Sireesh Ramesh plays various instruments, has won multiple technology fairs, can code fluently in two languages, and is ranked within the top 200 tennis players in Georgia… and he’s only a high school freshman. In addition to his laundry list of talents and achievements, he’s also been enrolled in the TYE program, where he and his team formed a water purifying company called ShockED. ShockED adapts a method of purification which uses a simple electric field to separate sodium and chlorine ions from water and create pure drinkable water.
This kid has a bright future ahead of him. Check out his profile below and be sure to remember him when searching for budding tech talent in the area.
What projects are you currently working on?
I absolutely love music, and in my free time I play the cello and piano. I am the first chair cello in my school’s sophomore and junior orchestra and I was the lead piano for the Rialto Jazz All Stars as well as my school’s jazz band. Practicing music takes up a lot of my time, but I also enjoy painting and drawing, and I am going to be showing some of my work in a group exhibit soon where I can sell some of my paintings. I am also on the varsity math team, and am one of the leading freshman scorers on my school’s varsity quiz bowl team. At the same time, I am interested in other subjects like social studies and I am doing a large scale project to see how much bias and censorship a country’s high school history textbooks have, and how they differ in saying the same story. The results from this research project have been very interesting.
What startup/tech projects have you worked on in the past?
Currently, I am taking online college courses on a website called EdX that apply to the projects I am currently working on. I am taking classes on immunology and drug synthesis because I am working on a project that focuses on finding a common retroviral gene for all Ebola viruses. I have found a specific protein that allows Ebola to enter a host cell and I am working on using my knowledge of coding to be able to generate a program that can study a three dimensional model of the protein and find possible compounds that can bind to it. I am also taking courses on electricity and quantum mechanics because of my goal to build a cheap and affordable quantum computer, and am in the process of designing a virtual model. I am trying to expand my knowledge of coding by taking a class on learning Python, and to improve my problem solving skills. I use the Python coding to solve basic artificial intelligence coding problems from an online class at Berkeley. Finally, I love to build websites, and I have built five separate websites, all of which have won me a first or second place award in the Georgia State Tech Fair.
What tech/tools are essential to you?
The tools that are the most important to me in my everyday life is probably Java and the NCBI Gene Database. Java is such a versatile coding language, and because it has its own virtual machine to interpret code, it can run on many different platforms. This allows me to build cool features on my website, or solve an algorithm using one language. The NCBI gene database is probably one of the most amazing things the internet has to offer next to Wikipedia- which, despite its bad reputation, is the source of most of my knowledge. The database has so much information on proteins, genes, experiments, and it even has three dimensional models of proteins, which is extremely useful.
What are your best technical or creative skills?
My best skill is my ability to come up with ideas and solutions to problems, and make connections very quickly. Many people comment on my inability to focus and wonder how I can be so productive with such a sporadic mind, but in reality, it is similar to the quantum mechanical computer I am trying to build. While a quantum computer takes advantage of a quantum superposition of the spin of a particle to be able to input multiple variables at once, my though process makes it easier for me to consider multiple scenarios or solutions at once because of my inability to focus on one thing. This abnormal method of thinking seems to translate to my creativity, and lets me have large imagination which I can express in my art and music. Coding is my best technical skill; I can code fluently in three languages and can use them to solve various problems.
What’s next on your list to learn?
Next, I am going to put more effort in gaining an in depth knowledge of electrical wiring and building hardware. Even though this is a broad category, I believe it is an essential skill to learn if you want to do anything in the technology field. If I can develop a deep understanding of hardware and software systems, there are few limits on what I can build. Second, I would like to learn more about biomarkers and do research on systems I could build to detect them. A biomarker is a substance that’s quantity is thrown off balance when something is wrong with the body. Detection of these substances is one of the most promising ways for early detection of illnesses like cancer.
