From Dreams to Reality: My RISE Global Scholarship Journey

As a RISE Global Winner, I am grateful to have a lifetime of benefits that include a full ride scholarship to attend college anywhere in the world, opportunity to network with amazing people at the 3-week fully funded RISE residential summit and having access to the entrepreneurship and social enterprise funding.

I am so happy to have been surfing on twitter that day and to have found RISE. Initially it seemed like an opportunity too good to be true but turned out to be something that would definitely give me mileage. I started my RISE project, the application for vision correction. I conceptualised this project while learning about ophthalmic eye care camps that Rotary Club organises. As the project took shape, it also good recognised. My project, an ANN based single platform multilingual software for refractive error prescription has been trained on a dataset of close to 200 people and verified on 400 people at science fairs. I sat at an eye hospital for almost a week during the holidays. It got recommended by Dr Vikas Mahatme, a Padma Shri awarded eye specialist and former member of the upper house of India and also got acknowledged by Dr Prakash Amte, a Padma Shri & Ramon Magsaysay doctor and social worker. I verified the findings at the Indian Science Congress where the project was socially applauded and included in the official teaser of the ISC. Through a peer review of the project and a subsequent expert review, 500 students are chosen as RISE Global finalists. Peer reviewing just 5 other project gave me a sense of how much impact 14000 applicants combined created in a 3 month application to RISE.

The RISE global finalists were interviewed in groups of nearly 50 subdivided into smaller groups on finalist days in 5 hour interviews. The finalist day consisted of a group presentation on the RISE projects and everyone appreciated and critiqued each other's RISE projects. Next was a group activity that judged participants ability to work together. Finally, it was the individual interview. This gruesome yet reflective process truly makes you value collective benefit, team work, working together and having a vision in life. Following verification of all documents and achievements, it was time for the RISE finalist benefit course. I took a course on AI for Social Benefit. Through this course, I learned a lot about datafication, biases, removing biases and noise.

Finally,100 global winners were chosen after almost a year of intense competition, excitement, anxiety and adrenaline rush. In the week leading upto the announcement, I had a lot of anxiety and panic attacks. I would wake up in the middle of the nights in cold sweats, wondering what the verdict would be. In the end, opening that email was like unwrapping a gift that truly means a lot to me and my family.

About Rise Scholarships

Rise is a program that finds promising young people and provides opportunities for life as they work to serve others. The program starts at ages 15-17 and encourages a lifetime of service and learning by providing support that includes need-based scholarships, mentorship, networking, access to career development opportunities, and the potential for additional funding as Rise Global Winners work toward solving humanity's most pressing problems.

About The Founders

In 2019, Schmidt Futures co-founders Eric and Wendy Schmidt made a $1 billion philanthropic commitment across their philanthropic organizations and initiatives to identify and support global talent. Rise, an initiative of Schmidt Futures and the Rhodes Trust, is the anchor program of that commitment. Rise builds on an existing partnership between Schmidt Futures and the Rhodes Trust, including the creation of the Schmidt Science Fellows program. Founded by Eric and Wendy Schmidt, Schmidt Futures is a philanthropic initiative that finds and connects talented people across fields, generations, and geographies to harness their collective skills for public benefit. The Rhodes Trust, based at the University of Oxford, brings together and develops exceptional people from all over the world, and in all fields of study, who are impatient with the way things are and have the courage to act.

Benefits of a Rise Scholarship

One - One fully funded in-person residential summit with other members of the Rise Global Winner cohort. Two - A four-year, post-secondary education scholarship, including tuition and a living stipend, based on need and where not already covered by financial aid. Three - Opportunity to apply for funding to experiment with innovative ideas to address major problems in local communities or around the world—ranging, for example, from seed money to start a social enterprise to a grant for a non-profit. Four - Access to a network of other Global Winners, community members, and partner organizations, as well as career development programming. Five - A technology package.