a call from an unknown number. It was a representative from the White House. He called to let her know that the President had read Mari’s letter and was moved by it. He informed her that the President would be personally replying to Mari’s letter by e-mail, and an official letter would be sent via post. Mari’s mother’s joy knew no bounds when the representative said that the President would like to meet Mari in Flint.

Mari, who was at school during the call, was informed by her mother bout the same. She decided on wearing the ‘Little Miss Flint’ sash that she had earned for winning a pageant.

And, the President did come to Flint a few days later to meet Mari and the other residents ad listen to their woes.

When she saw the President, she went running to him, and he lift her up and gave her a hug.

Mari’s letter to the President brought him to her home and led to stringent measures by the government to solve Flint’s water crisis.

In her own words, the President’s reply and subsequent trip to Flint proved her “that a kid can change the world.”

What makes her special?

Mari always hoped for the best. She wrote a letter to the President in the hope that she would meet him and he could help the people of Flint. And, one month later, she did meet him! The purpose of her letter was also fulfilled as the U.S. government took notice of Flint’s problems and began addressing them, through the problem still persists.

 

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Music is a way of expression. Many people take to music, either as listeners or performers, in search of inner peace or to vent out their feelings.

Sonita Alizadeh took to rapping when she was 16, bringing out her first video ‘Daughters for Sale’, to raise her voice against child marriage. Now 22, Sonita continues to rap for the cause close to her heart.

What is she fighting for?

Child marriage is a social evil that has persisted for centuries. According to data released by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), as of February 2019, very year close to 12 million girls under 18 are married. Nearly 650 million girls or women alive today were married as children.

While progress has been made, with close to 25 million child marriages prevented in the last decade, there is still a long way to go.

She was almost one of them

Sonita was born in 1996 and grew up in Herat, Afghanistan, under the Taliban rule. When she was six, her family fled from Afghanistan to Iran. Here, he lived her life as an undocumented refugee and a child labourer.

Sonita worked but also educated herself. She learned to read and write at a non-governmental organisation for Afghan refugees in Iran. She took a keen interest in writing and poetry and was inspired by Iranian rapper Yas and American rapper Eminem.

When she was 10, her parents had arranged for her to be married. Sonita was deeply affected by this as her dream was to receive education. She would even see her friends being beaten for refusing child marriage. Thankfully, the arrangement fell out.

During this time, she found solace in music. She started writing pop songs but realising that she had a lot to say, decided to switch to rap.

She recorded songs about being a refugee, about the Afghanistan war, and about being a young woman. But she had to hide her lyrics in her backpack as Iran had a law prohibiting women from singing or rapping.

One day, she entered and won a U.S.-based competition to write a song for a music video encouraging young Afghans to vote. Still living in Tehran, she won $1,000 as prize money.

Daughters for Sale

Sonita thought things would get better when she won the competition. However, her mother, who had returned to Afghanistan, asked her to come home as she had found a future husband for her. Sonita was just 16.

She refused to marry at such a young age and penned down a song called ‘Daughters for Sale’. An Iranian filmmaker, Rokhsareh Ghaemmaghami, who had come to know about Sonita, helped her to make a video and release the same. The music video garnered several views and became an anthem against the child-bride tradition. After the video gained international recognition, Sonita won a full scholarship to a boarding school in the U.S. She even convinced her parents to abort their quest to get her married.

Rokhsareh Ghaemmaghami made a documentary on Sonita’s life, and released it in 2015. The film won the World Documentary Audience Award and Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival in January 2016.

Today, Sonita lives in the U.S. and advocates for ending child marriage that has reached curriculum on child marriage high school students in the U.S. Sonita has also spoken at several forums, including the World Bank’s Fragility Forum.

She continues to write songs and wishes to be a “lawyer who can rap”.

What makes her special?

Sonita took to music and used it to raise hr voice against child marriage. Despite the constant challenge she faced, he stood her ground and is today inching closer towards realising her dreams.

 

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 We often value most the thing or the person who helped us sail through our tough times. For Steven Gonzalez, that thing is video games.

His story

Steven Gonzalez, now 24, was diagnosed with Acute Myeloid Leukaemia when he was 12. For a chance to recover, Steven had to undergo intense chemotherapy and needed a bone marrow transplant. When the doctors looked at the international registry for bone marrow donors, there wasn’t a single match. Not one. For bone marrow to be a match, the donor and the recipient should generally have the same racial and ethnic background. Steven is of American, Italian, Mexican and Puerto Rican heritage.

