Indian-origin Manvin Khera makes history: Miss Globe 2023 crown lands in Malaysia
Compiled by: Amrita Priya
(December 22, 2023) Indian-origin Malaysian model Manvin Khera made Malaysia proud by winning the Miss Globe 2023 title. With its inception in 1925, the contest holds the distinction of being one of the world’s longest-running major international beauty pageants. The annual event, with headquarters in Albania, is ranked seventh in prominence in the international beauty contest for women.
Manvin’s win marks a historic first for Malaysia, as she brought home the first ever Miss Globe crown, leaving behind 49 contestants from across the world. “It’s truly an honour to represent my country on the international stage and I am really happy to be the first ever Malaysian to bring home the Miss Globe crown. I am happy to have raised the bar high for my country,” the 22-year-old said in an interview with after the historic win.
Manvin Khera
Beyond the glitz and glamour of the ramp, Manvin is a dedicated law student pursuing her education at the University of Malaya. She is a passionate advocate for animal rights and veganism, and aspires to become a human rights lawyer while continuing her modelling career.
A pageant pro
Before her participation in the Miss Globe competition, Manvin has competed in multiple pageants, gaining recognition and winning titles.
Her journey in the world of modelling began in 2017 when she earned the Miss Teen Malaysia title at the age of 16. This win led her to participate in the Miss Teen International competition held in her country of origin, India that same year. She was one of the top 10 contestants in the competition and earned recognition for the best national costume.
Manvin Khera
Continuing to pursue her modelling career alongside her academic endeavours, Manvin kept on working for modelling assignments and subsequently participated in the inaugural Ratu Wanita Malaya pageant, the Malaysian franchise of the Miss Globe competition. Apart from clinching the main title in the international pageant, Manvin also won the titles of ‘Best in Evening Gown’ and ‘Best in Talent’.
Her advice to people chasing their dreams is, “stop doubting yourself. Whatever aspirations that you have, just go for it.”
The multifaceted youngster
Born in 2001 in Kuala Lumpur, Manvin hails from a family where both her parents are business owners. “Initially they were apprehensive of me entering the field of modelling but as I won the pageants, they said, ‘we believe in you’,” Manvin revealed.
Despite her Malaysian upbringing, the Indian-origin youngster boasts of fluency in Punjabi (her mother tongue), Hindi, English, and Malay.
The Malaysia-born Indian has passion for diverse cultures and has travelled to countries like India, Thailand, Singapore, Australia, Indonesia, and the United States learning about their cuisines and exploring the cultural diversity in the process.
Manvin Khera
Before appearing in the Miss Globe nationals, she suffered from acne for a year and felt quite insecure about the situation. “It was a challenging phase for me and I was constantly worried about it and of facing the camera but I worked towards improving the condition and was finally able to come out of it,” she shared highlighting. “Health problems can be reversed with corrective measures and you should not let them come in between you and your goals.”
When it comes to the inspiration of life, Manvin finds a role model in Priyanka Chopra, and respects her achievements, confidence, and humanitarian endeavours.
Not merely limited to pageants, Manvin’s talents extends to classical dance forms like Bharatanatyam, Kathak, and Odissi. She also finds joy in, archery, hiking, and reading.
(February 23, 2023) On a summer trip to India in 2014, Aryaman Khandelwal and his family were going by road to Chikaldara, a village in Maharashtra. The area is famous for growing corn and the family stopped at roadside stalls to try it. On the way, he saw a little boy, no more than ten years of age, carrying a sack of corn twice his size. "It was an impetus for me, something needed to change," he said, in an interview. Then a senior at Parkland High School, Aryaman went on to found Get2Greater over the next couple of years, an AI-driven app to improve access to healthcare services. When he saw the young boy carrying corn, it dawned on Khandelwal that life wasn't so easy for everyone. "They had to work so hard to make do," he said. His efforts earned him the Gloria Barron Prize in 2017, which is given to young people with significant social initiatives. "The entire idea was inspired by a human geography course at school," he said, adding, "The class was about demographics and societies changing over time and developing and developed countries working together to create societal progress across the board. The idea
given to young people with significant social initiatives. "The entire idea was inspired by a human geography course at school," he said, adding, "The class was about demographics and societies changing over time and developing and developed countries working together to create societal progress across the board. The idea interested me and I wanted to implement it." So, in 2015, the young Global Indian began work, reaching out to family members who had worked as doctors in rural Maharashtra.
