August 31st, 2026

Been off LinkedIn for a few days, out traveling and meeting family, so here's what happened while I was gone:

The second edition of the Edunomix Institute India Essay Competition is officially live, and submissions are open! It's a national essay competition for students in Classes 6 to 12, as well as first year university students and gap year students, with five prompts on questions that matter for India right now. The top essays are judged by economics scholars from Harvard University, University of California, Berkeley, Cornell University, and University of Warwick. Deadline is September 30. Link in the comments, pick a prompt and write something you'd want to defend :)

I also just registered for The New York Academy of Sciences 208th Annual Meeting this November, as a Member and Fellow. If any of you are NYAS alumni or current members, get registered too, it's worth being part of.

And if NYAS is new to you: I recently completed my Junior Academy Fellowship with them, working on an energy infrastructure project under Dr. Nandhini Sivakumar, Postdoctoral Research Scientist at the Motor Neuron Center, Columbia University. Apply if you're a student looking for real research mentorship, it's a great opportunity!

I onboarded two new research associates for the Decoded Podcast this week: Aly Muhammad Dadwani, incoming at George Mason University's Honors College for political science, already a three-time Model UN Best Delegate and a TEDx speaker, and Vidyanshi Mittal, studying cognitive science at Thapar Institute of Engineering & Technology, who just wrapped an experimental methods workshop at Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur. Welcome to the team, both of you!

Edunomix India's research team grew too, with Divyansh Makwana joining us, a B. Com Hons student at Delhi University and an MVPP gold medalist. Welcome aboard Divyansh!

Also caught the Cafe Cursor event in Delhi this week, a good reset from the usual routine :)

If any of this overlaps with what you're building, the essay competition, the fellowship, growing a podcast or a research team, reach out. Always happy to talk!