Youth Day for student innovators, creators, and aspiring entrepreneurs

Christianna Alexander is a 16-year-old award-winning teenpreneur who runs a bath and body company that makes fun bath products that look and smell like delectable sweet treats. Alexander struggled academically early on with a few undiagnosed learning differences. She was ultimately held back, which left her devastated. Despite the difficulties, Alexander refused to give up, and has been closing the gap with specialized teachers ever since. At the age of 16, she went on to be diagnosed as autistic, which she is embracing, getting needed support and learning new strategies to help her navigate life.

Starting a company was an outlet for her to have something she could find success in. Alexander created soaps resembling delectable treats like donuts and cupcakes because she could no longer could eat a lot of the treats she loved. She has been featured on HSN and QVC, and was the recipient of a grant from Beyonce’s BeyGood Foundation. She also placed first in the PenFed Credit Union pitch competition, was awarded by Invisalign as a Changemaker of the 2021 class. She was most recently named a 2022 Disney Dreamer out of thousands of participants in the Disney Dreamer Academy. In addition to running her company and being a leader, Alexander is the best-selling author of the children’s book “Stay Sweet and Never Miss A Beat.”

Alexander also started a nonprofit called “The Sweet Squad.” where she teaches other girls about entrepreneurship, literacy, philanthropy, and neurodiversity. The organization holds an annual market for kids to sell their products to the public and practice their entrepreneurship skills. Christiana views her disability as a blessing, and her mission in life is to be an ambassador for children everywhere who suffer because of differences. She wants them to know that there isn’t anything that exists that can hold them back once they make up their mind to succeed.

Reagan Duffy is a rising senior at Catholic High School in Virginia Beach, Virginia. She is a member of six different honor societies (National, Science, Math, Latin, English, and Social Studies) and is President of the Science Honor Society. In addition to being in the top 10% of her class, Duffy participates in several athletic activities, including rowing, cross country and indoor track. She also played basketball her freshman year and lettered in volleyball last fall.

Duffy’s academic and extracurricular achievements led to her selection by her school to attend Virginia Girls’ State this past June. Duffy was also selected to attend both the United States’ Navy and Air Force Summer Seminars. She was invited to apply for, and selected to participate in, the Future Agent in Training program with the Federal Bureau of Investigation this summer in Chesapeake, Virginia.

Duffy is a leader who is respected by her peers, teachers, and administrators. She loves her school and gives back in many ways. For the past two years, Duffy has been a school ambassador responsible for leading tours for new students and parents during freshman orientation. She is also a peer and eucharistic minister, a representative on the honor council, and was elected treasurer of the National Honor Society. Duffy is grateful for the teachers who have challenged her. She is especially thankful for her grandfather and Mrs. Beauchamp, whose mentorship and encouragement have been instrumental in her being able to speak with you today. Duffy hopes to serve her country by attending a service academy next fall.

Abhisri Narayanan is an incoming sophomore at Redlands High School and a member of the STEM For All Foundation. Abhisri is part of her school’s varsity tennis team, and won first place playing on a junior tennis team. Additionally, she participates in the mock trial class at her school. The mock trial team won second place in the county during the 2021-2022 school year.

In June 2022, Abhisri presented her coded robot at the International Society for Technology in Education conference in New Orleans. She has also gone to a STEM Robotics Engineering Academy the University of California, Riverside and presented at the California science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics (STEAM) Symposium in October 2021. By eighth grade, she had also attended the American Association of University Women.

Narayanan has played violin for six years and has been dancing for eight years. She has a black belt in karate and has gotten multiple first place trophies at chess tournaments. In her free time, she takes part in clubs such as math club, octagon club, and STEM club. For math club, she was the treasurer in middle school as well as in high school. She has earned the Rotary Scholarship Award, aced many Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium tests, got the Kaura 4.0 award and scholarship in middle school, and has competed in various math competitions such as American Mathematics Competition 8 and MATHCOUNTS. She helps out in her community by volunteering at Loper's races, handing out medals and giving water and snacks to attendees. She also volunteers at least a few hours every week at the Loma Linda Public Library.

