Antigonish resident Ispeeta Ahmed was one of five Canadian youths recognized for making positive changes in their community using science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics (STEAM). Ahmed received one of the five 2022 Ingenium-NSERC STEAM Horizon Awards. The award comes with $25,000 towards post-secondary education.
Ahmed is a grade 12 student in Antigonish, whose interest in STEAM began in grade nine, when
Ispeeta Ahmed
she was the only girl on her school’s robotics team. After taking on a leadership position, she recruited more members than ever, 70% identifying as female and the team placed in the top 10 in the provincial competition–a first for her rural-placed school. She is a Teen Ambassador for Canada Learning Code. She mentors middle school kids and is in charge of introducing grade nine girls to robotics. She taught herself HTML/CSS then built (Connect 2 Change), a website designed to merge computer science and social activism that has had youth authors as contributors from the U.S., Canada, Pakistan, Mexico. Her latest science fair project was the creation of a low-cost radon detector that earned the Nova Scotia Institute of Science Medallion and Nova Scotia Engineers Award.