Speaking at SXSW & PUMP+, While Fixing the Electric Grid & Working with Amazon Alexa!
Vinaya Sharma | March Newsletter 🎤✈️
Hey! If you’re new here, I’m Vinaya and welcome to Bits and Bytes! I’m a 17 y/o emerging technology enthusiast hoping to change the world! 🚀
In this monthly newsletter, I share bits and bytes of my learnings to help you grow from my key insights! 🌱 Stay tuned for bits of self-improvement techniques, and bytes of groundbreaking tech innovations.
March has been insane. For the past couple of months, I’ve been building, building, building with bits and pieces of presentations sprinkled in between. But this month things switched around, and I found myself building new relationships instead, and taking my projects to the next level. Check it out!👇
I’ll be honest I don’t know where to start. March has been a blur, and you’ll soon see why.
PowerPlanner.AI 🔋👩🎨
I guess this month started off with me working on my latest project PowerPlanner.AI which I shared about in last month’s newsletter; a design software and simulation tool to design and plan the electric grid of the future.
Long story short I’ve been obsessed with the climate problem for a while now and I’ve worked on several projects in this domain from GeenieEats to TreeTrackers over the past couple of years. This journey of solving the climate crisis led me to the energy crisis and so for the past little bit, I’ve been researching and building tools to build a more sustainable grid.
After loads of exploring, tinkering, and validating I was finally able to build a prototype of my vision. It started off with some very rough sketches and vision boards but I was eventually able to transform it into a product I was incredibly proud of.
Presenting PowerPlanner.AI @SXSW 2023 🤠🌍
As mentioned last month I then got invited to present PowerPlanner.AI at South By South West in Austin Texas. This was my first time travelling solo, but the experience was surreal thanks to all the incredible new friendships I made. For about a week in Austin, my days comprised of 6 am morning grinds, 12 am mafia battles, and 2 am midlife crises. Living in an Airbnb with 9 other speakers and our directors filled up the place with energy, passion, and ambition and I couldn’t have asked for anyone better to share this experience with.
Huge thank you again Tina, Emma, Rachel, Tobias, Alex, Zaydan, Jacob, Valkyrie, Sofia, Sualeha, and Manasi for making SXSW soo memorable. And of course all of the directors at TKS Ian, Damian, Una, Kim, Andrés, Skylor, Niloo, Navid and Nadeem thanks for all the feedback, hype, and prep that made all of this possible.
Networking away during the day!
The energy at SXSW was insane, every shoulder I turned there was someone else willing to offer their support and opportunities to propel my growth. I’ve mentioned some of these names previously as well but these guys deserve huge shoutouts.
Thanks, Sean Washington and Peter Gréen for sharing many opportunities and opening doors to take my projects further. Kent Oliver Bhupathi for brainstorming and sharing new methods of ML models I could integrate into PowerPlanner.AI to avoid the black box issues. Mathew Kapela for that interesting discussion on startup competition and validating ideas. And finally thank you Robert Elfanbaum for sharing your story and learnings from starting a tech company and Dave Mathews for the fantastic talk on AI insights, individual project advice, opening up opportunities for me and the hype!
And saving the best for last - The Talk
I’ve written about public speaking before, but SXSW was obviously different. I enjoyed every minute of the talk; sharing my work and seeing eyes widen up when I demoed the project. I like to sit, build, and grind a lot - I think this is the best way to gain skills and make progress, but sharing your work with real industry professionals, and venture capitalists do really go a long way too. Thanks, everyone that’s been betting on me lately!
You can check out the talk here to learn more about my project. 👇
Consulting for Amazon Alexa 🤖👩💼
Last month I promised updates on my product ideas and improvement for Alexa to create the next big thing. They asked us, What product would Gen Z use daily and how can Alexa be integral in the experience? Sri Subramaniam, Director of Software Development at Amazon Alexa stated they have a wide array of products currently available but they want to hit it big with GenZ.
So my team and I came up with the AlexaScribe. An improved version of Amazon’s Kindle Scribe. The product integrates Alexa and leverages Hugging Face to provide the ultimate study companion for Gen Z. It encompasses 8 unique features that follow the scientific studying process, to maximize the amount of content you consume in a personalized manner. With the AlexaScribe you can work smart, not hard!
Huge shoutout to my team Priyal, Tanvi, Krish, and Zara for working long and hard to complete validation and the deck while I was travelling. We made sure to get validation from industry professionals, yes but since this is a product for Genz we also focused on hearing from them themselves by collecting LOI signatures.
If you’re interested in learning more check out the standalone deck 👇. We will be hearing back from Amazon Alexa soon to see if they want to learn more, and potentially implement our ideas!
Sharing my work at the PUMP+ Conference 👩💻🚀
When I got back from SXSW I then presented a similar talk at the Ontario Science Center for PUMP+ a student STEM conference. As you can imagine the audience was completely different, this time my focus was on inspiring other students to work on projects they are passionate about and sharing my journey with them.
PowerPlanner.AI Revamps into VoltVision.AI 👩🔧⚡️
As you can see I have a thing for alliteration and .AI. When I got back home and continued building, because the grind never ends 💪 I realized PowerPlanner.AI is yes allowing us to see the optimal upgrades necessary to meet supply and demand but when implementing those upgrades we would only be causing more faults and defects because the current grid monitoring industry is outdated and expensive.
So more recently I have shifted my focus to real-time electric grid monitoring instead and revamped the project into VoltVision.AI; using autonomous drones, computer vision, and 3D and thermal imaging, for more accurate, safe, cheaper and faster electric grid fault detection and maintenance.
This is what I will be working on for the next little bit (among many other things) so if you know anyone working with utilities, computer vision, or drones interested in helping out send them my way and I’d love to chat!
Speaking at a Webinar for Experiences Canada
I was asked to speak at a STEM webinar hosted by Experiences Canada, joined by three other amazing TKS students. I showcased my energy projects, while they presented their groundbreaking ideas with CRISPR, AI, and hydrogen! Thanks Experiences Canada, Damian, and TKS for inviting me to share my work.
Closing Thoughts
Travelling to Texas, 3 talks, consulting, prototyping and building, I feel great. Actually, I just got back from a keynote at WOI which was insane as well, but I’ll save that one for April’s newsletter. March has been a blur but in the best way possible because of how fast pace it has been and all that I’ve been able to accomplish.
I have however definitely been missing the code and I’m excited to get back into it this month. I will be building out more computer vision algorithms for electric grid fault detection, but I will be also getting back into web development. I have been working with AI a lot recently but it’s the final product coming together that really excites me the most. I will be participating in buildspace’s Nights & Weekends to ship frequently, but alongside this longer-term project, I will be also exploring more often and working with different technologies. So far I have 3D development on that bucket list but honestly, I’m just going to build whatever my curiosity takes me to.
Reflecting on this month I accomplished a lot, but I did not get burnt like in previous ones. I think I owe it to prioritizing relationships and hoping onto more calls and more co-working sessions often. Here’s to all of the new friendships, and mentors that have supported me this month, thanks for the energy and I can’t wait to make more progress in April!
Vinaya you are literally insane - could barely keep up with you networking during SXSW. PowerPlanner.AI is so amazing and I can't wait to see it's future as you build it out. Thanks for all the memories we made at south by, can't wait to see you in person again!❤️
So proud of you Vinaya. Keep it upp!