Aryaman was put in touch with the MAHAN Trust, which provided healthcare to rural parts of the state. The NGO was founded in 1997 by Dr Ashish, who wanted to improve medical care and health services to tribal communities in the Melghat region. They have set up a hospital, child care programmes, eye testing, run nutrition farms and carry out socio-economic research. Through them, Aryaman learned that "maybe 10 to 15 trained guys serve a population of 200,000," he said.
At the time, the MAHAN Trust was training village health workers to carry out basic processes. They dealt with numerous challenges, aside from the lack of qualified doctors and healthcare workers and had to work around the system. There were many quacks, who would quit studying after a year of med school and return home as ‘healthcare providers’. People were also deeply suspicious of outsiders and western medicine alike and didn’t really want to talk to healthcare workers who arrived from elsewhere.
Locals were, however, comfortable with the trained workers, who were from their own communities, who were otherwise not fully educated. "They were trained to take basic measurements, record them and take the data to a hospital," Aryaman explained. Doctors would review it and send back treatments or diagnoses. While the method was innovative, and showed results, it was time-consuming and could take anywhere between two weeks to two months.
Building Get2Greater
That's where Get2Greater came in - it separates the unhealthy from the healthy, so doctors could focus on the more pressing cases. The app can record basic health metrics, compile it in order of priority and send it to doctors nearby. When he started, however, Aryaman "just had a passion and an idea." Equipped with a basic software prototype, Aryaman sent a tablet to MAHAN in India and established a line of correspondence. "I asked them to critique the app," he said. "I realised that India is very far away from the US! We could only speak for a few hours late at night or early in the morning. There was also very little electricity and connectivity."
He began reaching out for collaborations. Aryaman's proposal won him funding from Lehigh Valley LaunchBox, an entrepreneurial program run by Penn State Lehigh Valley. After numerous trials and bug fixes, Aryaman replaced English with Hindi and created a Wi-Fi component so the devices could connect to the local hospitals. He has also been in talks with the UN to help take the device to other parts of India and the world.
Aryaman, who was named 2018 US Presidential Scholar and a Coca-Colar Scholar in 2018, went on to earn a Bachelor's of Science in Engineering in Computer Science from Princeton University. He went on to found ‘Stealth’ along with Harvard grad Dean Hathout.
(March 07, 2024) As a young kid, Sadhana Lolla was fascinated with machines and various equipment. But, growing up whenever she would visit India with her parents, she would observe her grandmother's toil without the availability of any assistive technology. "The experience greatly inspired me to delve into artificial intelligence solutions aimed at delivering robotic assistive technology to marginalised communities," the young scholar shared during an interview. Fueled by a desire to make a global impact through her innovative work, Sadhana secured the Gates Cambridge Scholarship. This scholarship allows students to pursue graduate studies in their chosen field at Cambridge University in the UK. "I'll be delving deep into the intricate connections between technology, public policy, laws, and governance," shared an elated Sadhana, adding, "This intersection is pivotal in an era where every process is digitising, and the significance of AI is continually growing. I hope that my studies could significantly contribute to the global discourse on technology and its profound impact on society." ALSO READ: Meet Vaibhav Mohanty – an accomplished scholar and musician Of hard work and grit A curious kid from the beginning, Sadhana took part in various academic and cultural competitions. "In high school, I was
A curious kid from the beginning, Sadhana took part in various academic and cultural competitions. "In high school, I was the captain of my Scioly team and competed in biology and Earth and Space Science events. I was also on the competitor logistics committee and also helped out with events," the scholar shared. Soon after finishing school, the youngster joined the prestigious Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where she is a fourth-year undergraduate, majoring in computer science and minoring in mathematics, "And literature. I have quite a busy schedule, but yet outside of school and planning committees that I am a part of, I still find time to bake, cook, and read," the Global Indian shared.
A part of MIT's Distributed Robotics Laboratory, Sadhana has been working day and night on her research under the guidance of Professor Daniela Rus, focusing on safe and trustworthy robotics and deep learning. Her investigations encompass debiasing strategies for autonomous vehicles and streamlining the design processes of robots. Said the scholar, "My research focusses broadly on the application of deep learning to robotics and on designing and deploying uncertainty-aware artificial intelligence with Dr. Ava Amini."
Also, at Microsoft Research and Themis AI, I have contributed to the development of uncertainty-aware frameworks for deep learning, with applications spanning computational biology, language modeling, and robotics," shared the scholar, who has showcased her research findings at prestigious conferences such as the Neural Information Processing Systems (NeurIPS) and the International Conference on Machine Learning (ICML). "Through this SuperUROP project, I want to become more involved in applying deep learning algorithms to robotics. I hope to apply knowledge from previous machine learning classes and research to an exciting new area of study," she added.
