Chinmayi Balusu: The inspiring researcher bridging neuroscience and education for global impact

se people to the experiences of children with special needs so that they understand and see things from a lens of empathy and understanding," says Jeya.

A Tinker Champ in the making

Born in Delhi, Jeya moved to Bengaluru at the age of five. An introvert with not many friends, she spent most of her time surrounded by books. "Nothing like a good read. I have always found myself drawn to the world of books," says the teen whose favourite author is Sudha Murty. But it was in Grade 7 that she first discovered Atal Innovation Mission. "It began with a message that landed on my WhatsApp school group about a Tinkerpreneur encouraging students to teach their peers about entrepreneurship. This got me intrigued," says Jeya, who began exploring the field and soon prepared a masterclass on digital skills. "Teaching students about basic PowerPoint or Excel was the beginning of my journey as a Tinker Champ." Now a Class 10 student, she create resources like boot camps, YouTube lives, and workshops to teach students from Class 6 to 12 on digital skills, innovation, entrepreneurship, and business through peer mentoring. Till now, they have impacted over 5000 students.

Supporting children with intellectual disabilities

Over the years as a Tinker Champ, she noticed a gap: the lack of attention to intellectually challenged children. "Instead of just focussing on the resources for the intellectually challenged children, the bigger problem is the stigma around them." It's something that she witnessed firsthand in her apartment. "Such children are often mocked and made fun of. From the bird's eye view, the bigger issue is the stigma and not the resources they lack," she adds. This motivated her to start Khwahish with a mission to support children with intellectual disabilities by addressing the societal stigma and providing them with necessary resources.

"I found lack of education to be the root cause as many people have no idea about intellectual disabilities, which often leads to insensitivity," explains Jeya. She began by creating a website to share her mission and vision, and started reaching out to specialists in the field. That's when she found Dr Anamika Hui, an audiologist and speech-language pathologist who works with children with intellectual disabilities, and confirmed that stigma is a huge issue. Meanwhile, Dr Anamika also cautioned her that it's a close-knit community that isn't open to the idea of collaboration. "She told me even if I intend to empower them, I will face some resistance. I took her advice seriously and started connecting with more special educators and special schools in Bengaluru to build trust," informs Jeya.

SDG 10

While interacting with one such school - Buddhi Special School - the teenager had an epiphany that to shift the perceptions of children with intellectual disabilities from sympathy to empowerment, she needed to display their talents well and "make people know what they have to offer". Inspired, she conducted an art activity and collected their artworks for a virtual reality art exhibition. "Seeing people's surprise at the children's talent was eye-opening and confirmed that there was genuine interest, which led me to conduct my first awareness session with the help of Dr Anamika." By showcasing the talents of children with intellectual disabilities, Jeya aims to create an inclusive world. "My focus is on SDG 10 - reducing inequalities by creating an inclusive world, which can be achieved by sensitising people and changing their view on other people, who might be a little different from them."

Soon interest grew, and she began organising more awareness campaigns in residential areas as well as schools. Through Khwahish, she wants to support special schools and children and work on providing accessible learning resources and guides for parents and guardians. In just a few months, she has already impacted over 120 students. "I often ask children to picture a child with an intellectual disability, and they usually imagine someone helpless or vulnerable. This is the perception I want to change," she emphasises.

A long journey

Her journey hasn't been easy as the 15-year-old had to face a lot of criticism initially with many doubting her qualifications to work with or raise awareness about children with special needs. "I was told that working with specially-abled children or even spreading awareness about them required a certification. And I had no authority to speak on them. But I stood my ground and told them that one needed passion and the drive to conduct awareness campaigns more than certifications." Many adults dismissed her effort as a mere project due to her age and she even found many students indifferent to the cause. "Since special schools and regular schools are different, not many meet children with special needs daily. Hence, it's hard for them to understand them or know how to behave or react." She often uses the example of braces to make children understand the concept. "I tell them that if they had never seen braces before, they might mock a friend wearing them. But it’s just something normal. The same logic applies to children with special needs. However, changing perceptions takes time," adds Jeya, who believes early intervention is crucial as young minds are easy to influence as they are still far away from rigid beliefs.

Despite the challenges, Jeya has found support from a few people who have become her collaborators. "They believed in me and the cause and were always ready to help," she says. However, she acknowledges that changing perceptions is a long journey. A crucial moment in her mission was her visit to Buddhi Special School in Bengaluru, where an interaction with the coordinator, Mrs Rekha, deeply impacted her. "She told me that these kids have no idea how much stigma they will face the moment they step out into the real world. Most kids are mocked and bullied. Some kids, who need special care, are separated from their parents and stay in the premises all the time since their parents don't have the training or the skillset to take care of them. That's why special schools become important." Realising the challenges that these children might face in the real world, Jeya wants to step in and pull the plug on this by creating as much awareness so that these kids feel equally safe in the outside world. "I want the awareness impact to go into thousands for neurotypical people, especially children so that the world becomes more inclusive."

