About Me

Tony-of-All-Trades

When I was ten, a broken garbage disposal changed my life. Instead of calling a plumber, my dad handed me a wrench and pointed at the sink. That moment sparked something in me — the realization that I could understand, fix, and eventually create things with my own hands. I fixed that disposal. Then the faucets. Then the water heater. Under a decade of my dad's mentorship, I tackled plumbing, electrical, and carpentry projects throughout our home.

What started with household repairs evolved into something far more ambitious. Over the course of two years, armed with little more than a pickaxe and determination, I built a koi pond in my backyard. Not just any pond — a fully integrated ecosystem with solar-powered pumps and aquaponics. Fish waste feeding plants. Plants filtering water. An elegant cycle inspired by my time at the COSMOS program at UC Santa Cruz, where I studied under Professor Chen in the Intro to Smart Power research program.

Innovation isn't just about having ideas. It's about building, breaking, learning, and building again — until something works.

Then disaster struck. During a family vacation, the commercial fish feeder failed catastrophically. I came home to find my koi dead — bloated bodies floating in cloudy sludge, with thousands of flies swarming. Most people would have just bought a better feeder. I built one instead — an Arduino-powered, WiFi-enabled robotic system that could be monitored and controlled from anywhere in the world. That project earned 1st place nationally and a Bronze Medal internationally at the World Robotics Olympiad in Germany.

Today, at USC's Iovine and Young Academy, I'm surrounded by designers, engineers, and entrepreneurs who challenge me daily. As CEO of Besties Inc., I'm building a social networking platform that helps college students form genuine connections — not through superficial matching algorithms, but through shared interests, values, and authentic interactions.

Mentoring the Next Generation

Through the High Mobility Foundation, the non-profit I co-founded, I've impacted over 1,000 students with STEM education. Our programs span robotics workshops, coding bootcamps, entrepreneurship training, and — close to my heart — speech and debate mentoring.

When the understaffed middle-school debate coach at Redwood Middle School asked me for help, I stepped up. I taught students Lincoln-Douglas debate techniques, oversaw practice rounds, and provided detailed feedback to help them grow. Watching young debaters find their voice and learn to articulate complex ideas has been one of the most rewarding experiences of my life. I competed myself at NSDA excellent level with top speaker awards, attended TOC and Nationals, and now work as a hired judge for debate championships across tournaments.

With VEX For All, I created safe spaces for underrepresented students — especially girls — in robotics, after watching my own sister Makela get pushed aside and ignored on her middle school team. That experience broke my heart. She, along with many other girls, were excluded from building the robot and felt invisible and unimportant. After speaking with others, I discovered this was happening across the country. Four dedicated people could make a huge difference — we grew to 60+ members, reached world finals, and hosted 2 national tournaments.

Every project I take on starts with the same question: How can this make someone's life better? Whether it's visualizing bird flu data to inform public health decisions, designing biomimicry-inspired athletic gear that keeps athletes cool, or building apps that connect communities — technology should serve people, not the other way around.

Awards & Recognition