Simrit Mangat, 17
Simrit Mangat’s interest in technology was sparked at a young age when she watched the popular educational show The Magic School Bus. Her curiosity about how things work led to her involvement in robotics clubs, where she became fascinated with technology. Hoping to use her blossoming tech skills to affect social change, she joined her first hackathon, Creatica 2020. This all-female hackathon gave her an opportunity to collaborate with like-minded individuals and create her first hackathon project, a telemedicine platform designed to reduce the frequency of medical errors by collecting patient data.
At Hackdemonium, she found new avenues to build projects for social good. At the hackathon, she created an online educational tool for students to connect with each other to help them overcome the loneliness and isolation they still felt after the COVID-19 pandemic. Hackathons shifted her approach to coding. As she says, “My experiences with hackathons and the hacker community directly resulted in my pursuits at the intersection of technology and social impact.”
As a Kode With Klossy scholar, Simrit gained technical skills in web development and coding, including HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. She created a website with over 2600 lines of code to educate citizens about their country's laws and regulations, aiming to inspire civic engagement and promote a greater understanding of the legal system.
Simrit's involvement in the hacker community has not been limited to creating impactful projects. In fact, she began organizing hackathons before even competing in one. She currently serves as the Co-Executive Director of XdHacks Mini Vancouver, one of the only high school-led hackathons in British Columbia. Simrit and her team have organized four hackathons serving over 560 hackers. XdHacks is responsible for introducing high schoolers to the hackathon scene and encouraging them to pursue careers in STEM.
As a member of the Junior Academy at the New York Academy of Sciences, she’s competed in two challenges, Healthcare On-Demand: The Future of Telemedicine and Bias in AI Systems and Applications. Her team placed first in the Healthcare On-Demand challenge and was a top-three finalist in the Bias in AI challenge. In the Bias in AI challenge, Simrit collaborated with her team to create a tool that uses Local Interpretable Model-Agnostic Explanations (LIME) and Counterfactual Fairness to identify and measure bias, as well as synthetic data generation and blockchain-enabled audits to eliminate bias. Their work was recognized by S&P Global, and they were invited to present their findings to over 90 members at an AI/ML Accelerator event in collaboration with their Women in Tech group.
Simrit has already accomplished so much in her career, and she’s just getting started. Her dynamic contributions to the hacker community, social outreach efforts, and expertise in technology have allowed her to make a real difference in the world of STEM.
Quick Facts
Simrit Mangat, 17
Simrit Mangat’s interest in technology was sparked at a young age when she watched the popular educational show The Magic School Bus. Her curiosity about how things work led to her involvement in robotics clubs, where she became fascinated with technology. Hoping to use her blossoming tech skills to affect social change, she joined her first hackathon, Creatica 2020. This all-female hackathon gave her an opportunity to collaborate with like-minded individuals and create her first hackathon project, a telemedicine platform designed to reduce the frequency of medical errors by collecting patient data.
At Hackdemonium, she found new avenues to build projects for social good. At the hackathon, she created an online educational tool for students to connect with each other to help them overcome the loneliness and isolation they still felt after the COVID-19 pandemic. Hackathons shifted her approach to coding. As she says, “My experiences with hackathons and the hacker community directly resulted in my pursuits at the intersection of technology and social impact.”
As a Kode With Klossy scholar, Simrit gained technical skills in web development and coding, including HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. She created a website with over 2600 lines of code to educate citizens about their country's laws and regulations, aiming to inspire civic engagement and promote a greater understanding of the legal system.
Simrit's involvement in the hacker community has not been limited to creating impactful projects. In fact, she began organizing hackathons before even competing in one. She currently serves as the Co-Executive Director of XdHacks Mini Vancouver, one of the only high school-led hackathons in British Columbia. Simrit and her team have organized four hackathons serving over 560 hackers. XdHacks is responsible for introducing high schoolers to the hackathon scene and encouraging them to pursue careers in STEM.
As a member of the Junior Academy at the New York Academy of Sciences, she’s competed in two challenges, Healthcare On-Demand: The Future of Telemedicine and Bias in AI Systems and Applications. Her team placed first in the Healthcare On-Demand challenge and was a top-three finalist in the Bias in AI challenge. In the Bias in AI challenge, Simrit collaborated with her team to create a tool that uses Local Interpretable Model-Agnostic Explanations (LIME) and Counterfactual Fairness to identify and measure bias, as well as synthetic data generation and blockchain-enabled audits to eliminate bias. Their work was recognized by S&P Global, and they were invited to present their findings to over 90 members at an AI/ML Accelerator event in collaboration with their Women in Tech group.
Simrit has already accomplished so much in her career, and she’s just getting started. Her dynamic contributions to the hacker community, social outreach efforts, and expertise in technology have allowed her to make a real difference in the world of STEM.
Quick Facts
