Rotary Scholarship Meeting - Keynote Speaker Amna Majeed

Keynote Speaker Amna Majeed - 2016 Scholarship Winner
Guest Speakers: John Chen - 2014 Scholarship Winner
and Lorenzo Penate - 2017 Scholarship Winner
Friday September 18, 2020
Rotary Virtual Meeting via Google Meet
Topic:  Scholarship Recipient Update
Host:  Chair Pauline Lyons and The Scholarship Committee
 
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Biography
Keynote Speaker Amna Majeed – 2016 Scholarship Winner
 
Amna Majeed graduated from the Life Sciences Program at the University of Toronto and has completed her first two weeks in medical school.
 
She is finding it very challenging and is pleased to share her journey with the Rotary Club of Toronto.  It is due to the Rotary Club of Toronto’s scholarship that she has been able to be a part of numerous university activities. She worked with the Health and Human Rights Committee to promote mental health and with Women in Science and Engineering (WISE) to advocate for inequalities within the STEM fields. Last year, She even had the opportunity to be the conference chair for WISE, through which we hosted a conference for over 600 delegates around North America to come together and discuss new research topics in STEM, and issues such as confidence and imposter syndrome in the workplace.
 
Last year, she became the UofT Rotaract Co-President.  They have hosted biweekly discussions on mental health and wellness, and fundraisers for organizations such as Plan Canada. She recently attended the UofT Rotaract meeting with the next year’s executive team. Indeed, none of this would have been possible without Rotary’s constant assistance.
 
These clubs have not only allowed her  to internalize the Rotary motto of Service above self,  but have taught her the importance of joining clubs and organizations within university – allowing you to give back to your university and local community.
 
          John Chen                 Lorenzo Penate           Hshmat Sahak     Joshua Harrison-Maul
 
Biography
John Chen – 2014 Scholarship Winner
 

 

John is beginning the second and final year of his research-based Masters in Computer Science graduate degree program at University of Toronto, St. George Campus. Advised by Professor Frank Rudzicz, his research focus is Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning for Healthcare applications.
 
Over the course of his first year, he has submitted several publications for review, working on topics such as fairness in machine learning for healthcare and large-scale text mining for the COVID-19 pandemic. This summer, he worked at two internships at large US tech companies. First, he worked as a machine learning software engineer intern at Lyft, where he helped develop and deploy a conversion model for dynamic pricing.  Next, as an applied scientist at Amazon, John is working on improving natural language understanding for Amazon Alexa.
 
In June 2020, he received the Ontario Graduate Scholarship in recognition of his excellence in graduate studies and scientific potential. This year, John is finishing his thesis for his Masters degree and will work as a Math and Computer Science Academic Don at Trinity College in the University of Toronto, where he hopes to combine his love of teaching and mentoring students. Next year, he hopes to continue his graduate education in the MD/PhD program at University of Toronto.
 
John is forever grateful for the support of the Rotary Club of Toronto and hopes to pay it forward.
 
Biography
Lorenzo Penate – 2017 Scholarship Winner

Lorenzo is entering his final year of studies at York University’s Schulich School of Business, where he’s been studying towards a Bachelors in Business Administration. Due to COVID-19, he completed the later portion of his junior year fully online, and for his academic achievements was recognized with Dean’s Honour Roll.

Over the past year he has continued his involvement on campus and in extra curricular activities. This includes being part of the Communication and Selection Committee for the Merit Award, facilitating a boxing program for youth in marginalized communities aimed at both athletic and personal development. Earlier in the year he founded greeni, an initiative focused on raising awareness around sustainable practises, which went on to win an award from RBC Ventures during the Schulich Startup Night.

Over the summer he completed his second internship at RBC working on their Global Cyber Security team. This experience afforded him the opportunity to learn some of the skills necessary for working effectively in a fast paced remote environment.

Hshmat Sahak – 2019 Scholarship Winner

Video Presentation will be available in the future

Biography

Hshmat is in his second year at the University of Toronto pursing a degree in Engineering Studies.
 
He is part of the UofT Aerospace Team, working under the Finch Orbit sub team, running simulations of sun synchronous orbits for the purpose of data analysis.  He also participated in the UofT undergraduate Math contest and ranked fourth among the students of Engineering, Computer Science, and Math faculties of all academic years.
 
Hshmat appreciates the support of the Rotary Club of Toronto and is grateful for the scholarship that will assist him to realize his dream.

 

Video Presentation will be available in the near future

Joshua Harrison Maul - 2019 Scholarship Winner

Video Presentation will be available in the future

Biography

Joshua has successfully completed his first year of the Addictions and Mental Health Worker Program with a minor in Indigenous Canadian Studies at Centennial College. As part of the program he has completed several hours of group work and he did a lot of writing.


When the pandemic closed the college in March 2020, he migrated to online learning.  He has resumed his studies online this semester and is very eager to jump into his second year.  He challenged himself this Summer to improve his math skills as math was always his weakest subject. He was successful and feels content that his time was well spent.

 
He would like to take this opportunity to thank the Rotary Club of Toronto for this opportunity to pursue his education.