November 2020 – top221’s Blog

I believe I was put on this earth to:

Make the world around me a better place. For me this entails making the lives of my friends, family, and peers better in some way. Either through being a supportive person or by making the surrounding society better.

My purpose is to:

Create societal change to some degree. Whether this be small and based in my local community of Jersey City, or back in my home country of Guyana, or anywhere for that matter, I intend to make a positive contribution to society where the quality of life of people are improved.

I believe (my core values):

The one thing I must do before I die is:

Run for office either on the municipal level in Jersey City or as a district representative

My advocates and supporters all believe I:

I am a driven person who is passionate about what they believe in.

The evil I want to eradicate in this world is:

People who abuse their power, leadership, and influence to take advantage of people who are unknown to the fact that they are being manipulated
People who are greedy and only seek to profit and help themselves
Selfishness that is rooted deep in our society that ends up creating inequality on all levels.

I want to work in order to:

Contribute in a meaningful way that influences first generation students, immigrants, and minorities to realize their full potential that they can be successful despite the odds being against them.
I want to help people alike to achieve success and reduce their burden of financial insecurity which may be a cause of their poverty, lack of education, lack of resources, and overall quality of life.
Make money to gain financial security and freedom. And use the money to help my family.

Walk the Talk – Your How

If you are truly committed to your Why, you show it in your everyday behavior. It is all air until you do it. Working from your Why, How do you prove that you are true to your Why in all you do?

I always:

Seek to learn the truth that is not obvious through critical and analytical thinking.
Try to be unbiased in making decisions that may affect others

I never:

Immediately jump to conclusions that may seem true, but rather break things down and critically analyze them to ensure that the decision I am making is sound and rational.

My work style is:

Focused and becoming more routined
Sometimes sporadic burst of motivation

I try to treat people:

Completely equal despite any bias, stereotypes, and stigmas I might have in my head
- I try to be completely neutral and see everyone as my equal despite any differences that arise

I approach problems by:

First learning about the issue
- What is the micro effect of the problem i am solving
  - This entails who are the people or smaller factors being affected
  - Understanding each person or factors needs and desires and how these can be appropriately met
- What is the macro picture
  - What the economic implications of the issue, what are the social issues
    - Learning to find a balance between the different parts of the issue and finding a middle ground solution that all parties involved can mutually benefit to some degree.

Victories are time to:

Reflect on the things that have worked and be grateful for those who have helped you achieve that victory
Become even more motivated and driven to succeed again and hopefully make a positive impact on the world around me

If another attacks my point of view I:

Try to explain my perspective from the different angles I am seeing something at
Try to let them fully understand my thoughts and motivations to ensure they can see my perspective better
Find a middle ground where we can agree and build up to my perspective from there
If I realize through the conversation my point of view is flawed, I would thank them for allowing me to broaden my perspective.

If I fundamentally do not agree with what an organization or person is doing, I will:

Help others see my view as well. I intend to have conversations to learn more about the different perspectives to widen my point of view and ensure I am seeing things the right way (in a more unbiased way).
I will advocate for what I think is right by first truly understanding both parties perspectives and a middle ground that can be drawn so that some connection between the two parties is made. From there I would try to break down the reason why their actions are wrong and why I disagree with them.

Your Credibility – Your Whats

You have just spent some considerable time at Lehigh, and specifically in the Global Social Impact Fellowship, on many whats. Your whats include lab research, formal presentations, writing research papers, engaging with people in other cultural contexts, building prototypes, designing and building systems, raising funds, hiring employees, etc. The whats you have collected along the way are critical to your credibility when you are entering the workforce or applying to the best graduate and professional schools. They signify a credible currency to which organizations can assign value. Create a list of your Whats that are truly reflective of your Why & How. You did these things because you believe (Why) and you acquired them in the following (How) manner. These are examples you can use in interviews.

*What* Have I Done	List of Experiences, Accomplishments, and Lessons Learned
Degrees, Minors, Certificates, Fellowships	Computer Engineering, Bachelors of Science Global Citizenship Certificate Global Social Impact Fellowship Your education should not just be focused on your major but should complement your major. I learned that investing time and energy into skills that are complementing your major is far more marketable and makes you stand out because you not only have knowledge about your specific major but also can apply the skills learned in a broader context. This shows adaptability, flexibility, and the mindset of someone who is willing to always learn and grow.
Research Experiences	Smart Cities Smart City Innovations Humanitarian Technologies Gamification Issues facing Kazakhstan and countries of similar economic development
Inventions and Innovations	Save Tuba MVP mobile app Mask Detection System for senior design project
(Social) Entrepreneurial Ventures	Understanding the importance of using social entrepreneurship or leveraging entrepreneurship to create an impact on the world I feel that when I think of entrepreneurship it’s mainly about making a business or idea that created profit. Solving societal issues in a systematic approach
Publications (Formal and Informal)	How to write publications How to present publications Why research is necessary How to leverage existing research and contribute to the field in a meaningful way How to create a mutually beneficial relationship between the ventures need for credibility through research and contributing to the research field meaningfully.
Formal Presentations (at Lehigh and Beyond)	How to vocalize and articulate yourself in a presentation How to structure a presentation to get the audience to ask questions you are prepared for How to answer questions concisely and effectively How to be confident that the material you are presenting is important and needs to understood
Awards and External Recognition	N/A