Shriyaa Narayanan is an upcoming senior at Redlands High School (RHS). She is the Vice President of the STEM For All Foundation, a published author of a four-book book series, and the illustrator and author of the children’s picture book, “Little Piggy’s Adventure.” Her books have reached the number one hot release in their category on Amazon, and, in the near future, she hopes to be a New York Times Bestselling Author. She was on her high school’s varsity swim team during her freshman year and currently plays number one doubles on the varsity high school tennis team.

In school, she’s also the Founder and President of the RHS Irrational Logic Club, where she helps train students to compete in math events such as the American Mathematics Competition 10/12 and the Stanford Math Competition. When she’s not in school, she does bharathanatyam dancing and composes music on the piano. She has a YouTube channel where she’s the Blue Dolphin Queen and posts professional reviews of books and TV shows while making relatable shorts that people can laugh at. She also voices over common characters and presents scenes in a different view.

She volunteers in her free time as well, helping out with local races such as the Lopers Race and free coding workshops for K-12 students hosted by the STEM For All Foundation. She does Tang Soo Do, an ancient Korean martial art, and has achieved a black belt. She always looks for new challenges to overcome and conquer while making people laugh and have fun.

Ayann Naqvi is a student in the sixth grade and is 14 years old. He is the Founder and Managing Director of Awesomeness at Ornament Anchor. Ayann loves entrepreneurship and being a leader. He is a friendly and caring person who loves his family and two dogs. Ayann is the Student Council President of his middle school and has been a part of the student council since third grade. He also loves animals, dinosaurs, and dragons! - yup, pretty much all animals! His family can come to him with any animal or prehistoric question, and he can answer it for them. Ayann is also very creative and loves making games with his siblings. From a young age, he has always been interested in entrepreneurship and inventing; he is always creating. Additionally, Ayann loves to play football, swim, and play with his two dogs – Zaraah and Ace. Ayann and his brother, Mickey, will appear in the featured story of the August Journeys of Innovation on the USPTO homepage.

Mika’il (Mickey) Naqvi is a student from Shelton, Connecticut. He is a very friendly and outgoing person, and sometimes a bit of a goofball. Mickey loves to laugh, and he loves to make other people laugh with his unique sense of humor. He does take his work seriously, though, and once got high honors seven times in a row. Mickey also loves math and has participated in the Mathcon Finals in Chicago!

Ever since he was little, Mickey has loved the idea of being an entrepreneur; and since his mom once was one, she inspired and mentored him to be the person he is today! Also, as long as he can remember, his brother and he were making games of their own. Whether it was an imaginary Pokémon game or an elaborate and strategic card game, they did it all. Mickey also has always been into football and the strategy of the game, but he enjoys many other sports too.

Ram Reddy is a rising senior at Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology (TJHSST) in Alexandria, Virginia. He is very passionate about computer science, computer engineering, and robotics, and he has done a lot of projects in these areas. Reddy likes to do projects and be in positions that have a positive effect on the community and environment. He was the project lead for the app LifeCycle. The team had two main goals: Tell the community how and where they can recycle. They decided to develop a mobile app because a phone would be the easiest to use to take pictures of recyclable materials and is available to almost everyone. He was successful in getting the team to create a viable mobile app and pitch it in the Congressional App Challenge. In the future, he would like to improve the machine learning model to classify a wider range of materials so the app can be easier to use and more helpful.

At school, he is a Sysadmin where he maintains, develops, and fixes a lot of core infrastructure. Outside of school, he is a Control Systems Lead at Potentia Robotics, which is a high school team that aims to build a full-scale bipedal robot. Recently, he conducted the Junior Solar Sprint for Elementary/Middle schoolers where students would race model solar cars. This summer, he will be serving as a mentor for new interns in Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center’s Emerging Diagnostic Investigative Technology program. He works under the guidance of Dr. Joshua Levy and Dr. Louis Vaickus and plans to publish a research paper soon.

