meet the 2020 student panelists
Meet the 12 incredible high school & college women panelists speaking at GenZ Girl Con 2020, from across the globe.
Razel Suansing
Razel Suansing is the 18 year old co founder of Kahon ng Karunungan and the KNOW Movement. Through KnK, she reduced educational inequity by providing over 1500 self-learning kits to students affected by natural disasters such as the Taal Volcano eruption and Typhoon Mangkhut. Currently, in response to COVID-19, KnK is in the process of publishing sixteen new workbooks tailored to the Most Essential Learning Competencies (MELCs) to include all four core subjects (English, Social Science, Science, Math). These workbooks will be translated into at least five languages (English, Filipino, Spanish, French, and Arabic) in July.
KNOW is a network of youth-led NGOs around the world aiming to combat educational inequity. KNOW has over 30 partner NGOs in Canada, Kenya, Nigeria, Lebanon, the US, and more.
Beyond educational inequity, her greatest passion is conflict resolution as she finds her roots in Mindanao. For this reason, she is a prospective "Ethics, Politics, and Economics" and "Ethnicity, Race, and Migration'' double major at Yale University
Kriti Sarav
Hi! My name is Kriti, I am a freshman in high school, and the founder of WhyFI Matters(why financial independence matters), a global platform for teen financial literacy.
The past year has met me with some big financial changes, such as moving houses and the Coronavirus pandemic, which basically shut down the global economy. As a result of these changes, I felt that if I had a better understanding of financial literacy, I would be more prepared to face what may come in the future. Afterall financial literacy is a skill we all need to possess regardless of what job we have or passion we do. But I soon found out that learning about finances can be boring, so I created WhyFI Matters, a fun, engaging and trendy platform for all teens to improve their financial literacy, so we can hopefully become financially independent adults. Obviously, my work at WhyFI Matters is just one aspect of what I like to do. I am a competitive tennis player, huge foodie, and I love to fangirl over movies and books.
Meg Hoffman
I’m a 20 year old university student. I’m half South African half Japanese and I’ve lived in Japan, the US, the Philippines and the UAE! I was diagnosed with depression, PMDD, and anxiety when I was 17. A year later I lost a family member to suicide, and as a result, I’ve been a passionate advocate for mental health. I’ve been on medication for three years now, I’ve been going to counseling on and off, I’m a kid of divorced parents, I’ve never had a proper “home” due to constantly moving, I’d like to share my experiences in hopes to inspire and encourage others.
I’ve always been involved with mental health advocacy since joining university. For the longest time I wanted to start something of my own but felt lost as to where to begin. My aunt is a social worker in the US and she works with clients that suffer from mental illness. She told me about a client she lost to an overdose after the lockdown was announced because her client was completely shut off from her support system. This deeply pained me because since the start of this pandemic, one of my main concerns has been regarding those suffering from mental illnesses. With many resources such as therapy, group meetings, access to medication, psychiatrists, social workers, etc. being cut short, how are we meant to manage these uncertain times when entire support systems have been shut off? As a result, I launched "Blossom, The Project", an initiative to support those with mental illnesses especially during the ongoing pandemic. Through my website and Instagram account I have been posting about resources that people can obtain and sources of encouragement in hopes to support as many people as possible!
Women x Education Panelist
Women x Humanities Panelist
Women x Education Panelist
Taylor Wang
Taylor Wang is a Seattle-based high schooler, artist, and advocate for diversity in the arts. She hopes to use her art as a vessel to express the fear and uncertainty of growing up as part of an interconnected, socially conscious generation. When she is not in the studio, Wang runs Student Art Spaces, a global teen-led nonprofit uplifting young diverse artists through events and education. With chapters spanning the US and Canada, their mission for art equity has raised over $10,000 and showcased 200+ teens. SAS hopes to eliminate stigma around pursuing art, and make the art world an accessible space for everyone. Find her art on instagram.com/yingshiart.
Paridhi Latawa
Paridhi (Pari) Latawa is a rising junior from the Liberal Arts and Science Academy in Austin, Texas. She enjoys competing in Science Olympiad and playing the viola! She loves pursuing any opportunities that involve spreading scientific literacy such as hosting talks, speaking at District Summits, and more! She started SparkED as a platform to educate, inspire, and empower youth with science resources to enable them to make informed decisions about their world. In her free time, Pari loves playing tennis, painting, and spending time with her little sister!
