And with computer science or engineering, you can scale your solutions to millions. I honestly look at myself as a child in a chocolate factory. I think that STEM can really help a lot of the population in the world.
When you were a kid, before you knew completely about this world in front of you, what was your hope? What was your childhood dream job?
I once told my mother that I would be a director of NASA!
So your dream of NASA is actually not that far from where you are. What do you want to do now?
Right now I think the challenge is helping with climate change because it is an emergency. It cannot wait.
Which woman inspires you right now?
Oh, so I honestly look up to a lot of people. Even though it’s not STEM, one person that I really was inspired by, I met her this year at the Green Carpet Fashion Awards, was Zendaya. We were speaking about spreading her message for fast fashion.
I am also part of Neo Scholars community, where I see a lot of women starting companies. So those women, even though they’re not—as of now, they’re very small startups—seeing firsthand how they’re building startups is also very inspiring.
You’ve made thousands of miles of progress, in a sense, so how do you celebrate yourself?
I am not really great at celebrating myself, to be honest. However, one thing is that I never say no to something that I have a first chance to do. For example, this is my second summer in New York, and I had a chance to see a Broadway show for the first time.
I really am in love with time and trying to use the time as much as I can. When I see a one-time opportunity to do something, I’m going to take it. Traveling is huge for me, and maybe having a chance to go on a Christmas trip back home and see my friends and family. I’m really grateful for my parents, especially my mom, because she gave up everything for me. She was not working. She was a stay-at-home mom, so I hope I repaid everything she did for me.
What are you most proud of the work that you have done?
Well, I would say three things. One is getting the admissions into the US. That was the greatest dream. The second is scaling the nonprofit and talking to millions of people around the world. I started it as really as a joke, as a high school project, and seeing it endure four years after that, I found my passion in a very interesting way. I never searched for it. It was just me starting a project.
And third is seeing the miracles. None of this was planned. All of this was just because I followed my curiosity and tried to ask….
I had millions of failures across the way. So maybe I’m proud of trying to use every opportunity, and every time I fail, trying to understand why I failed and how to continue further.
Photographed by Stefanie Keenan/Getty Images for Green Carpet Fashion Awards
