February Newsletter
Having fun in the snow, making videos, pushing my limits, learning how to approach solving global problems
Hi everyone! Nice to meet you/see you again! My name is Rachel. I am a 15 y/o innovator at TKS interested in quantum computing, renewable energy, future of food, gene editing and all new tech. I love running and being outside, and I never say no to a challenge. My biggest goal in life is to help solve poverty.
Articles I wrote
Creating a Biosynthetic Pathway in Oryza Sativ for β-Carotene: A Review Article of Golden Rice
The article above, goes with this video below :)
Tract
I have found a new passion for making videos! Over the last few months I have been making more videos than writing articles and have grown to really enjoy filming, editing and creating educational YouTube videos.
My new love of making videos has come at the perfect time since I recently applied and was hired as a part time creator at Tract. Tract is an online community of self-directed learning tutorials made for kids, by kids. Kids/teens make educational videos about STEM, art, music, history, etc., which are used to teach kids in elementary and middle school in classrooms all over the world! The title given to teens that make these educational videos is a “Content Creator”. I am in the middle of making a beginner friendly CRISPR-Cas9 course. I am starting from the very basics (DNA, RNA, proteins, enzymes, transcription, translation), and over the course of 20-ish videos I will go into detail about CRISPR (plasmids, ORI, electroporation, gRNA, Cas9).
If you don’t know much about biology but are interested in the incredible potential of gene editing, then this course will be for you! I am hoping to have the course finished in a month or two, and then I will release it on my personal website for anyone who wants to view it.
Below is the thumbnail from my first Tract video which will be released soon!
The challenge
You might recall I mentioned I was working on my gene editing focus. (If you have no clue what I’m talking about, check out my January newsletter where I explain what a focus is) Well, my focus has been on hold and will continue to be for another two weeks. This is because I have been dedicating all of my time and energy to the TKS challenge.
The challenge is a one month-long project where TKS students pair with one another and work alongside a global company to try to solve a problem that the company is facing. The winning teams will get to present their decks in front of the executives of that company. This year we had four companies that we could choose to work with: Walmart, XPrize, United Nations or Ikea. My amazing challenge team of Apoorva Panidapu (the most lovely human you will ever meet who is CRAZY accomplished), and Yelim Kim (one of the most intelligent humans I have ever met who has huge aspirations to change the world), and I have chosen to work together alongside Walmart to create the future of retail. Apoorva, Yelim and I are very excited about making Walmart more sustainable and the retail experience more efficient and enjoyable, and have been exploring ways to use retail to solve global issues. More details about this will come next month :)
Hackathon
This month, TKS students participated in a 24 hour hackathon to solve a global problem. I paired up with Graeme Epp, Apoorva Panidapu and Noémie Pound, and in 24 hours we created an idea for a biodegradable, flexible, nano-size solar cell made from bacteria which could self replicate. We called the product Mauve (purple in French). We chose this name because our solar panels were made from two kinds of bacteria: purple non-sulfur bacteria and cable bacteria. Our product would be capable to convert 65% of the sun’s rays into energy, verses the 15-20% conversion rate of regular solar panels! I have included some diagrams from our deck below.
This was a very fun hackathon and I really enjoyed working with my team trying to create a more efficient solar panel.
TechnoGypsie Podcast
This month we had the honor and pleasure of speaking with Eleanor Sheekey, creator of the Sheekey Science Show, and Samir Hamadache, CEO and co-founder of Forest City SynBio.
I can’t even begin to tell you how much I have learnt from creating this podcast series with Ciara. I have learnt so much about a whole range of STEM areas (like longevity and blockchain, which were two areas I knew nothing about until we interviewed experts in these fields for the podcast.)
I have become so much better at cold emails, have expanded my network, and interacted with incredibly intelligent and innovative leaders and thinkers from all over the world. And of course my conversational skills have improved. Slowly but surely I am learning how to ask more sophisticated, thought provoking questions and keep digging until I get the answer I am looking for.
Starting the TechnoGypsie Podcast has been a bumpy ride with both ups and downs, but it has been an amazing experience that I have enjoyed and learned so much from.
Other cool things that happened this month
This month I finished reading the book Endure by Alex Hutchinson and I LOVED IT! Endure explores the latest science around human limitations (both physical and psychological), and Alex details ways to break these limitations. This book had so many amazing stories of endurance athletes, and as a long-distance runner, I learned so much (and really enjoyed) the book. Below I’m going to list my key takeaways from Endure. (buy on Chapters, Amazon, Barns&Noble)
Giving up is a choice. Your body will urge you to stop when things get uncomfortable/painful/hard, but it is your choice weather you give up or keep going.
If you never push yourself, that becomes a new normal for your brain and body. This is why you must always push your limits, because even if it’s just small things, over time your brain will expect more from yourself.
You can always do more than you think. Don’t believe me? Just try this. Whenever you think you cannot do anymore, take one more step. That is proof that you can really do more than you think. (There is a lot of science in Endure to back up this point and everything Alex writes.)
I have been doing lots of downhill skiing, cross country skiing, skating and snowshoeing with my family.❄️🎿⛸️🛷☃️
This month was full of lots of winter trail running in all temperatures and weathers. I have been out at -35°C, during snowstorms and blizzards. Do I regret it? Absolutely not. I loved every second of it.
Stepping inside after a 10km trail run at a snowy -30°C
During our last TKS session we did a group activity where we were challenged to break down the root cause of world hunger. We had 10 minutes to think on our own before we came together as a group and shared ideas.
I absolutely LOVED this activity and found the points everyone came up with so interesting that I am even more motivated to create solutions in agritech to make sure that one day every human being on Earth will have enough to eat.
I also learned that I am not the best at breaking down a problem into it’s root cause, so this month I am going to practice using mental models and frameworks (like the ones on this website), so I can get better at breaking down huge complicated problems into their root form.
What’s next?
This month I will be writing an article about my top takeaways from Endure, and my ideas around physical and psychological limitations in general.
The TechnoGypsie Podcast has some VERY special episodes that are waiting to be released (!!!). I will not tell you who the guests of these special episodes are, but I will give you a hint:
_________ has been named one of America’s Top 50 Disrupters of 2020 for his revolutionary prosthetics company.
_________ is the CEO founder of a global company trying to innovate in the agriculture space so that we can feed a rising population of 10 billion people by 2030.
I will be working hard with my challenge team (Apoorva+Yelim) to solidify the main ideas/innovations that we would like to focus our solution on, so we can begin in depth research and start creating a final deck.
This month I will also be brainstorming for the idea stage of my focus, where I will use gene editing to solve a problem in the world. I know I would like to do something in agritech to help create food security in developing countries - but I don’t know any specifics yet…
And that, my friends, is my month in a 🥜(nut) shell! I hope that you had a wonderful past month and have an even more wonderful March and enjoy your March break!
See you all in March!
Until then, feel free to reach out to me on: LinkedIn, or email me at: runnerrachel.lee@gmail.com
And don’t forget to hit that subscribe button on Medium and YouTube so you can read my articles and watch my videos as I publish them.
Happy March and have a lovely rest of your day!
❤️Rachel
SO honoured to be featured in your newsletter 😌 Phenomenal as always, Rachel!!