Articulating and learning from GSIF-related Experiences. For each of these prompts, we want you to identify one and only one specific and compelling event/incident/experience/moment and identify exactly how you grew personally and professionally through that moment.

Teamwork Experience (and Lessons Learned)	After our first presentation we realized how under prepared we were and there were lots of things we needed to work out. We ended up not doing very well so we worked really hard as a team to put together a much better final presentation. We ended up working much better as a time, where we all worked on refining the different segments of our venture in order to present them in a way where we can get critical feedback to improve our concept and approach. We learned that it is important to see the macro perspective of the project at all times in order to understand what our venture would look like at steady state.
Conflict Resolution Experience (and Lessons Learned)	Over the summer I was working on developing the Save Tuba version 1 mobile app. One of the mountaintop fellows we picked up was responsible for researching and leading the app development. They ended up ghosting the team and just leaving us in a bad spot to finish the MVP before the end of the summer. I ended up working through it and finishing it myself. The takeaway is that it is important to have strong communication with team members and ensure all team members are not only dedicated but also held accountable.
Leadership Experience (and Lessons Learned)	One of the key leadership experiences I gained was over the summer during the mountaintop program. Having to do press conferences, leading the questions and answers, and facilitating conversations with people to move our venture forward was definitely one of the moments that were scary but also influenced me to want to get out of my comfort and be challenged. This experience definitely helped me grow as a person that is now more confident when presenting and is not as afraid of leading conversations and discussions.
Dealing with Chaos, Ambiguity, and Uncertainty (and Lessons Learned)	In the very beginning of our project, we didn’t know exactly what direction we wanted to go with so it was definitely hard to envision the end result of our research and brainstorming. It seemed almost hopeless because there were so many potential pathways to explore. We eventually narrowed our direction over time into what it is today. This came by first finding one issue and diving deeper to finding a solution that can be implemented on a level that creates foundational change. Dealing with all of the chaos, ambiguity, and uncertainty for me has been taking things one step at a time until the direction is clear.
Personally Challenging Experience (and Lessons Learned)	I remember preparing for the final presentation of the spring semester and it was extremely difficult for me to remember all of the speaking points I wanted to mention, stay within the time limit, articulate the importance and significance of our venture, and handling the criticism from it. I personally suffer from social anxiety so this experience was extremely difficult for me. It definitely made me grow as a person who learned to become more confident and accepting of criticism without feeling personally attacked. Through GSIF as a whole, I definitely felt that the presentations, innovators in residence talks, and press conferences have helped me cope with my social anxiety more.
Cross-cultural Experience (and Lessons Learned)	Communicating with our partners in Kazakhstan for the first time was definitely new to me. I never worked with a team that spoke a different language from myself and was in a completely different geographical hemisphere. It was definitely important for me to learn the importance of understanding social and cultural barriers between people to best communicate and work together.
An experience that helped you connect your GSIF work to your discipline / major.	Developing the Save Tuba mobile app version 1 was definitely the moment I realized I didn’t have to use my computer engineering skills to just work for a company. I could instead use them to create value added products that add value and innovate our world.
A moment that boosted your sense of agency and self-efficacy – you felt like you can speak for yourself, get stuff done, take on the world and make it better.	After our final presentation of the spring semester I definitely felt more confident in myself and the direction of our project. I think that stems from a better acceptance of our project and the feedback we got was definitely more encouraging. This was definitely a moment that kick started my confidence and passion to keep working hard on an ambitious goal that really has no guarantee of success. I learned that having some positive reinforcement is extremely helpful and encouraging in order to keep your motivations and ambitions going.
A moment where you felt like you truly have a strong sense of purpose and belonging in this dynamic, globalized interdependent world.	Getting our first paper accepted into the IEEE GHTC was a moment where I felt that I can really contribute to society in a meaningful way. By helping contribute to the awareness of the impact smart city technologies have on improving the quality of life of people in urban settings, I felt that I was playing a role in making the world more conscious of using technology for good. I felt that I can play a bigger role in influencing people to create innovations with the focus on improving quality of life rather than sole profit.

top221’s Blog

Month: November 2020

Living an Impact-Focused Life

Traditional Classroom vs GSIF

Current vs New System