Having tried and not found a donor, the doctors gave Steven a 2% chance of survival. However, they offered the family an option that might be Steven’s best shot at defeating leukaemia – cord blood transplant. Cord blood is the blood left over in the umbilical cord after birth. It has all the properties of regular blood, but it’s also rich in stem cells used to cure illnesses such as leukaemia, lymphoma and sickle cell anaemia.

A bone marrow needs to be an exact match, but cord blood gives a leeway.

A match was found and Steven’s surgery was a success. He recovered from cancer. However, his immune system had taken a beating and he needed to be in a sterile environment for 100 days. This meant isolation from the outside world.

Video game – the companion

In the 100 days that Steven remained isolated, he found solace in video games. While he was losing hair and body mass in the real world, he could be anyone in the world of video games. It gave him positivity and helped him connect with his friends. Meanwhile, he also mastered a few software.

As his isolation period was ending, he realised how much video games helped him and how it could help other children with illness. So he used his skills to create an eight-level video game called ‘Play Against Cancer’. In this game, players would fight cancer cells and overcome cancer.

He distributed the game to children in the hospital where he was admitted and realised that it helped them stay positive in their fight against cancer.

Sharing the positivity and virtually

Having witnessed the positive effects of video games on children, Steven, along with his uncle, in 2013, went on to start a non-profit called The Survivor Games to help kids out through their cancer experience. The main purpose of The Survivor Games is to “bring the healing power of video games to the cancer community by creating a social network with video games as its foundation”. It allows teens with cancer to connect with others like them and share their views on video games. It also lets teens catch up on gaming news.

Today, Steven is a cancer survivor for over a decade and is spreading cheer with video games.

What makes him special?

Steven is a survivor. He survived cancer at a young age and decided to help children fighting cancer by sharing with them the thing that helped him cope with his illness – video games.

 

Picture Credit : Google

An oil spill in the middle of the ocean can affect millions of marine and human lives.

On April 20, 2010, the world witnessed a large-scale industrial disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. Considered the largest marine oil spill in the history of the petroleum industry, the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, also known as the BP oil spill, discharged close to 4.9 million barrels of oil into the sea. In the aftermath, several marine species were affected and humans were asked to stay away from the coast for a while. The effects of the disaster are such that they can be seen even today in the form of deformed sea animals.

Keiana Cave, then a 15-year-old, living in New Orleans, Louisiana, was deeply affected by the news on television. Having always been interested in science and research, Keiana started to research about the oil spill. She learnt that when UV rays from the sun mix with the oil in the ocean, the oil becomes carcinogenic.

Finding a solution

Keiana entered her findings at a science fair in her hometown and she took home a prize for her research. She was encouraged by her biology teacher to pursue her research. Funded by GOMRI (Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative). Keiana started her research at the University of New Orleans the same year. Soon she worked with Tulane University, New Orleans. The research, titled A Method for Identifying the Photoproducts, Mechanisms, and Toxicity of Petroleum from the Deepwater Horizon by High-Performance Liquid Chromatography and DNPHi Derivatization, provided the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency with a method to identify nanotoxins (toxic nanoparticles) that form in seawater after oil spills.

In 2015, she won the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair in the Earth and Environmental Sciences Category for her research on the BP oil spill.

Developing dispersant, and a company

Not stopping at just identifying nanotoxins, Keiana joined the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Global Entrepreneurship Bootcamp, in 2016. During her time there, Keiana developed an oil dispersant molecule (a mixture of emulsifiers and solvents that helps break oil into small droplets following an oil spill). Keiana started a company and pitched her start-up to investors. Her start-up, Mare, is a research initiative dedicated to developing solutions to large-scale spills such as the BP oil spill. The same year, Keiana’s research also received a funding of USD 1.2 million.

In 2017, Keiana featured in the Forbes 30 under 30 list, and in 2018, was named in Entrepreneur Magazine’s 2018 Young Millionaires List, following the acquisition of Mare in late 2017.

Today, Keiana has two two patents and two scientific papers in her name.

What makes her special?

