Today we’d like to introduce you to Justin Liu.
Justin, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
I witnessed educational architectures crumble, communities quarantine, businesses collapse, and healthcare sectors get ravaged. In light of seeing the firsthand, devastating effects of the pandemic, I was motivated to tackle the novel coronavirus by 1) engineering an open-source solution for automated COVID-19 diagnostics and 2) offering an accessible, collaborative platform for under-resourced students to learn computer science — the latter of which I am ecstatic to share with you today.
I believe that now, more than ever, it is crucial to encourage problem-solving through technology among the youth. With the digital world being more prevalent than ever, I wanted to foster this fervor for technology and help students kickstart their STEM careers. Through my educational, project-based weekend event, YouthHacks, I sought to address the disparity in computer science pedagogy, bridge the gender and education opportunity gap, and widen the scope of technology— especially for underprivileged students from marginalized socioeconomic backgrounds.
As a community visionary leader who values teamwork and quality service, I labored over the course of several months, staying up until 2 in the morning recruiting an operations and marketing team, partnering with sponsors, interviewing coding instructors, designing my website, and preparing materials for my free programming boot camp. I promoted the event with Youth in Code, my affiliated STEM organization, and their social media platforms.
I also publicized the YouthHacks learning opportunity to schools, teachers, my neighborhood, and underprivileged communities to popularize student involvement.
December 17th, 2021. 4 months after embarking on my journey, YouthHacks was born. My team and I had raised over $2,600 in charity money, partnered with 16 corporate sponsors, and received mentorship requests from leading tech organizations, scholarship programs, and Y Combinator-backed startups. Recognition of our campaign mushroomed, and participant registrations quickly flowed in. YouthHacks’ design-sprint competition and learn-a-thon event exploded with positive feedback.
When the virtual, global event finally took place, over 150 participants of all ages from Africa, India, Lebanon, the Philippines, Canada, Mexico, and the U.S. heard from data science SWEs/industry professionals and were enriched with programming knowledge by coding instructors.
YouthHacks’ diverse team of coding instructors taught a wide variety of programming workshops covering material ranging from introductory computing paradigms to advanced topics such as machine learning libraries, web frameworks, data science tools, and PythonTurtle vector graphics.
We had achieved our hope of inspiring and training the next generation of computational problem solvers.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
The road has definitely not been smooth. Since its conception, YouthHacks has struggled with both technical and organizational challenges. For one, the original team was not big enough to have a large-scale impact — directing the initiative as a one-man mission simply would not be possible without the support and collaboration from peers.
Thus, I overcame this hurdle by reaching out to 80+ friends I had forged connections with via past summer research programs, leadership conferences, and hackathon competitions. Moreover, I communicated with several parents, professors, and industry professionals to help oversee, host guest speaker workshops, and mentor student projects. However, after succeeding in recruiting more team members, I was introduced to new problems.
Working with 20 students, all of whom held diverse academic and cultural interests, I had to refamiliarize myself with a wide array of foci. Nonetheless, my open-minded, curious attitude enabled me to proactively embrace our differences, enhance our similarities, and cooperate effectively.
I leveraged my experience directing several of my school’s afterschool extracurricular programs to organize coherent schedules, meetings, lesson plans, and logistical agendas. In the end, my international board and I were able to work together to instill a shared vision for YouthHacks, despite geographical separations.
Youth in Code taught me that the best solutions are products of the intermixing of diverse experiences, values, and philosophies. Although frustrating to face opposing ideas or ambitions among the board, our deliberations and discussions have motivated us to consider problems from a multifaceted perspective, with each differing angle furthering our services’ scope and adding strength to our initiative’s core beliefs.
Through YouthHacks, my passions of creating, networking, and engineering have become a conduit to promoting project-based learning, peer collaboration, and scientific research. Carrying this campaign forward into my last year of high school, I can’t wait to take the next big step toward democratizing quality education!
As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
I am currently a junior in high school.
I am highly passionate about the field of computer science and am fluent in 4 programming languages: Python, C++, Java, and Javascript. I took nine college-level CS courses, specialized in programming on my school’s FIRST Robotics team, enjoy participating in computing olympiads, and can often be found creating machine learning projects.
I have also served as a research intern for two professors, been published in peer-reviewed scientific journals as the lead author, placed 1st in the nation for TSA Software Development, and led my team to qualify for the highest division in the AFA CyberPatriot competition.
Aside from STEM, I have seven years of experience with fine arts, am the president of my school’s award-winning Mock Trial team, and love volunteering by providing free tutoring services and teaching kids how to code.
In the future, I hope to pursue higher studies in machine learning and use it to drive solutions in not only democratizing quality education, but also revolutionizing the healthcare sector.
Have you learned any interesting or important lessons due to the Covid-19 Crisis?
COVID-19 has indubitably impacted the lives of many. For me, that impact was having to attend school online—for over a year and a half. It was not being able to socialize with my friends, ask my teachers questions in person, or feel comfortable raising my (virtual) hand during lectures that hurt the most. I remember the first week of the pandemic when my school announced that it was closing down.
All of my friends and I were ignorantly filled with joy as we got to take a break from school. However, that week of rest turned into two, that two into a month, and that month into a year. As time went on, and as the pandemic showed no signs of slowing down, I began to regret my initial reaction to the school closure.
I had overlooked the ability to see so many people in person, and I loathed having to attend all of my school classes and extracurricular activities through a computer screen. And perhaps what upset me most was that there was nothing I could do to change my irrevocably altered lifestyle. I had come to realize that life in quarantine was the new norm.
Yet, embracing this new mindset, I stopped complaining. I stopped regretting it. I stopped slacking. Instead, I adapted. I began to develop an open-minded mindset and look at all the positive lights that had shined their way into my life as a result of the pandemic. I had so much time on my hands that I began to learn and do things that I never previously had the time to learn and do. I had more time to sleep.
I had more time to habituate to exercise. I had more time to spend with my family. Even in terms of Youth In Code, pushing all of our events online meant that we could reach a wider, global audience. Ultimately, COVID-19 had inspired the inception of YouthHacks, which I knew would appeal to numerous countries across the globe, especially due to the circumstances that had exacerbated the already-prevalent educational disparities in STEM.
Yes, if I had the ability to go back in time and thwart the pandemic, I would in a heartbeat. Anyone would. But realizing that no one has that power and that living with COVID-19 has become the norm, I realized that there are many matters in our lives that we can not control. These matters may impact our lives in ways we don’t want them to.
However, we must learn to adapt, unearth hidden benefits waiting to be discovered, and channel our energy to these positive outlets. We must embrace uncertainty.
Contact Info:
- Email: justinliu23@gmail.com
- Website: https://youthincode.
github.io/YouthHacks/ - Instagram: https://www.
instagram.com/youthincode/ - Facebook: https://www.
facebook.com/youthincodeorg/ - Other: https://linktr.ee/
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