By Angel Bhandari
The JuSTEMagine board member spotlight is on Swayam Kontamwar! He is a senior at Millard North High School and is the Co-Director of Technology for JuSTEMagine. He loves everything tech, including programming and UI/UX design, and he wants to use it to bring positive changes to the community.
Why did you want to be the Co-Director of Technology?
“The main reason I wanted to become the Co-Director of Technology was mainly to be more involved in the applications JuSTEMagine was developing. Also, Akshay, the previous Director of Technology, was really influential to my own interest in tech, and so I wanted to “carry it forward” as you could say.”
What are your responsibilities as the Co-Director of Technology?
“My responsibilities include administering our own app development, maintaining our website, partnering and reaching out to other nonprofits or organizations to do projects with, and will eventually encompass the marketing and logistics of whatever apps we put out.”
How do you think the use of technology in STEM will evolve?
“Really, I believe technology, in general, will become more ingrained with each of the fields in STEM as time goes on. Even now, I think, tech is virtually inseparable from STEM and practically any other field out there. As time goes on, that connection will only deepen, leading to more intersections between fields. For example, I could mention the recent intersection between psychology and tech through metacognitive machine learning. Or, reaching even beyond STEM, we can take a look at programs like DALL: E which is the intersection of art and technology. This highlights the trend we’ll probably see in the future with STEM: greater intersection and embedding between it and tech.”
What is your favorite technology project you have done and why?
“My favorite project that I’ve been a part of at JuSTEMagine would probably be the app we built, IgniteSEL, with SparkPositivity. It was one of the first experiences I’ve had with some real computer science collaboration on design and development, as well as my first real intersection with JuSTEMagine. Hopefully, I can carry those experiences forward into the projects which I’m now helping to create: our app with Prairie STEM & SparkPositivity. Outside of JuSTEMagine, though, my favorite tech project would have to be the AI I build to beat my grandma at cards.
What is the best memory you have while working in the technology aspect of JuSTEMagine?
“Going to the AppStore and downloading our app. Seeing the webpages I helped design and develop come to life was something else.”
What do you hope JuSTEMagine can accomplish in the future?
“Really, I hope JuSTEMagine just continues what it has been doing for years: helping young students and inspiring them to jump into STEM. It’s a really special organization, in the sense that it has such a big impact but is also run by just high schoolers. When I first heard about it, I thought it was this whole big thing, but the fact that it’s just made up of teenagers really speaks to how a lot of us can overcome our age to make something happen. So, I hope that we can keep inspiring other young people as well, and let them know that they can make a difference.”
Congratulations Swayam for being our board member spotlight, and thank you from the bottom of our hearts for your work!
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