Hi! If you’re new here, I’m a 19-year old design engineer, emerging tech builder and founder. Currently, I’m building tech projects in the intersection of AI and other kinds of emerging tech and am an astronomy enthusiast :) Previously, I’ve built an observatory in my back garden, was awarded a First Class Diploma in tabla by the Bhavan and won the annual TKS Focus Hackathon for best solution.
Moving in my New Home
This month, my family and I moved into our new long-term home in the suburbs of Chicago in a place called Lincolnshire. The only thing I’ve been surprised by is the fact that this insect called cicadas emerged for the first time in 200 years in Illinois around the time we arrived, and we can hear them all the time as buzzing. They can pack anywhere from 100k to 1 million insects into a single acre! Otherwise, we are enjoying the beautiful spring and have adjusted well in this beautiful country.
The Proud to call this place my new home!
The friendly people and entrepreneurial spirit all around is unbelievable here…
S/O to Stella, Mehmood, Vernon and Timothy for being our new friends in this neighbourhood. Your warm welcome and kindness is appreciated by my family and I🙂
Adventuring through Chicago:
Since we moved here, we thought why not visit the city that’s the 3rd largest in the States! I thought of it as time travelling when I was on the boat going across the city.
Chicago, in my opinion, is quite an underrated city. Some fun facts I learned: the name Chicago is a red-Indian name that translates to ‘stinky onion’. By the 1900s, engineers had completely reversed the flow of the river. Many of the towers were built by the same architect that designed the Burj Kalifa in Dubai.
My question to you if you’re from Illinois: White Sox or Cubs?
Thinking for Yourself
Midway through the month and the many months before that, a key challenge was having writer’s block and not knowing what to write for articles and say for videos. In fact, it was a HUGE challenge. This stopped me from making a lot of progress on my focus.
Sure, I can write anything. But it wasn’t a high standard output. And sometimes, self-awareness doesn’t even help you realise this. So I asked the opinion of my TKS director about what I could do. And he advised me that I was not thinking for myself. The fact that I don’t know what to write is because I didn’t learn what I was writing about in the first place for myself. I often used ChatGPT to write for me. The important lesson I learned from him is that clear thinking = clear writing. Go for a walk in nature, then come back and write. I said I struggled more with this when it came to my Focus articles and videos, but this didn’t happen with my newsletters like I’m writing now. And many people make this mistake of not thinking for themselves is what my director said.
So one day, first thing in the morning I got my cup of coffee and just started to write. And in about 4 hours of deep work, I got my article done (without AI!) and I felt proud of it.
This is what I wrote to my director afterwards:
I took your advice yesterday, went on a long walk - and was surprised how much clearer I was thinking. I realised I do not take many breaks and my work becomes aimless! I actually didn't draft an outline on google docs and just wrote out the article from scratch on Medium just using common sense and what I think I'd say that came to mind. I didn't use AI at all to write this.
..
The project I’m talking about which I built with my team is ‘Modified Whiteflies’. It’s about combating one of the most damaging crop viruses in the world, Cassava Mosiac Disease (CMD), which causes annual economic losses in East and Central Africa that are estimated to be between US$1.9 billion and $2.7 billion. Moreover, on a human level, this disease can lead to yield losses of a staggering 50–100%, which ruins a primary source of income for many smallholder farmers. Such significant losses reduce the availability of cassava, which is a crucial source of calories for over half a billion people in the tropics. That’s crazy! And to top it all off, where cassava is a main staple food, the prevalence of ‘stunting’ (a sign of chronic malnutrition) among children under the age of five — can exceed 30%.
Would appreciate feedback on my article and video here:
…
My Ask to You!
If you align with our mission, do you or someone you know work at Bayer or Monsanto Company? Can you provide a recommendation or intro for grant programs? We need further validation and grants to make this happen!
End of TKS Innovate?… Or so we thought. Wins & Failures
As TKS Innovate (‘Innovate’ being the first year program for those that don’t know) came to an end on May 31st for many of us TKSers, insights were starting to hit. I certainly found myself in a reflective mood - particularly with something I found holding me back throughout the year, until the last couple of weeks. Since I believe that all of us can bring insane value as a community if what’s inside of us can be brought outside of us, I thought it’d be nice to share a reflection (which I firstly shared with one of our directors
, who then encouraged me to share with everyone) publicly to the rest of the #aathentik-life channel (the sickest channel that is ‘A place to learn and share about our human experience and the nature of reality. Created by Aatik, hence the name of the channel, #aathentik life. Get it?😉).