Scaling heights
While she might sound like a nerd, the young scholar is involved in tonnes of activities outside academics as well. Despite a very tight schedule, the young scholar is leading initiatives at MIT to make computer science education more accessible globally. "I instruct class 6.s191, MIT's Introduction to Deep Learning, a course that reaches millions of students globally. As the curriculum lead for Momentum AI, I contribute to the only U.S. program offering free AI education to underserved students. Additionally, I've had the privilege of teaching hundreds of students in Northern Scotland through the MIT Global Teaching Labs programme," she said.
Sadhana also serves as the director for xFair, MIT's largest student-run career fair. Furthermore, she holds an executive board position for Next Sing, where efforts are made to increase accessibility to a cappella for students from various musical backgrounds.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GvUo1E38ZvY
When asked about her future plans, the young scholar said, "I aspire to spearhead discussions on deploying and developing technology for marginalised communities, including the rural Indian village my family calls home. Simultaneously, I am engaged in research focused on embodied intelligence."
(January 14, 2023) Growing up, student entrepreneur Simone Sharma dreamed of being a doctor. Life, however, had other plans. Along the way, she discovered that volunteer work could boost her CV and increase the odds of getting scholarships to good colleges. Although she wanted to give it a try, she didn’t know where to begin. The hunt for volunteering opportunities, however, sowed the seed for her own non-profit, YouthGrowYouth, which works with youngsters like herself. Little did she know that in a short span of time, she would be able to reach out to more than 60,000 highschoolers, create a team of volunteers from across the globe and connect youngsters to several opportunities. This successful stint with social entrepreneurship has influenced the seventeen-year-old’s future plans, inspiring her to study business instead of medicine. [caption id="attachment_26501" align="aligncenter" width="675"] Simone Sharma[/caption] Through YouthGrowYouth, Simone has been helping youngsters discover a rich array of extracurricular options, and explore their career interests. The non-profit’s programmes range from helping youngsters with volunteering positions, internships, mentorships, exclusive Ivy League programmes and more. “YouthGrowYouth has a team of 20 volunteers from India and places like Germany and Canada, who enable global online opportunities,” Simone tells Global Indian.
Sharma | Global Indian " width="675" height="735" /> Simone Sharma[/caption]
Through YouthGrowYouth, Simone has been helping youngsters discover a rich array of extracurricular options, and explore their career interests. The non-profit’s programmes range from helping youngsters with volunteering positions, internships, mentorships, exclusive Ivy League programmes and more.
“YouthGrowYouth has a team of 20 volunteers from India and places like Germany and Canada, who enable global online opportunities,” Simone tells Global Indian.
Impressive associations
Recently, the non-profit became affiliated with the United Nations Youth Council and has since expanded to promoting gender equality and mass literacy among vulnerable youth. “The UNYC affiliation has broadened our horizons as we get to be part of regional meetings and interact with board members,” remarks the youngster.
With Simone at the helm, YouthGrowYouth managed to get selected for the Crimson Youth Entrepreneurship Society’s 2022 cohort. “It’s a non-profit accelerator run by Harvard University students dedicated to help young founders create meaningful impacts in their communities and beyond,” tells Simone.
Excited about being part of such a significant cohort, chosen from amongst thousands of applicants, she says, “The selection process went on for three months. By the end of it, only 20 youth-led startups from all over the world were chosen. I am so glad we are one of them.”
The selection comes with the perks of resources for growth. “We are able to access many Harvard webinars, which aren’t otherwise available to the public. We also have access to Harvard-based mentors who groom us to make our startups better,” tells the young social entrepreneur.
Another interesting association has been YouthGowYouth’s selection for the first-ever Google Startup School India edition. Over the course of the nine-week online training programme, the early-stage startup founders were equipped with knowledge, tools and products that any growing organisation needs – all delivered by Google experts and unicorn founders.
The Bengaluru based teen is also one of the 120 participants selected out of 4,000 applicants for the YLC Leadership cum Entrepreneurship Conference. “In an online two-week programme, I was trained in a curriculum developed by Harvard Business School, Harvard Law School and Harvard Graduate School of Education on how to strengthen my organization’s presence,” she says.