Jeya, who calls herself a bibliophile, calls awareness a two-way learning process. "When you are spreading awareness, you are in turn learning a lot in the process," says the teenager. She began Khwahish with a passion for working for children with intellectual disabilities and is on a mission to make a more inclusive world. "It's important to go with the flow, and have a growth mindset where you do not quit."

. A meeting with his partially paralysed distant maternal uncle left him “shocked.” In the era of technology, seeing his uncle dependent on others for every small thing was nothing short of a horror. That encounter nudged this robotics enthusiast and innovator to develop Neuro-ExoHeal, an exoskeletal hand rehabilitation device that utilises neuroplasticity and Azure technology to help patients with neurological damage recover faster at an affordable price. The innovation not only left Google CEO Sundar Pichai impressed but also made the 21-year-old win Microsoft 2022 Imagine Cup World Championship, considered the ‘Olympics of Technology,’ with more than 10,000 participants from 160 countries.

Siddhartha Mandala

He was 12 when the infamous Nirbhaya rape case shook the nation in 2012. People took to the streets asking for justice, and his mom was one among them. Curious about the protests and confused about the word ‘rape’, Siddharth Mandala joined his mom for one of the protests. After surfing the internet, he understood the gravity of the issue and decided to do everything in his capacity to prevent sexual assault. This awareness led to the birth of Electroshoe, a small badge that can be clipped onto any footwear, or worn as a ring or pendant and can be easily activated during any threatening situation by pressing. “It pulls out two sharp pointers, mimicking stun gun’s mechanism, and pierces through clothing, and even skin to electrocute the attacker,” explains Siddharth who took two years to build a working prototype; and another three years to create a market-friendly product by interviewing over 500 women across India and California.

[caption id="attachment_20860" align="aligncenter" width="467"] Siddhartha Mandala[/caption]

Hari Srinivasan

Hari Srinivasan was first diagnosed with regressive autism at the age of three. From being a very active and social child, Hari suddenly became a crying, fussy baby who did not want to be around other kids. Some two decades later in 2022, Hari made history by becoming the University of California, Berkeley’s first non-speaking graduate with autism. And that is not all. With a 4.0 GPA, a major in psychology and minor in disability studies, Hari was also awarded the prestigious P.D. Soros Fellowship. The young graduate is now headed to Vanderbilt University for his PhD in neuroscience.

“There were several issues that my family and I faced due to my medical condition during the initial years. However, with the support of my family, I was able to break several stereotypes. Later, my faculty and peers at UC Berkeley helped me a lot on my journey," he said. The scholar, who is also a published poet, received the Paul & Daisy Soros Fellowships for New Americans. “I do have some time to come up with a research topic for my PhD,” Hari told Global Indian, adding, "My work will focus around the human nervous/sensory system. However, I am yet to narrow it down.”

[caption id="attachment_18246" align="aligncenter" width="560"] Hari Srinivasan[/caption]

Maya Burhanpurkar

Growing up as the climate crisis unfolds around them, young innovators around the world know that change lies with them. In 2013, on a trip to the Arctic, Canadian researcher Maya Burhanpurkar learned firsthand about the devastation being caused by climate change. "It struck me that the icebergs we were seeing could be some of the last anyone would ever see. And that it could be alarmingly soon," she told Global Indian. She got as much footage as she could of her surroundings, also interacting with the local community to learn how their lives had been impacted by the climate crisis. That resulted in 400 PPM, a documentary film with appearances by Canadian author Margaret Atwood, astronaut Chris Hadfield and the famed explorer Wade Davis.

As she watched her grandfather's condition deteriorate from Alzheimer's, a distraught young Maya wondered if she could help. She tested two drugs used in the early stages of Alzheimer's treatment on daphnia, a common species of waterfly. "“He was taking a lot of other drugs as well and I wanted to see how the cocktail was affecting his heart,” she explains. “I noticed the drugs regularised heart rate, whether it was high or low. I never followed it up in a more rigorous setting but it certainly was fascinating.”  The experiment fetched her the top place at the Canada-Wide Science Fair, at which she is a two-time winner.

[caption id="attachment_16083" align="aligncenter" width="520"] Maya Burhanpurkar[/caption]

Now a Rhodes Scholar, Maya has done cutting edge research at Harvard University, where she graduated summa cum laude with highest honours, collaborated with University of Toronto and the Dominion Radio Astrophysical Observatory. She is the winner of the Gloria Barron Prize 2016.