Chandhana Sathish Kumar
Met 2023-02-14 11:00 at Taj Connemara, Binny Road, Anna Salai, Chennai, Chennai, India.Chandhana is one of the most impressive people I’ve ever met. Age 17 now.
Exposed to gene editing, nanotechnology, quantum computing, then got into neuroscience, fetal brain research, memory development research.
Now into bioplastics - biodegradable plastic - edible plastic made from seaweed for less than a dollar - working on this at home for the past week, just by reading papers and experimenting.
Emergent Venture winner.
Born in America. She switches between an Indian accent and American accent, depending on who she’s talking with.
Family speaks Telugu, so she had to learn Hindi and Tamil on her own.
Learned at a Montessori school and always followed whatever seems fun. Parents never forced learning. But also encouraged her to not quit.
She did stand-up comedy and won a competition.
I (Derek) have the opposite of imposter syndrome: I think it’s cooler to be resourceful and uncredentialed.
She does everything in her head working solo, so she can work 8x faster than a team would, since they have to communicate and document everything.