Multifaceted teen
Social entrepreneurship, which Simone stumbled onto by chance, is not the only area in which the teenager excels. She has been a runner-up at the National Spelling Bee 2019. She has also tried her hand at pageantry and although she couldn’t earn the top spot in the Star Miss Teen India contest, she managed to earn the Miss Teen India Karnataka 2022 title as one of the finalists. There were other contestants representing the state.
“The contest was held at The Leela Palace, New Delhi. There were accomplished participants from across India. I managed to stand out in the talent round due to my poetry writing skills,” she mentions adding, ‘Though I stammered in nervousness when I was told to recite, losing my shot at winning the title, the days leading to the contest provided a holistic and growing experience for me.”
Her poems are part of two anthologies published by a publishing house named Writer’s Pocket Publishing. The daughter of an army colonel, Simone is good at sports, and has represented her district and state in basketball tournaments.
“It’s ironic that although I want to pursue business analytics, I am studying science,” smiles the 12th grader of Jain Heritage School. The student entrepreneur aspires to pursue her college education abroad and expand YouthGrowYouth on campus there, to widen its horizons even more.
(March 17, 2024) In the scenic mountains of Himachal Pradesh is a river valley - Kangra - home to warm Himachali people who cherish their language and customs. The beautiful language extends its influence to Northern Punjab - where Delhi teen Navvye Anand has his familial roots. Though his family settled in Delhi, his connection to his culture and heritage remains strong through the Kangri language. Upon discovering that Kangri language was among UNESCO's list of 10 endangered languages, he felt called to take action. "I started to look for ways to revitalise the language, and focused primarily on leveraging the oral medium. Recognising the dearth of written literature in Kangri, I turned to ASR (Automated Speech Recognition) - which converts human speech into written text," he tells Global Indian. [caption id="attachment_36635" align="aligncenter" width="300"] Navvye Anand[/caption] Traditionally, linguistics would spend hours engaging with local people to manually transcribe oral traditions, often encountering bottlenecks due to the enormous amount of time and effort required, along with scope for human error. "ASR can be used to streamline the transcription process. Recent advancements in AI made it possible to use ASR at a much higher level than before," adds Navvye, whose project, Cross-Lingual
bottlenecks due to the enormous amount of time and effort required, along with scope for human error. "ASR can be used to streamline the transcription process. Recent advancements in AI made it possible to use ASR at a much higher level than before," adds Navvye, whose project, Cross-Lingual Automatic Speech Recognition for Endangered Languages won him The Spirit of Ramanujan Grant, worth $4800. Each year, the University of Virginia and the Templeton World Charity Organization jointly award a grant to high school students who demonstrate exceptional talent in mathematics and science.
With the grant, Navvye attended the Wolfram High School Summer Program in the US. "I learnt from Dr Steven Wolfram, who is a pioneering computer scientist and a linguist, and I had the opportunity to refine my linguistic abilities and learn more about linguistics," says the teen, who also attended Euler Circle Program on number theory. "I used the grant to support my education."
Love for words and languages
Growing up with a grandfather who was a polyglot fluent in seven languages, Navvye was attracted to words and languages like a moth to flame. "My love for languages is inherited, it played a crucial role in my upbringing," says the teen, adding, "We bonded over our common love for language, and every time I found a new Pandora's box in an unknown language, I'd walk up to him and discuss. I loved talking about languages with him. We'd often fixate upon certain peculiarities of a language - such as resemblance between shakkar (jaggery) - an Urdu word and sugar in English. My love for linguistics was innately embedded in me."
After his grandfather passed away in 2022, Navvye decided to pay him homage by working towards revitalising a dialect of his native language. Moreover, his visit to the Kangra Valley region in 2018 made him fall in love with the warmth of the people. "They always had some folklore or a story to tell and were proud of their culture and heritage. I thought it was paradoxical that Kangri was an endangered language because these people love their culture and heritage. I thought if I could unite their love with advancements in AI, then that would be a great project to start," he reveals.
Using AI to preserve Kangri
This led him to read papers from past researchers who had used ASR for other languages. One particularly intriguing study was by Emily Prud'hommeaux, an assistant professor at Boston College, who attempted to revitalise Seneca - an endangered language in the US. "Her research papers helped me understand the methodology and how researchers use ASR." Later, he reached out to Dr Shweta Chauhan, a researcher at the National Institute of Technology Hamirpur, who had curated a text corpus for the Kangri language. "She invited me to intern at her lab, and ever since she has been an invaluable mentor."
