June: A Month of Full Circle Moments
Inside: Switzerland pt. 1, hosting a panel, and a moment of appreciation!
Ah yes. June.
Schooling is ending. Exam stress is being thrown on our shoulders only to be released a few weeks later.
We’re also leveling up. For a ton of people June means transitioning from Grade 9 to Grade 10, or Grade 10 to Grade 11, or Grade 11 to 12, or Grade 12 to… well, you get it. 😅
For some June means travels, for some it means finally being done with school and getting a chance to sleep in. For others, it means playing video games or binging Netflix shows 24/7, why? exactly will forever remain unclear.
But for most of us regardless it means celebrating others and celebrating ourselves. Sort of like a mini New Year’s Day, but for students. It means looking at how far you’ve come and hyping yourselves up for how far you’ll go.
If you’d take a glance at the title of this newsletter, I’d say those words sum up that ‘June vibe’ pretty well.
Because June truly is the month of full circle moments, littered with hopeful ‘hello’s and bittersweet ‘goodbye’s.
So what’s a ‘full circle moment’ and why does it define this newsletter so heavily?
Read to find out! 👀
💌 A Moment of Appreciation
Before I start off this newsletter I thought it would be fitting to take a moment of appreciation for me to reflect on how much I’ve grown these past 10 months, mainly due to a program called The Knowledge Society (TKS).
In August of 2022, if you would show me what my portfolio looks like today and said I had built it all in one year, my jaw would have dropped. TKS really is life-changing and I’m so lucky to have been able to learn alongside so many smart people.
A special shoutout to Skylor Lane and Niloo Ravaei! You’ve both been the best program directors ever, always guiding me through ups and downs, but also somehow simultaneously doing the same for 175 other Innovate students AND still making each and every one of us feel special. Thank you so much for helping me grow and guiding me along my journey. I truly would not be here without Skylor’s pep talks and Niloo’s amazing hugs.
Another huge thank you to Navid and Nadeem Nathoo - I strongly believe that this year wouldn’t have meant much had I not been put out of my comfort zone. I got the opportunity to attend the Villars Symposium and meet a ton of cool people (including many founders, speakers, and even a Nobel Prize winner!), visit the World Economic Forum, CERN, AKDN, and Mercuria (game-changing organizations and companies - more on this in my next newsletter!) and host a panel at the TKShowcase event at Microsoft! These events are unreal! How many teenagers even get close to this stuff?
Lastly, a huge thanks to all the other wonderful people I’ve met during the program - you know who you are! 😉 It’s been a wild ten months and I’m so grateful to have been given the opportunity to sprout alongside you guys! 🌱
🏞️ Attending the Villars Symposium: Switzerland - part 1
Yes, we’re going to split this up into two because there’s a lot going down!
First of all, Hi from the mountains of Switzerland!! 👋
Since the publishing of this newsletter falls smack dab in the middle of my trip, I’m going to be sending this one over in two separate installments in two different newsletters.
Now, if you’re reading this section you’ve probably noticed some new word pairings, for example, “Villars” right next to “Symposium”. Which brings me to a smooth yet subtle transition to this next subsection:
🌎 So, what is the Villars Symposium?
Here’s what the website says:
“The Villars Institute was established in 2022 as a nonprofit foundation to accelerate the transition to a net zero economy and to restore the health of the planet for all of its inhabitants. Located in the Swiss Alps, the Villars Institute is a platform for systemic change and a place for intergenerational collaboration.”
But it’s so much more than just that. Personally, I don’t believe the website does it justice (and it’s a pretty nice website… 👀).
The Villars Institute brings together experts from across the world to speak on the urgency of tackling climate-related issues and topics on the general theme of sustainability. Panelists and speakers with expertise in various topics are invited from across the globe to discuss pressing issues and what we can do to help, as well as teach us about innovative companies.
And these aren’t just some random people to fill slots, these people are LEGIT and they know what they’re talking about.
Some highlights include: hearing from Meagan Fallone on a nature-positive economy, Jaideep Bansal on the power of adventure to protect the planet, Christine Looser on critical skills for the planet’s future, Nathalie Seddon on planetary boundaries, and many more.
We also got the opportunity to listen to Didier Queloz - winner of the Nobel Prize in physics for the discovery of exoplanets!! Yes, this man discovered exoplanets! How crazy is that?!
