TEDx
Thus far, I have been actively involved in three TEDx events, and am deeply committed to their philosophy of Ideas Worth Spreading. You can read more about my TEDx story here.
TEDxEcublens
Co-President, 2024
TED Event Page
While on exchange in Switzerland in 2024, I led the EPFL- and UNIL-affiliated TEDx Student Association, TEDxEcublens (Ecublens is the name of the commune in which EPFL is located). I led a bilingual committee organising a bilingual conference in an institution to which I was completely new—quite the challenge indeed!
TEDxImperialCollege
Community and Mentorship Officer, 2023
TED Event Page
In my second year at Imperial, I got involved in the TEDx Society. In addition to organising a public speaking workshop in collaboration with the TEDx Society at King's, I was involved in several of the Society's in-house events and in speaker recruitment for the main conference.
TEDxYouth@GEMSModernAcademy
Speaking Coach, 2021
In my final year of school, I helped coach a younger student to speak at our in-house TEDx event.
Writing
I enjoy non-mathematical writing too! I mostly write poetry and flash fiction, but have also included an article here that has a social sciencey flavour to it.
In Democracy, Where Lies Responsibility?
Mensa World Journal, July 2021
In a democratic election, the victor is the party that receives more votes than any of their competitors. But who among those who voted for them is responsible for their victory? This article explores some of the nuances of this question from a philosophical perspective.
He and I
Pages 144-146, Lightning Strikes, Dhauli Books 2024
Lightning Strikes is a flash fiction anthology curated by Vineetha Mokkil featuring writers of South Asian origin. My story He and I alternates between the perspectives of two individuals, one sitting in a park and another in a warzone, and underscores how they both associate similar feelings to wildly different situations. The idea is to underscore the incongruities between how writers write about war—the feelings they portray their characters as experiencing, the sights and smells and sounds they portray their characters as sensing—and how those situations actually are, with the irony being that what I, the person in the park, was doing was no different at all.
What's extra special about being published in Lightning Strikes is that it also features my mother, an experienced writer herself who has always encouraged me in my creative and mathematical pursuits alike. Keep an eye out for her next book.
Social Work
A major passion of mine is education for social good. I have volunteering and work experience in this field, an overview of which I've given below.
Sevalaya
Kasuva, Tamil Nadu, India
Sevalaya is an Indian NGO involved in education, rural development and shelters for children, the elderly and dry cows. The founding principles are based on the values of BGV: Mahakavi Bharatiyar, Mahatma Gandhi and Swami Vivekananda. While their primary campus is in the village of Kasuva, they are involved in charitable activities across the southern state of Tamil Nadu.
Every summer from 2016 to 2019, I spent a week volunteering at the primary and secodary schools at Sevalaya's Kasuva campus, teaching programming in Scratch and Visual Basic and elementary calculus. On the non-academic front, I ran chess and cubing workshops, organising small tournaments at the end to encourage the participants to demonstrate their skills in front of their peers. The chess programme was particularly successful, with one ex-participant going on to win the zonal championships.
In 2020, when the COVID-19 crisis severely impacted Sevalaya's ability to conduct its activities and prevented me from visiting Kasuva, I organised a series of online talks to give the Sevalayans an idea of the world beyond the one they knew. Sevalaya's post-pandemic recovery has been strong, and I look forward to my next visit.
MESME Maths Circles
North London, United Kingdom
MESME (Mathematics Education for Social Mobility and Excellence), now Axiom Maths, is a registered charity that aims to provide opportunities for high-achieving students in the UK to better their mathematical knowledge. They pay particular attention to providing better opportunities to students from disadvantaged backgrounds.
In 2021-2022, I got involved in their flagship Maths Circles programme, which assigns a group of around five Year 8 students to a university maths student who helps them sharpen and hone their mathematical skills by getting them to think more deeply about mathematical problems and gradually introduce them (informally) to higher mathematics. My Maths Circle was hybrid, with in-persion sessions taking place at Woodhouse College, Finchley, who ran several Circles in partnership with MESME and Imperial.