The innovation in ASR allows linguists to record conversations in their natural environment and to capture their essence without manually digitising any oral medium. Explaining the process, Navvye elaborates that a regular mic can be fed into the ASR model which helps give an accurate transcription. The audio is being converted into text via ASR. "Currently, the accuracy stands at 85 percent, and over time, my aim is to gather additional data and enhance the system to achieve a target accuracy of 95 percent." The project operates on two fronts - one, where Navvye personally collects data by recording conversations using ASR, and second, where he connects with local translators who send audio transcriptions to him using ASR. "This allows me to build a robust audio repertoire. Additionally, I'm partnering with the Indian government through their Bhashini program, leveraging their resources to collect more Kangri data. I'm looking forward to expanding the audio repertoire as it will provide vast dataset to further fine-tune the model with improved accuracy."
When Navvye started he was only 15, but his passion to translate his dream into reality kept him going along with the support of his parents and the people of Kangra. However, along the way he encountered some technical hiccups in his journey, primarily related to data collection, cleaning, model selection and fine-tuning. "After experimenting with other models, I settled for Open AI's Whisper, which is the state-of-the-art speech recognition model. It is difficult to bring a simple idea to fruition but when the cause is noble, people will support you," he adds.
In the last two years, Navvye's work has empowered various translators by connecting them to MNCs operating in the Kangri domain. "I've helped a couple of translators gather the requisite information to contact Lenovo, created their LinkedIn profile, and filled out technical documents for them," says Navvye, who is also creating awareness about the importance of the Kangri language among school children. Ask him the potential reason behind Kangri being an endangered language, he promptly replies, "More people are now speaking Hindi as compared to Kangri as they are dissuaded from speaking their native dialect due to globalisation. It's not considered cool enough - something we need to counter," says the teen.
Proud to be preserving his ancestor's fading language, Navvye says the fruit of labour has been immense but the job isn't finished yet. "There is a long way to go but I'm happy with the way it's been going. I'm honoured to join the efforts to the preservation of my language which is a rich amalgamation of history and discourse," adds Navvye. As he plans to join the California Institute of Technology this fall, he wants to stay committed to the project, confident in his ability to utilise the power of technology to further work towards the project remotely. "I will have a proper support system to enhance my knowledge. I already have a new idea about classifying dialects using embeddings which can help clusters different dialects and identify them," reveals Navvye, adding that it can be used as a model for other languages.
Imparting advice to fellow teenagers, Navvye asks them to stop being afraid of taking the leap of faith. "Being afraid of failure is a sign of failure itself," he says, adding, "Don't worry if it will work out or not, you will find your way. In case, it doesn't work out, you will learn something new in the process. Maybe you can tweak it so that it works better in the future."
(September 2, 2023) The United States discards more food than any other country in the world. Every year in United States, approximately 31% (133 billion pounds) of the overall food supply is wasted by consumers and retailers, as per the estimates of the United States Department of Agriculture's Economic Research Service (USDA-ERS). The wasted food is either dumped in landfills or burned in trash incinerators. This leads to 18% of the US' total methane emissions that come from landfills, resulting in global warming and impacting food security and resource conservation. To address this problem in her community, Maryland based Shrusti Amula, a senior at Richard Montgomery High School, founded the NGO, Rise N Shine Foundation. The youth-led initiative aims to tackle the effects of food waste through composting and food recovery programmes, and in the process – avert climate change. [caption id="attachment_32863" align="aligncenter" width="749"] Shrusti Amula[/caption] So far, Shrusti has diverted close to 1,00,000 pounds of food waste from incinerators, converting it into compost instead. Her non-profit also runs food recovery programmes to combat hunger amongst the underprivileged. Rise N Shine’s food recovery programme has been adopted by Montgomery County’s public school system and will be running in all 209
So far, Shrusti has diverted close to 1,00,000 pounds of food waste from incinerators, converting it into compost instead. Her non-profit also runs food recovery programmes to combat hunger amongst the underprivileged. Rise N Shine’s food recovery programme has been adopted by Montgomery County’s public school system and will be running in all 209 schools by June 2024. In the past year, the non-profit has donated approximately 150,000 meals to the food insecure community.
Shrusti has received many awards and recognition, the most recent being named a ‘Woman of Worth 2023’ by L’Oreal Paris.“It is difficult managing school, Rise N Shine’s initiatives, and my other extracurricular activities. The main reason I am able to manage the non-profit is because I am passionate about the work we are doing,” Shrusti tells Global Indian.
