In just two weeks with Inspirit AI, I immersed myself in a comprehensive online program covering coding, NLP, AI, and finance. The program's standout feature was its interactive coding notebook, which allowed me to experiment and learn actively. The final presentation, where I discussed Linear Regression, BERT, and LSTM, demonstrated how these coding techniques are deeply integrated into everyday tools like Google. This experience showed the significance of these technologies in our daily lives.
At 17 years old, peak of junior year, I looked back at my invention book. I was looking at something I could make possible now. When I looked back, I saw something called "Reader Keyder" This was just a funky name, I thought at the time, but the basis of this was an invention that would aid reading. With online technology coming into play, I thought it would be beneficial if I shifted this idea into an online tool on websites and started to develop it with the help of my parents. I soon filed a patent and pitched it to my school board to implement into the school chromebooks!
I took my first business class in junior year beginning of the year. The teacher was the advisor that helped me start up the DECA club, so it was pretty fun. The final project for this class was pitching something to add to the school and presenting it to the school board. With my group, I pitched the idea of a "classes curriculum night." This would be where you can go around classrooms before signing up and see all the different classes taught by all other teachers to get a feel before signing up and switching out later. This project got the school board's attention, and they told my group they wanted to keep in touch in incorporating this change for my senior year.
At 16 years old, I got into a program called Launch X. You can start your own invention/business/company with a group of people with similar interests. We came up with the idea of "Avocago." The name is entirely random, haha. The app addresses dietary restrictions when going to specific restaurants. It will flag places where your individual food preferences do not match. This was off the basis of how my sister has a significant peanut allergy, and when she went to many places, she did not know if she could eat the food, and other group members had religious restrictions on food or were nonmeat eaters. As we all expressed this concern, we started developing this. With tons of market research and interviewing over 100+ people, we were able to; we set to create a prototype where we got over $600 in pre-sales. Then it was the point of developing this app, but the development of this app was highly complicated, and I was unable to finish the app launch.
At the end of my sophomore year, I wanted to combine my love for arts and photography with fundraising and business. I reached out to my counselor and asked if there was any exhibit I could put together to raise money for the school and I could help manage. Luckily she said something called art saves lives was running until the pandemic started but should be all set to begin again. I partnered with the art teachers and helped connect the company that sponsors the big night. They agreed! Students displayed their artwork, and family and friends came to look at the work. At the end of the night with all payments through donations and food, a total of $800 dollars was raised for the school's art department. Year of 2023 raised funds approximately $2k.
At 15 years old, the pandemic was finally getting better. The school was starting to go back in-person, and as my first-day sophomore in the new high school, I was eager to see about any business clubs. Disappointingly I didn't find any, but after some research, I heard of DECA, a school club in another school. I contacted the new business teacher, and we quickly got the club up and running. The first year was a bit slow, with only 4 people competing at states, but in the 2023 year, around 32 people competing at states.
At 12 years old, I was focused more on small inventions helping small little hacks, and the engineering of tools. The first one was how to make a temporary lockout of a door which was manipulated with the mechanics of the doorknob. For my birthday that year, I got a lock-picking kit where I experimented with different locks and learned how other springs work inside of waves and how that ultrastructure is typical in pens and toys.
At 11 years old, I opened my own business by myself. The company was based on displaying my photographs and having a platform where people can share their pictures. At a young age, this was a complex idea. I started by showing my pictures and seeing how much I could publicize them. It lasted around a year as well. The name "seon bag" is Korean for arts and crafts. This was in continuation of the first business I did.
At 10 years old, I started to look around at problems I felt there wasn't an invention for and tried to make a sample drawing of what it could look like. The "Ice Scraper" was a big one of mine. This thought came to me when I saw my parent's snow blow the driveway. There still would be big patches of ice and black ice stuck to the driveway, making it difficult for us to walk. Salt wouldn't always work. So I tried to imagine a design similar to a shovel with spikes that could slide under the ice and break it and heating technology that could instantly melt it. Over the years, I continued to add to this book, which helped me later.
At 9 years old, with my cousin the same age, we started selling phone stands (made from popsicle sticks) and custom-carved crayons. We started selling at town markets for around a year and also tried to create a website through Wix. Then slowly "growing" the business, we interviewed "applicants" the same age to see if they could start selling. This is my first experience where I realized I love business and wanted to pursue it.