Needless to say, from debates about artificial intelligence to lectures about nature-based solutions I loved every second of it.
A HUGE thank you to Lee Howel and the rest of the Villars Institute team for flying us out and showing us an unforgettable time at the 2023 Villars Symposium! 🎉
📖 Some acquired symposium-related wisdom bombs courtesy of Navid and Nadeem:
Number 1: First and foremost, always and forever: your goal when you’re meeting someone is to add value to the conversation. This can be a number of ways but the most common is through a good conversation. A good insightful conversation. What did you say that added to what was already being said? What was your new, exciting, never-before-heard-of perspective that knocked their socks off? A lot of people see this as a bonus step but it’s number one on my list for a reason. It matters.
Number 2: Specificity is the Spice of Life™ (-Nadeem Nathoo, ~ 8 pm, random Sunday evening). So how do we add value to conversations? You dig deep. Really freaking deep, because that’s where the diamonds are. 💎 The last thing someone needs at a conference is thirty teenagers rambling on and on about the same climate change statistic like a broken record. What makes you unique in situations like these? Being different. How? Contribute something to the conversation through the form of a solid fact or statistic.
What memorable, underground, unheard-of news can you bring to the table? Once you find something interesting enough, you’ve accomplished two things:
1 - you helped move the conversation forward and possibly have captured the other person’s interest
2 - you’re memorable now. You show them something that sets you apart.
Specificity truly is the spice of life. Just look at what it can do for your conversations! 😌 (By the way, if Rachel, Tanvi, Vinaya, Isa, Theo, Vivek, Krishiv, Navid, or Nadeem are reading this right now: rest assured those t-shirts are still being made. 😎)
Number 3: Keep on reflecting.
After every single major event in your life, you should always reflect. What did you do well? Not so well? What impact did the event have on the way you see the world? What would you change about the situation? Standard reflection questions. 💭
And that’s great and all but why should we even reflect in the first place? 🧠Reflecting is many different things for many different people, but for me, it’s a way of distilling my thoughts in my own way. It’s about sharing my point of view.
But, again, why share at all?
When you’re trying to learn a new concept, it’s a well-known fact that explaining it to someone else can also help you understand it better. For me, reflecting is the equivalent of that, but for experiences. It’s taking all those fuzzy thoughts, putting them down on paper (or a bright computer screen), and understanding them better as a result.
So why do I reflect?
I reflect in order to get a clear picture of what happened and a clearer picture of how it affects me moving forward. Reflecting ensures that something happens and that you move forward. It’s your way of not getting stuck on certain events and getting closure. Because whether the event was good or bad, moving forward is the only way to avoid stagnancy.
So there we go. Three major lessons I learned from attending the Villars Symposium from both the experience + guidance received along the way! I could keep on going and just never stop writing takeaways but I’m pretty sure I’m about to reach a word count limit and Substack will force me to stop writing soon.
The Villars Symposium was only one part of our trip. Stay tuned to hear about what we did after in the July issue of my newsletter!
🗨 So, what does this mean exactly?
Needless to say, my goals have changed. I’ve changed.
Being exposed to an opportunity as trajectory-shifting as this one? It’s clear things can’t stay the same.
So what’s next?
I realize that this is a quite brief summary for how massive this event really is, but Substack is alerting me that my word count is getting up there, so I’ve decided to begin writing a whole article on my experience as I know it probably can’t be summed up into a single newsletter issue!
🚀 Attending the CDL Super Session
The 2023 Creative Destruction Lab (CDL) Super Session was out of this world! (Space pun intended, as always.) 🌌
In case you haven’t read my previous newsletters, I’m an Apprentice student at CDL. Creative Destruction Lab is a nonprofit organization that creates programs to scale startups, providing these early-stage companies with mentorship and guidance from experts across the world.
Additionally, they also offer an Apprentice program for high school students to get a look into what the world of venture capital is really like!
Now, back to the session:
Some especially notable moments included getting to hear from the one and only Chris Hadfield (!!!) on the geopolitics of space tech (an especially exciting moment for a huge space nerd such as myself), sitting in on venture meetings (which felt like watching Shark Tank live!) and endless notetaking on various other topics introduced by speakers, such as our global mission to creating a sustainable future and the role emerging technologies play in that vision.
