Hey everyone! I’m so glad you tuned in to my newsletter! My name is Ciara, a 14 y/o interested in using emerging technologies like artificial intelligence and virtual/augmented reality to create a change in the education system. I also play basketball on my AAU girls basketball team🏀🏀, love learning new things 📚 and am vegan 🌱.
So… It’s official, September has come to an end and I am here writing to you about all the crazy things that have happened to me up until this point. This month has been one of the most influential months in my life(and that’s no lie), I have had the opportunity to get out of my comfort zone and meet so many amazing people, build great relationships, develop a new perspective on my life, learn a new programming language, and have tons of FUN!! So without further ado, let’s get to it!
TKS 🌎
This summer I applied to be a part of The Knowledge Society(TKS) and only being a month into it, I can already tell this is going to revolutionize my future. TKS is a youth-accelerator program that trains the next generation of change-makers🦄🦄. Though it's only been a month of TKS I have still had the opportunity to meet some AMAZING people, shout out to Rachel Lee the FIRST innovator I met in TKS, way back in early August. I have also attended a few impactful cohort sessions 🤯🤯, shout out to my AMAZING director Steven !! Another thing I really like about TKS is the community, several people in TKS started a 6 am discord channel that I joined, and since then it has grown to 46 users!! During August/September I have also had the opportunity to do a few explore modules(modules created by TKS students to spark interest in other students), and both explores have led me to find something I am really passionate about( Hint: they might have something to do with AI and VR/AR🧐).
Revolutionizing Education 📚
Currently, I am working on a project that involves giving global access to quality education 🌎. For the last month or so I have been doing research on this type of curriculum called Education 4.0 🎓. Basically, Education 4.0 is a type of curriculum that is designed for the 4th industrial revolution(where we are right now.). Currently, I am working on using AI and VR/AR to create a type of technology that allows students to immerse themselves in their lessons and engage in their learning, in a different way using gamification 🎮(another thing I have been researching). I am coming out with an article all about this in October, so stay tuned for that!! This project has actually motivated me to do virtual learning, and starting next week I will be going to an online academy called Acellus Academy. It’s very weird for me to not be in school because I was always a school nerd, but I have changed my view on how I approach my learning, so I am deciding to take charge. Next newsletter I will make sure to keep everyone updated on how that experience is going.
Learning Python 🐍
Over the summer I have taken the time to learn more about programming with Python. I started off learning with Codecademy and continue to use the website as the main platform for learning Python. By the time I started my first project, I had some general knowledge on the topic and had already made a small magic 8 ball game for fun. After meeting with Rachel in August, we decided we wanted to work on something cool before TKS started, so we decided to build a Hangman game using Python. We both came into the project thinking that it would be pretty fun and easy to do but after the first week of programming, we could already tell we were going in for a wild ride🚀! Throughout August we continued to work through the project, putting in hours and hours a day of work. It was around the beginning of September that we decided to officially take a break, but we got a ton of progress done! Looking back at it now I can already see a few things we could have improved on. First of all, we used Codecademy as our main code editor, which at times glitched out and deleted our code. Secondly, our code wasn’t too organized causing us to have to scramble around for it. Even though we didn’t get the opportunity to finish the project, we learned a lot, and I came out of that experience gaining a new friendship and learning much more about Python 😁.
Our code
Basketball🏀
As I said above, I play for my AAU basketball team, and I LOVE IT!! I have been playing basketball since I was 7 and have continued to grow through constant practice. In August I got the opportunity to join a new AAU girls basketball team( I moved from Florida to Maryland in May). We have practices every Saturday and I can't express how much I love the team. Every practice we learn something new and I am constantly improving. I play the point guard position and sometimes the shooting guard position, but I think overall I am best at playing defense because I am aggressive and quick. I train just about every day at my house(we have a hoop outside), and recently I found a cool iPhone app called Homecourt which uses AI to track you while you dribble, shoot, and do agility drills. The app provides advanced features that allow me to track my progress and see each one of the drills I do. The app uses AI and AR(Augmented Reality)and has a gamified user interface, which I love because I am currently doing research on both things!
Vegan life 🌱
As mentioned above, I am vegan and super proud of it. I have been vegan for about 4 months and haven't looked back since then. I would have to say the biggest thing that has influenced that decision was watching a Netflix documentary called What the Health. I watched the movie back in health in Florida and was totally convinced going vegan was the right step to take. The movie talks about how our food is produced and given to us, the health effects eating meat and dairy have and the social impact it has on certain places. So, if you're interested I highly recommend watching it! Some advice I would give to newbies would be to number 1, find vegan alternatives. I cannot stress this enough, I have lived off of vegan alternatives this whole time, and even though I am a picky eater I love vegan stuff. If you look around good enough you can find meat and dairy products that are vegan. For example, there are vegan milks, yogurts, meat alternatives, fish alternatives, snacks, etc that are out there and taste AMAZING, so don't hesitate to try them out. Also, don’t push yourself into the deep end right off the bat, I can be a very extreme person so I decided to go straight in, but that may not be the right choice for everybody, so take it slow. One last tip I would have to give is to look at the labels, you wouldn't believe how many times I have almost eaten something that isn't vegan simply because I didn't think there was a reason for it to have dairy in it. Those are the tips I have followed for the last 4 months and it's served me well, so even if you don't want to go full-fledged vegan, at least try something that is vegan it can't hurt. From now on I will master a new vegan recipe each month and talk about it in each one of my new newsletters, so for this month, I will be trying to master vegan chocolate chip cookies, wish me luck!!
Cool stuff 😎
Books recommendations📖
Atomic habits James Clear
Power of habit
Ultralearning by Scott Young
Limitless by Jim Kwik
7 habits of highly effective teens by Sean Covey
Podcast recommendations🔊
TKS podcast(check out the philosophy of time and advice to innovate episodes)
Kwik Brain by Jim Kwik
App recommendations📱
Elevate brain training
Brain training app I use daily, it's a GREAT app
Brilliant
It has an app and a website, they teach you math, science, and CS courses in an easy and bite-sized way
Codecademy
Codecademy is mainly a website, but they also have an app. Codecademy is a great way to learn code and is how I have been learning about Python
Mango Languages
Regardless if you are taking a language class in school or not, Mango languages are a great way to learn languages, they even have features where you can learn on the go in a podcast-like format. I am taking French in school so I am learning French on the app
Notion
If you haven't heard about it, then where have you been ?!? Notion is one of the best organization tools out there, you can organize stuff into databases, use it to take class notes, and do so much more!
Goals for October
Finish up Python 3 course on Codecademy
Write my first Medium article
Finish Artificial Intelligence course on Udemy
Learn enough French to least introduce myself
Have 25+ brain dates
Finish BCI explore module