An 8th grader from Austin, TX, I have had the opportunity to participate in many math, science and language arts competitions in elementary & middle schools, and with help and encouragement from my teachers & classmates, have had the fortune of winning a little over 70 awards over the last 6 years. I love Computer Science and all aspects of Business (finance, marketing, entrepreneurship) and I strive to be a lifelong learner.
When I turned 12 (March 2020), the COVID-19 pandemic not only shut down my school but also cancelled all the remaining academic competitions for the year. But it also gave me an opportunity to reflect back on what I really missed about school & competitions.
With the realization that what I was missing was learning, and also that I learnt best by sharing & teaching my understanding with others, and learning more through that collaboration, I incubated T2L Academy to evangelize that joint learning process that I have benefited from to a broader audience. The initial plan is to share my learnings (“teaching to learn”) with others through a series of videos on the various elementary and middle school academic competitions and the reasons to participate and make learning more fun – and following a lesson model similar to that of Khan Academy and over time, really build a learning hub where students can all contribute and share and with positive reinforcement and free help, we can truly “make the world a better place”.
Uma Sthanu
Canyon Vista Middle School
Round Rock ISD
Founder & CEO, T2L Academy, an edu-tech start-up incubated in March 2020
Founder & CEO, Sayffer, a health-tech K-12 collaboration app incubated May 2021
Things I enjoy:
Math
I love numbers, and Math in general. I find it logical and appreciate the magic behind numbers. I have also had the opportunity to participate in a number of math competitions, exploring different styles of competitive math.
– National Math Pentathlon: Starting my 3rd year of participation, I have won all my math games in the competition and won Gold Hall of Fame every year that the competition was held to date. In 2021, I was honored with the Delbert Detwiler 8-year award.
– AMC 8: I participated in the AMC 8 competition in my 6th grade before things shut down once again thanks to COVID. I won the Honor roll award (given to the top 2-5%) and the achievement roll for 6th grade & below. I am looking forward to continuing to participating in AMC 8 and AMC 10 in the years to come as things open up post-COVID.
– University Interscholastic League Number Sense competition – Another competition that I love. I have participated since the 4th grade and repeatedly finished in the top 3 at both the division and district level and look forward to continuing participating in UIL number sense.
– I have also participated in the MathCOUNTS Chapter Level Competition, and am looking forward to participating once again as things start to open up again.
Writing
I love expressing my ideas through writing, and have started a blog on my personal learnings on topics such as leadership and communication and entered my pieces in many different competitions. Some of these competitions are:
– University Interscholastic League Ready Writing competition – A competition in which I have participated in since the fifth grade, and I have won at the district and division levels for the past three years.
– Reflections Art Competition – I have participated in various categories such as Literature, Visual Arts, Photography, Film Production, and Dance Choreography, and have received awards at the school, council, and state levels. In the literature category, I have written entries in various genres, from informational and persuasive pieces on artificial intelligence and Multiple Sclerosis and the #MeToo movement to fiction pieces on the importance of leadership and using your voice to make a difference.
– Global New York Times STEM Writing Competition – I was placed as a runner-up, being amongst the top 25 entries out of over 3740 entries submitted worldwide!
Technology and Problem Solving
– Austin Energy Regional Science Fair – For my research and engineering projects, I have won awards such as the UT Austin Dell Medical School Future Health Leader Award, the Society of Women Engineers Award for Excellence in Science, Engineering and Mathematics, and the Coding with Commitment prize from the Broadcom Foundation. My projects have been on topics such as Artificial Intelligence and healthcare, creating a “high school selector application” for the people who move to Austin to find which area to move to based on schooling, and a health-tech and communication mobile application called “Sayffer” (which I later incubated as a company), that helps school communities collaborate.
– I have been certified in Business Strategy and in Design Thinking for Innovation by the University of Virginia Darden School of Business, and certified in Social Media Marketing and the Inbound Methodology by Hubspot. I have also earned a Digital Media Marketing certification from Google, a certification on the fundamentals of Data Science from IBM, and a Responsive Web Design Certification from FreeCodeCamp.