Regarding computer science, he knows a lot of programming languages, including C++, Java, Python, and JavaScript. He also has a lot of experience in machine learning and computer vision. In his free time, he likes to tinker with Arduinos and write automation program scripts for fun. He also likes to hang out with his friends, watch movies, and play tennis and frisbee. He did crew for the past couple of years and plans to try out ultimate frisbee next year. He also likes to play strategy, automation, simulation, and role-playing video games. Some specific games he likes are Factorio, Microsoft Flight Sim, Sid Meier’s Civilization V, and Path of Exile.

Varun Srivastava is a senior at Redlands High School and President and Co-founder of the STEM For All Foundation, a non-profit organization that is committed to improving educational outcomes and college readiness in STEM for all students. He created the WeConnect app to serve as a community for middle and high school students to navigate school life, learn about extracurricular activities, form connections, and support each other’s mental health. He also serves on the Redlands Unified School District Local Control Accountability Plan Advisory committee and has served as a LEGO Student Ambassador.

Srivastava is a recipient of numerous awards and honors, including Regeneron International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF) Finalist – 2022, Regeneron Biomedical Science Award, the Mu Alpha Theta Award, the American Psychological Association Award, Regeneron (ISEF) Finalist – 2021, Department of Defense STEM Leadership Award, Apple Worldwide Developers Conference Student Developer Challenge – 2020, Congressional App Challenge Winner – 2019, and the Presidential Education Award for Outstanding Academic Excellence Gold- eighth grade – 2019.

Derrick Brent is the Deputy Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Deputy Director of the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). As the Deputy Director, he serves as the principal advisor to Kathi Vidal, Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Director of the USPTO, managing a wide portfolio of programs and operations for one of the largest intellectual property (IP) offices in the world, with more than 13,000 employees and an annual budget of more than $4 billion. His responsibilities include working with Director Vidal to lead the USPTO; advance IP policy and procedures for the benefit of the country; expand the USPTO’s outreach efforts to incentivize and support more innovation and entrepreneurship nationwide; and execute the agency’s policies, priorities, and programs. 

Deputy Director Brent’s career includes vast public service and private sector work, including significant experience in IP law and work to assist startups as well as those who are underrepresented. He served for six years as Chief Counsel for Senator Barbara Boxer, where he was responsible for a broad portfolio that included IP and constitutional issues, civil rights, telecommunications, and judicial nominations. During his time in the Senate, Deputy Director Brent was recognized as one of the most knowledgeable counsels on IP and a respected authority on 2011’s America Invents Act and other impactful legislative initiatives. He worked closely with the IP community in the Senator’s home state of California and across the country, including with prior USPTO directors and experts, forging consensus where possible, bringing important issues to the attention of the lead committee staff, researching and drafting proposals, and counseling and briefing constituents. 

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Joyce Ward is the Director of the USPTO’s Office of Education (OE). Her work provides K-12 educators and students with unique learning experiences and resources that integrate knowledge of invention, innovation, entrepreneurship, and STEM. Her office also encourages the creation and protection of intellectual property.

Under Ward’s direct leadership, the OE successfully conceived and implemented numerous projects that have garnered national recognition for the USPTO, including the Science of Innovation series, a collaboration between the USPTO, the National Science Foundation, and NBC Learn; the exemplar National Summer Teacher Institute on Innovation, STEM, and Intellectual Property; an intellectual property patch with the Girl Scouts organization; and the first USPTO Inventor Trading Card series.

Prior to her current position, Ward was the Director of Program Support and Intellectual Property for the National Inventors Hall of Fame (NIHF). Before going to NIHF, she served as a trademark examining attorney and later as an education specialist in the Office of Public Affairs at the USPTO. Ward received her undergraduate degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and her law degree from the Georgetown University Law Center in Washington, D.C.