It was a wonderful experience that I had the pleasure of sharing with 18 other Apprentice students!! While I learned a ton from various speakers and mentors, I strongly believe the true privilege was learning and growing alongside each other throughout the year. 🚀
A moment that altered the way I perceive events like these:
The whole event started with what was essentially a 2-hour book report. 10 people, 10 chapters. And the book being dissected was "Power and Progress: Our 1000-Year Struggle Over Technology & Prosperity".
One of the authors, Daron Acemoglu, (an economist at the top of his game) was introduced rather by the awards he didn't receive by the ones that he did, given that there were just so many it would have taken too long to list them all.
His role in this was to sit back and watch 10 people critique his book chapter by chapter on a stage in front of ~1 200 people.
At first, I saw this to be quite intense. However, as Daron later explained, it was good that this was happening, and he was happy. He had worked hard to put together a book and the sole purpose of that book was to bring awareness to the topics he wrote about with his co-author. This 2-hour experience completely shifted my perspective on what bringing awareness to a topic means and highlighted the importance of learning about artificial intelligence and other emerging technologies and the role they will place in shaping our future. This was a massive lightbulb moment for me when looking at how smart people have conversations!!
The whole event was a glorious masterpiece and I assure you, these are only snippets of the wonderful experience I had!
An extra special thank you to Emilie De Caen for helping put together an amazing day for all the CDL Apprentice students! Super Session 2023 was truly an unforgettable and inspiring experience!! 💗
💬 Hosting a Panel at the TKShowcase
On June 17th at the Toronto Microsoft office at CIBC Square, I had the opportunity to host a panel as a part of the TKShowcase alongside Priyal, Tanvi, and Shanzeh.
Our panel was called the ‘TKS experience’ panel meaning that we would speak about our experience during the program and what it meant for us. While we were planning out what specific bits and pieces we wanted to call out during our short time on stage, we all agreed on something: 5 minutes was way too short. Way too short to sum up all the memories the past 10 months had brought us.
We’d all grown so much in so many different areas. From networking to presenting to technical depth we’d improved in almost every way possible.
I’d never hosted a panel before so I don’t have much to compare it to, but I had a blast at Showcase and I know we did amazing.
I wish I could write so much more about my experience during TKS, but at the end of the day, these words are just pixels on a screen.
What can I say except it’s been a wild ten months and it absolutely ruled!
💎 Selling at the Hand-In-Hand Sustainable Market
I know I don’t talk about it a lot, but I have an Etsy shop. In fact, it’s never been mentioned as its own section in a newsletter before - just at the bottom under the ‘personal links’ section. What it started as was a shy 13-year-old me dipping her toe into the sea of entrepreneurship.
It’s actually been doing pretty well now.
Recently I received an invite to sell at the 2023 Unionville Sustainable market!
Selling at the market was an amazing experience - the volunteers were incredibly helpful and I had an amazing time! This was my first time selling my jewelry in person and I’m really lucky to have had such a welcoming environment. 🐣
The whole point of the sustainable market is the drive awareness to what’s happening in the Unionville community. Recently, Shein announced the opening of a factory in the town of Unionville meaning the encouragement of fast fashion, which as we all know is terrible for the environment, not to mention the terrible working conditions people are forced into.
The market isn’t just a place to support local small businesses but a way to fight against fast fashion and ensure sustainable practices are put in place. To learn more about what you can do to help visit Hand In Hand’s official Instagram account!
Special thanks to LuzulaCreation’s #1 supporter, (a.k.a. the one and only Ami Shah) for the invite! I know I definitely would not have found myself at this adorable market without your love and support. 💜 I’ll definitely be back next year!
Aaaaaand that’s a wrap! 🎬
That’s all for June!! Thanks so much for reading and I’ll see you next month 🥳
P.S. no writing updates this month, but I’ll make sure to pepper some in there for July!! 😉
✉️ Personal links
Scroll through my small business website → view the shop ✨
Listen to the Curious Minds podcast → click here 🎧
Explore my Medium profile → take me to the land of articles 📰
Find me on LinkedIn → view my profile 👀
Personal website → scroll through it 🌱
Bea! We were so lucky to have you at the sustainable market! I’m so proud of everything you have accomplished in the past 10 months 🩷
This newsletter was so fun to read and so well written as always :D I loved reading your reflections!!