PONRAWIN KANSAKSIRI

Ponrawin Kansaksiri, or Neva, is an honest, kind, and amused animal lover with strong passions for mathematics and cooking. She enjoys using her academic abilities or other personal skills to help people through teaching and mentorship, while supporting causes related to animals in need - all in all, she aims to be a “TechForGood” youth advocate.  

Neva has faced many challenges growing up, but her favorite growing up story was when she faced a serious eye problem. At eight years old, she was diagnosed with a lazy eye, a condition where one of her eyes had a blurred vision which could not be fixed by glasses. The doctor said that there was a very slight chance of getting fully recovered as she should have found out earlier. The only treatment was to cover her good eye with a medical patch when she went to school to force the bad eye to develop greater strength. It was extremely embarrassing and she got bullied by some friends. After nine torturous months, she was fully recovered. She was so proud of herself and she learned to never give up and be dedicated, even during the toughest time, and things will get better.

Currently in high school, she is committed to academic excellence, and is ranked number one in her grade. More importantly, she is active in competitions, such as mathematics and astronomy olympiads, and she is also a representative of the Thailand national team for some of these competitions. In terms of her extracurricular interests, she is active in tutoring and teaching friends and younger students who can’t afford proper education. She created a website that helps reduce food waste problems and miscalculations, and will further develop the website to calculate nutrition and calories for patients in hospital. Furthermore, she started an instagram page that gives tips and tricks, teaches, and offers mental support for Thai students who have to take the IELTS exam. Last but not least, she plans to collect recycling, sell them and give money to the wild animal shelters. For all her great work, she was selected as a co-organizer of a UN World Oceans Day 2023 event. 

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In the future, Neva plans to major in mathematics or computer science at top universities such as UC Berkeley. After that, she will use the knowledge she gains to improve her family businesses and be successful, so that she can pursue her biggest dream of opening an aquarium.