Stephanie Su
Stephanie Su is a rising Bay Area high school senior passionate about technology, business, and design. She is the Lead Director of Superposition, a 501(c)(3) non-profit bridging the gender gap in tech through creating an empowering community and educational opportunities, like the Bay Area's largest all-women and non-binary hackathon. Under her leadership, Superposition has expanded beyond a 24-hour hackathon and reached 15,000+ students in 39 US states and 37 countries. Outside of working on Superposition, Stephanie leads several other student non-profits, debates competitively, and helps students foster impactful initiatives. She'll be discussing her journey in STEM, running a successful student non-profit, and lessons she's learned along the way.
Women x Humanities Panelist
Women x STEM Panelist
Women x STEM Panelist
Angela Zhang
Angela Zhang is a 16-year-old ARTivist from Los Angeles, California, currently part of the first graduating class of Geffen Academy at UCLA! Realizing how even 'woke' hubs like her home city aren't fully aware of societal problems, Angela founded ArtVocacy (artvocacy-co.org), a youth-led platform aiming to spread awareness on hidden global issues through the creative arts and galleries; the organization recently launched "Community during Crisis", its first virtual gallery shining light on many -isms youth artists nationwide have faced together during the pandemic. Honored to have served as a '19-20 United Nations Foundation Girl Up Teen Advisor and this year as Co-Chair, she's incredibly passionate about gender equality, international relations, mental health, and the intersections of all with art, a world she's known since 4. Angela hopes to use her voice to help others find theirs, joining them in changing the world in a positive, innovative, and unique way. Above all, she stands for and towards justice, with you, during these times.
Maysoon Hussein
Maysoon is a 16-year-old junior in high school living in Saudi Arabia. She is the founder of the Invisible Organization, along with its Media Corporation, which includes the Ampheros blog, podcast, and youtube channel, which gathers students from all around the world to write about the GenZ perspective on pressing world issues and stories to uncover. She is very passionate about public speaking and does Model Un, where she is the Sectary General of her school's conference and debate in her school, along with playing varsity basketball and badminton. When she is not doing school activities, she reads classics and binge watches anime
Vivian Nguyen
Hey, my name is Vivian Nguyen! I'm a 15 year old aspiring youth activist and CEO of my own clothing company, Dyenosaur Apparel! Since launching last year, Dyenosaur Apparel has been featured in Inspiring Teens Magazine, has a growing following of 1.3k, and received hundreds of orders from around the country. My campaign goal is to celebrate creativity and express my passion for female entrepreneurship and conquering gender stereotypes. Through my company, I want to inspire other teenage girls to pursue their passion in business and take initiative to be proactive within their community.
Women x Activism Panelist
Women x Activism Panelist
Women x Business Panelist
Ellen Yang
Ellen is currently a junior at Newton South High School in Newton, MA. For the last three years, she's founded and led various companies in the STEM and creative industry, including working as Director of Marketing at MetroHacks, the largest hackathon organization in New England; serving as CEO of HelloBrandBox, a full-service marketing agency specializing in building powerful Gen Z brands; and more recently, operating as executive director of Desircle, one of the largest international design resources platforms for freelancers with a total audience of over 500,000.
She loves using tech innovation to solve social issues, and recently built RepTile Bot, an SMS chatbot that makes it easier than ever to mobilize and demand justice from law enforcement for incidents of police brutality and was used by 10,000+ people within the first few days of launch in June. She is also the elected State President of Massachusetts Future Business Leaders of America.
Desiree Rigaud
Desiree is a sophomore from NY. She is passionate about art, music, activism and science. She is a Girl Scout Delegate, Gay Straight Alliance board member, Key Club secretary at her school, and a Relay for Life captain. She is also a part of Science Olympiad, where is a regional medalist in the ornithology event. She is now working at Long Island University under the guidance of the psychology chairperson in order to conduct research and publish a social psychology paper. She has also worked with biology graduate students, dietitians, and neuroscience professors. She loves mentoring other young scientists and teaching them about networking and researching.
Faith Ajanaku
Faith Ajanaku is a 16 year old Nigerian activist and future health professional. She is immensely passionate about neuroscience and exploring the intersection between medicine and technology. Furthermore, she loves advocating for neurodivergence through her nonprofit, Modern Divergence.