As an action item, I’m spreading Aatik’s word so more of my peers can post on their newsletters:
what you’ve learned about yourself this past year, and/or
a key insight gained at some point during the program that you found super valuable, about how to build, how to live, mindset-wise, etc…
I knew that TKS is a good experience the moment I saw a few of my peers tearing up in the lasts moments of our session with my director
- to me, that’s a sign of how this has made a positive impact in each of us individuals.To me, the end of TKS Innovate is not the end. It’s the beginning. The beginning of momentum (knowing what we know now about our knowledge, mindsets and projects we gained - unconventionally growing) that we can use to create real value for ourselves and society.
Once again, appreciation to Steven - my director,
- who kindly gave me a space in his sessions a couple of times, Aatik - whose insights I learn from a ton nearly everyday, - who I get a lot of value from his sick office hours, - whose cohort I was in for a while, - for making me realise my blockers and the rest who I’m yet to interact with more! And to the braindates, friends and relationships I’ve made along the way.Words cannot explain how grateful I am for this accelerator.
Snippets
Monthly favourites & media that I’m consuming
📖 Currently reading:
The Rules of Mentorship by Brad Keywell: written by the billionaire entrepreneur who was the Co-Founder of Groupon, I was curious to start reading this after learning Keywell is from Chicago! This book was just released yesterday (as of writing this newsletter) and I’ve only started reading this. It’s about him receiving mentorship from the late Sam Zell. Will share my takeaways next month.
Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand: recommended to me by a fellow TKSer Jasmeet, I was intrigued reading this as what I particularly agreed with is that society is in decline due to excessive regulation, government intervention and the erosion of individual freedoms. It portrays the struggle between those who create value and those who seek to control and exploit them. I agree that most of societal progress is not made through bureaucracy but through innovation. Favourite quote: "When you see corruption being rewarded and honesty becoming a self-sacrifice - you may know that your society is doomed."
Star Maker by Olaf Stapledon: those who know me well know that my typical choice of books are non-fiction fact, history, biography or business books. In an effort to finally read something fiction, I started reading this science-fiction book by the Father of Modern Science Fiction. Star Maker takes the reader on an expansive journey through time and space, exploring complex themes of creation, existence and the nature of the universe. I found it pushed my imagination beyond the confines of our world. As someone who usually sticks to factual narratives, this book has been a refreshing change. Favourite quote: “Sitting there on the heather, on our planetary grain, I shrank from the abysses that opened up on every side, and in the future”.
📹 Brad Keywell’s videos & blogs. I’ve been binge consuming these as I really like it because not everyone compiles their resources so generously for people to learn like this guy has. Really valuable after having started listening to them. Kind of a free mentorship!
Haven’t watched all of them yet but I particularly liked Brad interviewing Don Thompson as a highlight from that for me was Thompson would always whistle when coming into any room as CEO of McDonald’s to basically signal it’s going to be a great day. Paraphrasing what he said - “any leader must understand that they carry the weather. They should create energy and bring energy, which can be either sunshine or a thunderstorm. There can be times for thunder!”.
🧠 Summer Articles:
Escaping High School (Skunk Ledger): I thought this is a very frank read. A topic I care about. Really resonated with me. This is a guide with quite a few sections to ‘flourish against all odds within the existing system’. An insight which stood out to me was “it’s suspicious high school looks so little like the real world”. Just gave me an idea to start drafting an entire model for alternative ways to run a high school (coming soon on my personal website!).
Agency (Neel Nanda): I agree with the notion that agency is ‘doing what is needed to achieve your goals’. True agency is surprisingly hard and rare. My valuable takeaway was the list of some of the things which hold us back.
Helplessness (Neel Nanda): My takeaway was to actually make time on problems you may feel helpless about and gain surface area by understanding the problem rather than focusing on solving the problem.
Intentions for Next Month
Thank you for reading this newsletter. Going into June, I’m travelling to London visiting some family (lmk if you’re around to chat about start-ups), be sharing more insights from my summer and working on some AI & emerging tech projects as always. See you then👋
Josh Roy