Lighting Fuses, Building Bridges by Zeinab

Lighting Fuses, Building Bridges by Zeinab - August 2025 Scholarship Essay

On the morning of November 5, 1605, London awoke to the news that the Palace of Westminster still stood. Beneath its stone floors, 36 barrels of gunpowder had been hidden—enough to turn the seat of British power into rubble. The Gunpowder Plot failed, but what lingered wasn’t only the image of Guy Fawkes guarding the explosives; it was the reminder that every bold act begins with an idea, a plan, and the conviction to see it through.

I am not in the business of blowing up buildings—I am in the business of dismantling barriers. But as I look toward the coming school year, I find a strange kinship with that moment in history. Not in the destruction, but in the audacity to believe that the existing order can be changed if you are willing to take the risk and do the work.

This year, my aspirations remain ambitious and precise. As a dual major, I study computer science and aerospace engineering. I intend for myself to deepen all of my work that is in artificial intelligence so I can enable multilingual accessibility and so I can bridge digital divides with AI systems. I created an emotion-aware NPC system able to detect emotions and respond in Persian, French, and Arabic last year, overcoming technical limitations through persistence and resourcefulness. For developers worldwide, especially in underrepresented regions, I aim to expand that work this year into an open-source framework so as to integrate these tools into education and mental health support, as well as cross-cultural communication platforms.

Equally, I want to scale my outreach. My time as founder and president of my high school coding club taught me that exposure matters: students who are invited to the table stay at the table. I have volunteered in villages in Iran where water was scarce and the internet nonexistent, teaching math, science, and basic programming from chalkboards and handouts. In the upcoming year, I plan to formalize these experiences into a sustainable mentorship program in collaboration with organizations like IEEE Women in Engineering and AI4ALL, creating offline curricula that can travel where Wi-Fi cannot.

In addition, I intend to continue representing my university in international spaces—building on my participation at the IMAPS 2025 Conference and the RAISE Summit in Paris. These events are not just about networking; they are about visibility. They signal to younger students from places like mine that someone who shares their obstacles can also share their successes. I want to be present in those rooms not only for my own advancement but also to open the door for others.

What motivates me is not abstract idealism—it’s the memory of limits. I come from a place where my access to the internet was filtered, my presence in STEM spaces was questioned, and my ambitions were seen as improbable. I applied for college abroad at 3 a.m. after marching in the streets for women’s rights during the day. I studied for the IELTS and the national university entrance exam in the same season, knowing each was a lifeline to a different kind of future. My parents sold part of our home to make my first year of education abroad possible. Every achievement I’ve earned has been a counterargument to the idea that I should not have tried in the first place.

The Gunpowder Plot was an attempt to end something with an explosion. My work is about starting things with ignition—igniting curiosity in children who have never held a computer mouse, igniting collaboration between students from different continents, and igniting the will to keep pushing even when the odds are poor. There’s a power in deciding that the status quo is not enough, and there’s a responsibility in choosing to replace it with something better.

This year will not be easy. Balancing a rigorous academic load in two demanding majors with research, outreach, and leadership will require discipline and strategic focus. But I have learned from both engineering and history that complexity is not an obstacle—it’s an invitation to innovate. An aerospace engineer designing a spacecraft knows that every component must serve a purpose. A coder knows that every line must move the program forward. My year will be the same: intentional, purposeful, and aligned with a vision for the impact I want to make.

By the end of this school year, I aim to have:

- Developed and shared an open-source multilingual AI emotional-recognition framework.

- Piloted my offline STEM mentorship curriculum in at least three underserved communities.

- Represented my university at two or more national or international conferences.

- Mentored a cohort of younger students in my department, with a focus on women and underrepresented minorities in STEM.

I will measure success not only in technical milestones but also in the number of people who leave our interactions believing they can do more than they thought possible.