Google Sheets
The linked project was something I worked on in grade 6 as a favour for my teacher. It was used for track and field day for registering all of the students for their events, and then on the day of, when the people judging the races and events and whatnot wanted to ensure that everybody was present, they'd just go to the "All Participants" tab and configure the filters as necessary (e.g., for the juniour girls' 100 metres, they'd apply "Year of Birth": 2011, 2012, (...), "Sex": F, "100M": True).
Python
Python is one of my most used languages, so it was a bit difficult choosing a single project to link. This was a project I worked on in the summer of grade 7. I used yfinance for the data, and then I would check if it was up or down a lot, and then I would send an email to a list of people with the up and down stocks. It was pretty simple to implement with the help of ChatGPT, but it was my first real project, the first time I had used a server (I hosted it on Digital Ocean for a few months) and cron, and the first (and only to date) time I got actual users! Around 80 people signed up, which was pretty cool. Other projects I've built with Python include:
• Facial recognition algorithms with OpenCV
• An eye tracker that controls your cursor and reads out the text where you're looking
• A physics-informed transformer for quantum noise reduction. Currently in progress.
C++
This summer I worked on building an LLM from scratch, which you can read about here. So far it's only to the point of basic neural networks, but it taught me quite a lot about vectors, matrices, calculus, and combinations thereof.

My brother shaped my identity a lot. He taught me to pick one direction and commit fully, not half-step my way through life. Bet big or don’t bother. If you're going to be a bear, be a grizzly. When I was younger, I used to be good at a lot of things. Swimming, piano, math, coding, French, chess. The problem was that I spread myself so thin that I never felt great at anything. Realizing that about myself is what pushed me to specialize. Now I’d rather be exceptional at programming than average at everything. I decided to narrow my energy instead of scattering it. If being great at programming means being mediocre at everything else, that's a trade I will take every time. Something else that's really shaped me is the book The Practice by Seth Godin.

"Do what you love" is for amateurs. "Love what you do" is for professionals.

Passion isn't a fluttering feeling in your stomach. Passion is a skill. You learn a skill by showing up again and again; therefore, you learn passion by showing up again and again. I choose to practice my craft again and again, because I want to learn my craft.

I value specialization. I value focus. I value obsession. I believe depth beats breadth, and the people who get somewhere are the ones willing to narrow their world to the thing they want to master. I’d rather spend years getting exceptional at one craft than waste time being mediocre at a dozen.

I see the world as a place that rewards people who take themselves seriously. Most people float through life doing the minimum and then wonder why nothing changes. The people who move forward are the ones who choose a direction, put in the hours, and don’t flinch when things get hard. The world isn’t fair, but it is predictable. Skill compounds. Consistency compounds. If you keep showing up and getting better, you eventually outrun the people who don’t. That’s the lens I use to make sense of everything around me.

One issue I think about a lot is how quickly technology outpaces the systems built to regulate it. Most political debates move at a glacial pace while innovation moves at the speed of whoever is willing to build. That mismatch creates a lot of unnecessary panic and bad policy. I’m not interested in taking sides so much as I’m interested in seeing decisions made by people who actually understand the tools they’re talking about. Whether it’s AI, privacy, climate tech or digital infrastructure, I care about practical solutions instead of emotional reactions. I believe the best progress happens when we combine technological competence with long-term thinking instead of outrage.