Celebrating moments of
excellence & achievement

Physics has always been one of my strongest subjects, and when I heard about the Physics Bowl, it felt like the perfect way to test my skills. I spent weeks preparing, often late into the night, but it never felt like a chore. The sheer amount of material was daunting, but I decided to take it slowly. I gathered a group of friends, and we spent hours in the library, practicing and challenging ourselves. It was an incredible experience; we made complex concepts easier to understand, and their support drove me to go further.

As the competition day drew closer, I started to feel the pressure. It was a 45-minute sprint against 40 multiple-choice questions, with thousands of students competing from around the world. On the day of the exam, my heart was pounding. I took a deep breath, read the first question, and just went for it. I focused on staying calm, solving problems one by one, and temporarily skipping those that were too time-consuming. I trusted my process. Turning in my paper, I couldn't gauge how well I had done, but I felt a sense of accomplishment, knowing my weeks of preparation had finally paid off.

The entire experience opened a new area of my mind. The time spent with my friends and the late-night study sessions taught me a great deal about companionship and perseverance. What began as a simple challenge became a profound experience that helped me grow. When the scores were released, I was over the moon. I was ranked 2nd in all of Asia and 10th in Regionals. I didn't even expect to be in the top 30. This unbelievable result left me wondering if I had been underestimating myself this whole time, and it gave me a newfound confidence to keep moving forward.

Math has always been my safe place – the one subject where the rules are clear, but the possibilities are endless. To me, solving a problem isn't about plugging numbers into formulas; it's about creativity, patience, and sometimes even a bit of daring. That mindset guided me when I competed at the International STEM Olympiad 2024, where I was honored to receive the Gold Medal in Mathematics.

Standing in that competition hall, I knew I wasn't just facing tricky problems on paper. I was facing the limits of my own perseverance. Some questions seemed unsolvable at first glance, but that was exactly what excited me. I leaned on my habit of breaking problems into smaller, more manageable parts, piecing them together like a puzzle until clarity appeared. Every correct answer felt like catching a fleeting spark of insight – proof that persistence pays off.

What made the Olympiad special wasn't just the medal. It was realizing that math has the power to connect disciplines and people. Whether in physics, economics, or even business case studies, math is the language that helps me make sense of complexity. That recognition has shaped the way I approach challenges outside the classroom too: carefully analyzing variables, weighing options, and finding solutions that others might overlook.

Winning the gold medal was a proud moment, but more importantly, it deepened my appreciation for the role of analytical thinking in everything I do. Math, to me, is more than numbers – it is a way of seeing the world.

The "4i" stands for Idea, Invention, Innovation, and Intellectual Property, and the competition seemed like the perfect stage to bring a project of my own to life. I spent weeks preparing, turning a simple idea into a fully-fledged invention. It was a challenging process, but I managed to pull through.

Our team was primarily composed of high school seniors, and I was more of a "middle-child," being in the 11th grade. Despite that, it did not stop me from taking the lead and directing everyone. Our efforts went into sleepless nights designing our poster and rehearsing our speeches. Never did I see it as a chore, but rather enthusiasm thinking about the day of the competition.

The 3-day competition went by and now we are at the awarding ceremony. Here I stood on the stage in Seoul, surrounded by similar brilliant young minds from all over the world. When our name was called, and we received our Gold Medal and Grand Prix, we were obviously over the moon. Our efforts did not go in vain at all, and instead even went beyond our expectations.

The entire experience opened a new area of my mind. The time spent with my teammates, and the collaborative nights of brainstorming and prototyping, taught me a great deal about companionship and perseverance. It wasn't always easy, though. Our team was made up of new faces, and it took time to get comfortable with each other and learn how to work together effectively. We had different working styles and communication methods, which led to a few misunderstandings along the way. But by pushing through these difficulties, we grew stronger as a team.

The ICPC seemed like a world away from my day-to-day studies. Unlike the rigid structure of exams, this was about exploring and presenting a single idea, and it felt like the ultimate challenge. This is my first time ever writing a research paper, with all the abstracts and methodology. It was a journey of relentless research and meticulous writing, and it was quite taxing for me. Apart from doing my own research, I had to learn how to write a research paper, which took a lot of my time.

The weeks leading up to the conference were a whirlwind of final preparations. Approaching the deadline, I was not confident at all, since I had no prior experience in writing papers. Nevertheless, I couldn't back down now, and pressed the submit button. I waited patiently for weeks for a response from the organizing committee. When the results finally came back, I was completely surprised. I had achieved a Gold medal, against hundreds of teams from various backgrounds. I felt a sense of pride, not just in my work, but in the fact that I had the courage to put it out there and see it through.

The entire experience taught me so much more than I could have imagined. It was about more than just the research; it was a lesson of confidence. As long as you put in effort, you will achieve results. It does not matter if it's not a perfect prototype, the most important thing is that you have put in work.

The AI-JAM was a challenge I put on myself. Unlike my usual competitions, this one was about combining innovative technology with sustainable practices. The idea had been lingering in my head for a couple of months, and this was the perfect opportunity to bring it to life. I went through countless hours of prototyping, debugging, and training my model to fit with the original concept. It was a tedious process, but I was confident it would work. I even had to re-evaluate my entire approach at one point, but I persevered, motivated by the desire to turn a theoretical concept into a tangible reality.

The final presentation was a blur of excitement and nerves. As I recorded the video, I did everything I could to squeeze my months of effort into a precise 7-minute clip. I focused on explaining my process and highlighting the unique aspects of my idea. It was incredible seeing my concept and hard work come to fruition, especially since the project had grown so much since its inception. I felt a tremendous sense of accomplishment just in seeing it through to the end.

I truly did not expect to win, which made the moment they announced I had won the Gold medal even more surprising. The medal was a very worthwhile achievement, but the real reward was the journey itself. I had succeeded in integrating traditional practices into the modern world. Most importantly, it showed me that my skills could be used to create real, tangible solutions for real-life problems. It gave me a new level of confidence and a clear direction for my future, confirming that my passion for both technology and sustainability could be a powerful force for change.