Nandika Devarajan is a 10-grade girl residing in Redmond, Washington U.S. She is a dedicated, diligent, and motivated high school student with a passion for biology and medicine. Showing her passion by teaching younger students both internationally and locally about subjects such as computer science and biology through the local organization she founded Scratchathon For Kids (www.scratchathonforkids.org). Nandika aspires to support students (particularly women and girls) in rural communities of India. As a step towards this aim, Nandika created an English curriculum to teach aspiring girls in rural villages who lack the opportunity to learn otherwise. These women have been collaborating with Annamalai university to help bring their lives into their own hands and provide a better quality of life for themselves and their families. In the past year, these women went from never touching a computer to mastering the use of Microsoft applications. However, these women face an obstacle when seeking employment: a lack of fluency in English. Nandika meets with these women every week (morning in India and during the night in the US) to teach them spoken English skills to help them improve their fluency in the language. Over the course of the past 5 months since the being of these lessons led by Nandika the girls have dramatically increased their proficiency in English, developing this crucial life skill.

In addition to this project, Nandika initiated the "Beads to Dreams" foundation (www.beadstodreams.org) . The organization aims to raise funds for tribal women 's education. She collects the beautiful beads, handmade by the parents of these girls in the villages and shipped the accessories to America. Often the parents of the girls sell their handmade jewelry on the streets at incredibly low prices to provide for their families. Nandika sells these beads at better prices in various venues across her hometown sending all the money earned from these ventures to the students to help fund their education. These students are brilliant women and Nandika aspires to continue support them in anyway she can with hopes of helping them on their journeys to success. She strives to assist them in achieving even their greatest ambition and can’t wait to see them continue to flourish.