From helping government agencies identify nanotoxins, to developing an oil dispersant molecule, Keiana used her concern and talent to tackle the impact of oil spills head-on.

 

Picture Credit : Google

At the end of a grueling year at school, a vacation is what most children look forward to. However, the planning and execution of the vacation is usually done by parents, and as adults, they might sometimes overlook just how child-friendly the places they plan to visit is.

When 12-year-old Bella Tipping from Dubbo, New South Wales, Australia, returned from a vacation to the U.S. with her parents, she wanted to share her experience. She followed her mother, Bernadette, to the computer and tried to log into TripAdvisor, the travel planning and review site. However, she was not allowed to register since she was under-age. Disappointed that she couldn’t voice her views about the hotels and the places she visited, Bella decided to fill this gap in the online space by creating her own travel review website for kids.

The birth of Kidzcationz

Bella wanted to create a site where children could provide honest feedback about different things related to travel and vacation giving them a more significant role in the family vacation decision-making process.

But before she could dive right into the project, her mother asked her to come up with a business plan to ensure the idea had merit. Firm on her idea of creating a travel review site, Bella sat down and wrote the entire business plan explaining what the website was about, how it was going to work, her target audience, and her exit strategy. Moved by her commitment and dedication, her parents decided to help her in her journey towards making her dream a reality.

Bella sat with her parents and chalked out the finer details of the website for nearly a year. She came up with a name, found a web designer and made decisions on the look and feel of the website. Bella was clear that the site was going to cater to children under 18, but could be accessed by anyone.

With help from her mother, Bella also managed to get affiliated with an international travel booking site.

She travelled extensively across Australia with her parents to collect data for her parents to collect data for her reviews on the site.

Kidzcationz was formally launched in late 2015.

Safety first

To ensure kid’s identities are safe, the site uses avatars for reviewers’ profiles. It has safety features that ensure children cannot share photographs or contact information with anyone else using the site.

A successful kidpreneur

Today, Kidzcationz is a successful platform with thousands of reviewers from around the world. The site also made Bella find a place for herself in the ‘Fortune 18 Under 18’ list of entrepreneurs 2016.

What makes her special?

Bella saw an opportunity and made the best use of it. Her commitment and dedication to fulfill her dream led to the birth of Kidzcationz, and her establishing herself as a successful entrepreneur.

 

Picture Credit : Google

It’s a beautiful feeling when one’s passion becomes their profession.

Sebastian Martinez was only five when he became an entrepreneur and started his company ‘Are you kidding?’. All because of his love wacky socks!

Never enough socks

Sebastian lives with his father Fabian Martinez, mother Rachel and brother Brandon in Kendall, Miami, the U.S. Since he was a toddler, Sebastian has had an obsession for colourful socks. His grandmother, who worked in retail, would get socks for him every time she would visit them. By the time he was five, Sebastian had more than 100 pairs of colourful socks.

One day, inspired by reading about a young girl who used her passion for design and love of sea animals to design fish-themed flip flops called fish flops, Rachel asked five-year-old Sebastian if he would like to design socks. Sebastian jumped at the idea and started designing wacky socks.

The beginnings

Soon, Sebastian wished for his designs to turn into real socks. And his mother, a publishing advertising executive, used her network to connect with a manufacturer in Guatemala that could produce samples.

In April 2014, a box full of shipment had arrived at their home. And in May 2014, Are you kidding? Was founded, and Sebastian became the chief executive of the company?

Sebastian and Rachel put up a stall at Sesame Step Children’s Shoes in Miami and decided to sell socks. Sebastian had trouble talking to strangers initially, but soon his brother Brandon, who has a knack for socialising and presenting, joined them and the three of them started attracting customers and saw an increase in their sales. That day, Brandon joined the company as the Director of Sales.

#KIDSHELPINGKIDS

Five years later, their company continues to be in business, selling their wacky socks all over the world.

The brothers also launched the Kids Helping Kids initiative, where the company partners with schools and provides tools for annual fundraisers benefiting various charity partners.

The company has also partnered with several non-profit organizations to design and sell cause-specific socks that support each organisation’s mission.

For their philanthropic work, the brothers have received a Commendation from the Mayor of The City of Miami.

What makes him special?

Sebastian made a profession for himself with his love for designing socks. Not just that, he also used his skills to partner with non-profits and raise money for them.

 

Picture Credit : Google