The Indian American community has made its presence felt in different walks of life, including education, business and politics, even though they constitute only 1% of the total US population. In our last article in the series of stories about young Indians, we gave a shout-out to 17-year-old Jothi Ramaswamy from New York who, inspired by her engineer mother, holds workshops to push girls for STEM careers as part of her nonprofit'ThinkSTEAM'. Indian American Kavya Kopparapu has received the most coveted National STEM Education Award 2019 for her revolutionary invention having the sole objective of making treatments far more effective for glioblastoma, the most fatal form of brain cancer. Recognized as an extraordinarily talented and accomplished individual by STEM Education US, Kavya Kopparapu is a science whizz of Herndon, Virginia. A student of biology and computer science at Harvard University, Kavya has invented an AI technology-supported device named GlioVision that pictures characteristics of brain tumor in shorter time and at a lesser cost than the existing traditional methods.

About 300 students primarily from the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area attended the Girls Computing League's second-ever Artificial Intelligence Summit at the National Air and Space Museum's Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly on Oct. 6 and 7. The summit's organizers, most of whom are still high school students themselves, hoped to make an impact with the two-day event beyond its direct participants. In addition to introducing middle and high school students to artificial intelligence with speeches from professionals in the field as well as hands-on activities, Girls Computing League presented donations to four Fairfax County schools as well as the D.C. Housing Authority so that they can start coding clubs. The Girls Computing League, a nonprofit founded by Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology graduate Kavya Kopparapu, is also contributing funds to host multiple artificial intelligence summits at the college level next year. "It's a mission of Girls Computing League in general to give access to computer science and technology education to those that might not have the opportunity to do so themselves," Girls Computing League chief innovation officer and Kavya's brother Neeyanth Kopparapu said.