L’Oreal’s Woman of Worth
Each year, L’Oreal Paris launches a nationwide search for ten extraordinary non-profit leaders to be named ‘Women of Worth’ honourees. Each honouree not only receives $25,000 to support their charitable cause, but are also provided mentorship from the L'Oréal Paris network and a national platform to tell their stories.
Shrusti is the youngest of the ten honourees of 2023. “With this honour I hope to expand the reach of our programmes and inspire youth nationwide that they too can create change in their communities,” she says.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9kuJ6CRYVQI
Making impact
Through Rise N Shine, Shrusti has been meeting many goals - cultivating green habits in students, creating leadership opportunities for them by making them their schools’ volunteers, and helping them become climate change makers of tomorrow.
Her composting programme currently runs in nine schools while three more are in pipeline. Rise N Shine’s food recovery programme is now running in 40 Maryland schools, apart from offices, restaurants, grocery stores and bakeries. It will expand to all 209 schools of the county by the end of 2024.
It started when…
“In 2018, I stumbled upon on the acute problem of food waste and its impact on climate,” Shrusti shares. She extensively researched its impact in her community and found out that it was being overlooked to a great extent.
The youngster presented this problem and the possible solutions at the eCybermission competition - a STEM Competition, backed by the US Army. One of her proposed solutions was to start food waste collection programmes and divert the wasted food to compost facilities.
The teenager was delighted to find herself as one of the top five winners of the competition, and started her pilot project at Clarksburg Elementary School in her community. The school principal and the administrative staff of the school were very supportive of Shrusti’s idea.
In this programme she was able to haul the leftover food from the students’ lunch boxes to make compost, thus diverting the school’s food waste from incinerators and landfills and giving back to the environment through compost. “I learned that it is easy to educate young minds on the harmful effects of food waste and spearhead the behavioural adaption to proper disposal of food waste,” she says.
This learning served as an impetus for further work in the arena. Since then she has partnered with close to a dozen local schools and multiple organisations to make this solution a big success.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V1W2eVaAHfo
From composting to food recovery
After tasting success with her composting programme, Shrusti expanded her initiative towards food recovery in schools and businesses, looking at the amount of uneaten food wasted and the burgeoning problem of food insecurity after the COVID-19 pandemic.
Due to the success of her pilot initiative, and the potential of her programme to combat hunger amongst the underprivileged, it got adopted by Montgomery County’s public school system, and would be rolled out to all the 209 schools of the county by 2024. Rise N Shine Foundation also partners with companies to redistribute food that would otherwise be wasted to homeless shelters and food banks. In the past year, the non-profit has donated approximately 150,000 meals to the food insecure community.
How does it work?
“Unused food in Montgomery County accounts for nearly 124,000 tons of our solid waste, Our wasted food contributes to greenhouse gas pollution and wastes the land, water, energy and human effort that was used to produce the food” shares Shrusti.
Rise N Shine Foundation collects food from local businesses that would have been otherwise thrown away and provide it to homeless shelters, food pantries and under-served communities, where people are experiencing hunger. “We are playing our part and contributing towards Montgomery County's recycling goals for reducing food waste,” she remarks.
[caption id="attachment_32870" align="aligncenter" width="786"] One of Rise N Shine's food donation events[/caption]
Although it’s a youth-led non-profit organisation to promote and motivate kids to do their bit for the environment, Shrusti works with people of all ages and backgrounds.
The non-profit has expanded to a wide array of service campaigns that support causes ranging from hunger and social justice to quality education, civil rights, and youth activism.
Shrusti Amula has participated and contributed to various legislative bills at the school and county level. Outside of school and community activities, she is a trained Indian classical dancer, USA national women's cricket player, mentor, and a debater. She is also a bronze and silver awardee of Girl Scout.
Rise N Shine’s awards and recognitions:
Recipient of 2022 Climate & Energy Leadership Award given by the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments
Recipient of Citation from The Maryland General Assembly
Recipient of Proclamation from The County Executive of Montgomery County, Maryland
Shrusti’s recent awards and recognitions
‘Women of Worth’ honouree by L’Oreal Paris
Riley's Call for Kindness Award - Grant and Fellowship Winner (2023)
EPA President's Environmental Youth Award (PEYA) Winner (2023)
Governor's Youth Service Award (2023)
Women Making History Award (2023) by Montgomery County Commission for Women and Montgomery women
Points of Light Award Honoree (2023)
The President's Volunteer Service Award (Gold) (2022)
Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments, Climate and Energy Leadership Awards (2022)
Aryaman Khandelwal[/caption]
One of Rise N Shine's food donation events[/caption]
Shrusti Amula[/caption]