Newsletter - May 2024

Designing Earthshot solutions, playing in a national orchestra, receiving an award at Queen's Park, and competing in the Canada-Wide Science Fair

Hi! Welcome to my May newsletter! If you’re a returning reader, welcome back. If you’re new to my newsletter, I’m Aliyan, a 16-year-old from the sunny city of Ottawa, Canada. I'm passionate about climate change, emerging technologies, and building projects like writing research papers on carbon capture and growing algae in my basement! What you’ll find here is a chronicle of cool things I’ve done this month, lessons I’ve learned, and anything else I find interesting!

This month has been packed from start to finish — I think I spent fewer than 10 nights sleeping in my own bed! Over the course of the month, I tackled transportation access for rural Tanzanians, participated in a national orchestra, received an award from the Lieutenant Governor of Ontario, and competed in the Canada-Wide Science Fair.

If you were forwarded this email, you’re a friend or mentor of mine and I wanted to share my journey with you! Subscribe here to receive these updates every month!

Helping rural Tanzanians access motorcycles to triple their incomes

I go to a school that’s all the way on the other side of the city, so I take the bus there every day. But I also have friends that drive, walk, and ride their bikes to get to school. All these different modes of transport run throughout our lives, and I definitely couldn’t imagine life without them.

And yet, for millions of people in rural Tanzania, transportation simply isn’t available. This is a huge contributor to their poverty, because it prevents them from accessing education, healthcare, and job opportunities.

That’s the problem that I, along with Sasha, Kai, and Tehseen, tackled in the TKS Earthshot challenge. The goal of the Earthshot was to determine an economically viable and scalable solution to a problem that should’ve been solved years ago.

Over 4 weeks, we developed our solution: a lease-to-own system for motorcycles. Our solution would offer 10 Tanzanian villagers a motorcycle upfront, which would allow them to become a motorcycle taxi driver. By becoming a taxi driver, they could more than triple their incomes! Then, they could pay back the motorcycle by way of $1 daily payments over 2 years. Meanwhile, all villagers would get the benefits of having ready access to motorcycle transportation. We pitched our idea to a panel of judges, many of whom had built their own social impact companies, and placed second among 15 other teams! Check out the pitch below!

A week full of music

Exactly one day after the Earthshot pitch, I got on a bus to the University of Toronto to join the Denis Wick Canadian Wind Orchestra. The orchestra brings together top young musicians from all over Canada as part of the national MusicFest, to learn and perform together. And, as a percussionist, I was also part of the Woodshed Canadian Percussion Ensemble, where we worked on percussion-specific pieces.

It was a challenging but incredibly fun week. With 9 hours of rehearsal every day, I played more music in 5 days than I had in the previous 3 months. My musical abilities grew exponentially over the course of the week, from playing only 3 notes correctly in the first rehearsal to crushing all 7 pieces in the two concerts on Friday night!

I also met musicians from all over Canada and forged some amazing relationships. I want to give a special shoutout to the entire percussion section for making this a great week. Also, big thanks to Dr. Mark Hopkins and Dr. Gillian MacKay for all their hard work in putting this ensemble together and their creative conducting in bringing these pieces together. Lastly, a huge thank you to Andy Morris, for your guidance in preparing the pieces, the amazing trip to your studio, and teaching me so much about the percussion world in only a week!

There were too many memories for only one photo, so here’s a gallery of the best ones!

Receiving an award at Queen’s Park

My time in Toronto wasn’t done after the concert. Only a few days later, I was at the Lieutenant Governor’s Suite at Queen’s Park in downtown Toronto to receive an award from the Ingenious+ competition! Ingenious+ is a youth innovation competition created by the Rideau Hall Foundation that helps students like me get their ideas off the ground. I submitted my microalgae project to the competition in February and was selected as a Regional Award Winner, receiving $1000 to continue my project.

The awards ceremony was a great experience! I received the award from The Honourable Edith Dumont, Lieutenant Governor of Ontario, listened to some inspiring speakers, and met my fellow award winners, who had all built some incredible projects. I made a video all about the event, check it out below!

Participating in the Canada-Wide Science Fair

By the time I got back to Ottawa, it was only a couple days before I was off to the Canada-Wide Science Fair! Fortunately, the fair was hosted in Ottawa this year, so I lived in the dorms at Carleton University for the week. The fair was an action packed week! Some of the highlights included:

• Presenting my microalgae experiment to a bunch of amazing judges

• Playing tabla for more than 400 people in the talent show

• Winning a Silver Medal for my project

• Meeting incredible young scientists from all over Canada and learning a ton

I somehow also found the time to make 2 vlogs while I was there, so check those out below for a more in-depth view of my experience at the fair! I want to thank everyone from Team Ottawa who participated alongside me, especially our delegates, Arash and Noor. I’m really grateful for the time we spent together; it feels like I’ve known you all for way longer than a week.

Looking ahead

It’s now the end of what has been a very full, very fun month. I’ve had tons of great experiences, but I’m also happy to be back in my home, writing this newsletter from my usual desk. I have lots of plans for the month of June, including finally starting a new experiment with a miniature bioreactor, the end of my Grade 11 year, and attending the Villars Symposium in Switzerland! There’s plenty more to come, and I’ll continue to share updates in this newsletter!

But that’s all for now, so thanks for reading! If you enjoyed this and are interested in keeping up with what I’m doing, subscribe below to receive these newsletters monthly.