Zayn's Digest - October Edition
👋 Hey! I'm a 17-year-old from Seattle, WA currently working on and using it to impact the cognitive science and health industry eliminating concussions in athletes! 🧠
From hearing the crunch of leaves in my front yard to baking three pumpkin pies in the month of October, it was eventful. Let’s not forget about Halloween though, perhaps the focal point of “spooky season,” was the huge impact made during this month! 🎃
🎤 My First TED Talk
Experiences turn into opportunities, and they turn into stories. Throughout the course of the past year, the focal point for me has been understanding how I can use my story to inspire others. From Emergency Room to Virtual Stage, check out the talk here!
🎙️The Release of ZChat
It was time. Time to add another element to the podcast. Gary Vaynerchuk has been a HUGE virtual mentor to me and throughout watching his content I learned two main things: speed and volume are the two principal factors that allow people to blossom.
Why not launch a new series dedicated to life stories, advice, and personal experiences?
Here are some of the episodes. I won’t spoil the future of the pod, but let’s just say there might be a third element coming soon. 👀
ZChat:
🎙️Let’s Do This! - Podcast
Absolutely stoked for this! Throughout this month there were a LOT of things that I was excited about, yet I think this one topped the list! In collaboration with the DoSomething Organization in New York, I was able to launch and create an organization exclusive podcast and released the first episode with one of the biggest inspirations I have ever been around!
The first episode was amazing and had SO much talk about the future of social change and what the world can look like with Gen Z! I think I am overusing the word here, but go ahead and check it out here! 🙂
🎙️Are you ready to level up?
ANOTHER PODCAST, yes I know. I am turning into Frasier Crane. Since entering a DECA round table discussion in June, my team leaders and I decided to scale up our impact through the lense of a podcast, wherein I am the host and work with the sales and marketing team!
Throughout the process, we have had the chance to:
pitch to over seven companies on our idea, cultivate some incentives and ultimately gain hundreds of dollars in funding ↗️
present a workshop at the DECA Western Region Leadership Conference
engage and portray our personal vision in relation to DECA and a business we would like to create
build lifelong friendships through business
be featured on the “Everyone Has A Story” Podcast
I might as well change my middle name to podcaster!
🐋Tech Pod Fellowship
Whales, whales, whales. Just a little inside joke from the Tech Pod team, learn more about the joke, fellowship history, and get access to SO many internship resources here.
Tech Pod is a community of students aspiring to break into the business side of tech and in August they launched a fellowship program! The fellowship has a core vision of bringing in new students to tech coupled with personal branding and growing professionally and personally.
Throughout the fellowship, I’ve noticed a couple things and made a few BIG accomplishments!
Storytelling is a 🔑 part of everything. All of my posts that included stories had some sort of virality within my LinkedIn circle and led to many more connections.
Find the right people and growth will come. I love the term: symmetric return, since it describes life SO well. The concept is rooted in high input (overall work ethic and hour input) which yields a high output (forms of success, new opportunities/perspective). At Tech Pod, the community and fellows continue to level up my content and allowed me to gain over 5,000 post view in the month of October! 😮
I hit the 500+ connections mark, yet the best part about it is the LinkedIn messages and connections I’ve been able to build within that number. I never realized how vital of a networking tool LinkedIn was until Foundations Podcast began and I was looking for guests. Outreach, outreach, outreach all through LinkedIn. 🤝
🏫 Revolutionizing Education
As a company 14 months in the making, UConnect attempts to provide a better educational experience to students while allowing them to be at a university they fit at, giving students the chance to flourish for years. From analyzing alumni networks, university output, clubs & organizations, even food, it’s all there and emerging technology continues to move us forward.
Meeting after meeting, my co-founder Alfred and I are working to build a better solution for low-income students across the world. A couple weeks ago we were fortunate enough to have the opportunity to meet with former RaiseMe CEO and Founder: Preston Silverman.
Alfred and I are constantly learning about things such as: block chain and artificial intelligence, giving us the BEST chance to make the platform secure and scalable.
We continue to meet with other similar companies, allowing us to understand a bit more about the scope and who knows we could possibly have a patent soon. 👀
💬 Let me narrate!
#TKSTALKS! To begin the month of October, a mini virtual competition was held regarding personal interests and how we could utilize a specific technology to better the world! I chose to talk about VR/AR and my video was chosen!
I had the chance to learn from and inquire about Ahmed Elsamadisi’s journey through the Y-Combinator and his rise to data stardom as he continues to redefine the limits of business analytics and the most efficient ways to organize data.
Check out my takeaways below:
Personal Brand: Network, network, network. Use your platform to build connections with people that are going to advance your career and vouch for you. Most of Ahmed's connections were through connections he had taken the time to make and they continue to be a pivotal part of his overall success.
Environment: Never try to do things on your own. We are always too selfish to ask for help and waste time in the process. Reach out to people who are doing cool things and ask them for advice, don't do so much work on your own.
Simplify: Products don't need to be overly complicated to be successful. Simple is better and allows for a better user experience. Ex: Facetime started with a ton of different buttons when in reality all they needed was a call and hangup button. The more work you make for the customer, the less likely they are to continue using your product. Make life easier for them and you will prosper.
👨💻 Yea, we started it - TSA
Technology Student Association (TSA) is up and running! Attending a high school that lacked a TSA club was hard, yet it gave me and my officer team the change to create opportunity for others, allowing them to find their interests within STEM.
The best part of the TSA experience has been the application of the TKS motto: done is better than perfect and inserting it into practice in this case. As a team, we wanted to shoot for the perfect club at our high school, yet we understood that as we launched our main mission was to give students their own vision and allow them to learn about technology through competition.
It has been amazing to witness the overall growth of the club and more importantly continuing to improve the lives of others everyday.
🧑🤝🧑 Squad Up
A month ago I posted a short message in asking the innovator community at TKS if they wanted to join the accountability squad groups I was going to launch.
Fast forward a couple weeks and thirty-five of my fellow innovators had signed up for the accountability squads and we kicked off with seven groups!
There were a myriad of factors that prompted the initial post, but I think the most important is realizing the community and relationships that allow us to better our lives exponentially.
Biggest takeaway: People matter a lot; spend time with the ones that make you better.
🥍It’s Back
Back to the field, we go! About a month ago, lacrosse practices began again and I was SO excited to be back on the field with the team!
As a senior captain, it’s an incredible feeling to be around such amazing guys and continue to be apart of a culture that is rooted in community. I’m hoping to get back to games soon but until then, inter-squad games will be fun!
🕒 Hacking Time, here’s what else happened
I released an episode with LifeNLight President: Easton Lamos and it was amazing!
Lot’s of cool projects for my company: Help LLC! From our “Building a Brand” segment to multiple 3D animation videos, amazing things are coming!
Global AI Hackathon: Although it wasn’t my first hackathon, this was an experience I will never forget. The opportunity to meet people from all over the world is priceless and is probably the thing I love most about the TKS community that hosted this event. The project that my group decided to pitch related to the topic of healthcare applications and providing equal access to all ethnicities, genders, etc, to ensure that everyone stays healthy and is able to identify symptoms of any disease early.
🔮 So, what does the future look like?
ZLearn (my third podcast series on Foundations) will be coming out in January!
Starting my TKS focus in Virtual/Augmented Reality to build solutions for athletes and concussion science!
Interviews with Chief Marketing Officer: Jesse Stollak and Senior Vice President of Fan Experience for Seattle Kraken: Todd Humphrey