WHAT INSPIRES KIDS TODAY? by Arietta Xylas
Inspiration can come from any place imaginable. For some, their inspiration and passion comes from hearing someone speak or seeing something that needs to be changed. For others, their perspective of life can completely alter just from reading a book.
For 15 year old Sophia, this was the case. One of her greatest sources of inspiration came after she read Hidden Figures by Margot Lee Shetterly. Hidden Figures is a nonfiction story about the lives of three African-American women who worked as mathematicians at NASA during the space race in 1961.
Katherine Johnson, one of the women in Hidden Figures, particularly inspired Sophia as the first African-American woman to ever work as a mathematician at NASA. Johnson accomplished extraordinary things during her time at NASA while also facing discrimination in her workplace. It was with Johnson’s perseverance through her hardships that generations of women to come would be inspired.
Sophia says, “She continues to inspire me to dream big, as far as the moon.”
For as long as Sophia can remember, she has always been extremely interested in engineering and dreams of being able to use technology to help advance the world. She believes that technology can help solve a lot of problems including but not limited to education, climate change, disease, and poverty.
Sophia truly sees the beauty that technology has given to the world and how much it has helped improve the lives of so many people. It is important to always look at the positives of everything in life and how you can turn a single idea into a life changing discovery. With that, she hopes that she can be a part of the next generations of engineers who can change the world for the better and make it the best version of itself.
When asked what about the world she would change, Sophia said that she would love to promote voting. In America. Voting is considered a basic right, so the amount of people who don’t vote is truly shocking. In the recent 2020 election, although an estimated 161 million Americans voted, about 239.2 million Americans were eligible.
Sophia says, “We need to use our right to vote to create a better future and it is so important that we do not take it for granted.”
Therefore, amazingly, she set out to do something about it! Over the summer of 2020 she participated in the Global Kids ChangeMakers program where she was taught about the history of voting and other important statistics.
She stresses that no matter your age, anyone can get involved in the voting process even if you aren’t eligible to vote yet! The most important thing to remember is that everyone of every demographic imaginable can help make a change, you just have to find a way to do it! Together, we can make a difference no matter how big or how small.