My parents were never the kind to keep us indoors. Whenever they could, they took my siblings and me out of the city: to forests, rivers, mountains, flower fields and the sea.

At home, my mother has made a garden in every house we have lived in, and I helped her plant.

So I learned to appreciate and respect nature long before I could reason about it. The reasons came later, at school.

In 8th grade, I took debate classes at Point Avenue and practised for Model United Nations. For the first time, I was arguing about environmental problems that reached far beyond anything I had seen on our trips, and I had to argue them from more than one side.

In 9th grade, humanities showed me the current state of what people are doing to the planet, and the ethics of it.

Between them, I learned how large the problem was, and that protecting the environment is an ethical responsibility we all share.

I began exploring these questions through a research paper on sustainable energy in ninth grade. It was an early opportunity to move beyond learning what an environmental problem was and start examining how people might respond to it.

Later, the Theory of Knowledge course in my IB Diploma encouraged me to think more carefully about evidence, assumptions, and ethics. Understanding a problem meant more than collecting facts. I also had to consider how I knew what I knew, what those facts could tell me, and what they could not.

By then, I could explain many of the causes and consequences of deforestation. I could build an argument and support it with sources. But understanding the problem intellectually was not the same as feeling connected to it.

I went to Cúc Phương National Park because my CAS programme required service hours. The plan was straightforward: help for two days, write the reflection, and move on.

We visited conservation centres for turtles, primates, and pangolins, and we planted trees. While holding a sapling, I remember how small it felt against everything already standing around it. One tree would not make a noticeable difference to a forest that had taken years to grow.

Then we fed the animals. The forest stopped being scenery and became a collection of living things with their own needs and vulnerabilities. While preparing fruit for the young deer, I slipped and cut my finger. I remember the moment partly because of the small injury, but more because I was suddenly focused on caring for an animal rather than thinking about conservation as an abstract idea.

That evening, I watched a pangolin that had lost a leg to a poacher's trap move along the wall of its enclosure. It seemed too afraid to venture far, even with visitors nearby.

I had read about the harm people cause through deforestation and poaching. Here, I was looking at living reminders that the consequences were not just figures in a report. They were physical, immediate, and difficult to ignore.

I left Cúc Phương with a different understanding of what it meant to help. Planting a tree mattered, but so did the work that protected the forest around it. Caring about nature was a starting point, not a complete response.

I couldn't plant a forest by myself. I couldn't be everywhere at once, either. But perhaps there were other ways to help the people working to protect it.

That question stayed with me: if I could build systems that helped people see a problem earlier, could I use those same skills to help protect the places I cared about?

The service hours were already accounted for, but I chose to keep going.

I began thinking about what I could contribute beyond a short visit or a single act of service. I was learning computer science, exploring data, and building small tools to solve problems. Perhaps these skills could be useful somewhere beyond my own screen.

I didn’t have the answers, so I decided to do something about it. And that’s how VIGIL was born.

I've always been comfortable with STEM subjects. Over the years, that interest led to mathematics and computing competitions, from the Hanoi Activities Conference Maths Olympiad to the World Scholar's Cup and international competitions in informatics and innovation.

But being good at a subject and knowing what you want to do with it are two different things. For a while, computer science was simply something I enjoyed and felt capable of learning. I hadn't yet figured out what it could mean to me.

I started looking for small problems I could solve with code, mostly in my everyday routines.

On the fourth question of a vectors worksheet, I noticed that the numbers had changed but almost nothing else had. Instead of solving sixteen more questions in the same way, I opened a blank Python file and built a calculator.

It took the whole weekend. Most of the work went into things the worksheet had never asked about: what counted as valid input, how to handle a mistake, and whether a wrong answer came from my code or from how I had entered the numbers. I kept testing it against worksheet questions until I trusted the results.

The calculator was small, but the process taught me something important: solving the problem in front of me was only one part of building a useful tool. I also had to think about all the ways someone might actually use it.

When I started going to the gym, I got tired of looking up the same nutrition values every day. So I built a tracker around the foods I actually ate.

I could enter the weight of chicken, steak, or salmon, see the running totals for the day, and track the bottles of water I wanted to finish. I even added four water droplets across the top of the interface.

The first version worked. I kept rebuilding it anyway, partly because I wanted the buttons to sit exactly where they should and the whole thing to feel easier to use.

Sometimes, trying to remove waste creates more work of its own. I wasn't necessarily saving time yet. I was learning to think like a developer: to test, notice, revise, and try again.

The first project I built for other people was thephysiclab, a platform featuring six sports simulations designed to help primary and secondary school students learn physics.

As Head of Technology, I led a team of four in developing the platform. The project reached more than 1,200 students and was used in 35 lessons across 12 rural partner schools.

This was a different kind of challenge from building a tool for myself. A solution had to work for people who had not built it, might approach it differently, and needed it to make sense in a real classroom.

It made me think beyond whether the code worked. I had to consider whether the experience worked for the person using it.

Over time, optimization came to mean more than removing steps or reducing the time a task took. It meant asking three questions before deciding what a solution should look like:

These questions changed how I approached the things I built. Eventually, I took them somewhere much bigger.

From small personal tools to collaborative learning platforms, each project has taught me something different about programming, data, and the people a system is meant to serve.

Explore selected projects, research, and code below.

Throughout my journey, I have approached every research paper, software and engineering project, and even school assignments like my Extended Essay, as more than just tasks to complete. I have embraced each as an opportunity to explore questions that matter to me and build toward my vision for the VIGIL ecosystem: how can technology become a meaningful part of everyday life, especially in the effort to protect our natural world and preserve ancient forests?

After months of research and experimentation, my initial ideas gradually began to take shape as tangible outcomes.

What I had developed was more than a machine learning model or a map displaying data. It was the first step toward turning my original question into a tool that could help identify and prioritize areas of concern for forest conservation.

When I watch a film, I pay attention to what the filmmaker actually did: the choices they made, the details they included, and the reasons a scene still works on me long after it ends.

I could talk about Marvel for hours. I sometimes read the comics, and I've followed enough storylines that I can usually explain a character's history to someone new to the universe.

What I enjoy most is finding parts of myself in characters who are otherwise larger than life. Their worlds may be fictional, but the questions they face often feel familiar.

For me, the magic of filmmaking has never been confined to what unfolds on the screen. I have always been just as curious about what happens behind it—the imagination that shapes a story, the words that give it meaning, and the vision of a director who brings every piece together. More than simply watching stories unfold, I wanted to be the one telling them.

As I ventured deeper into my exploration of technology and the natural world, I began to see filmmaking as a way to make sense of the questions that fascinated me. I wanted to do more than observe these subjects; I wanted to translate my curiosity into stories that others could see, hear, and feel. This desire led me behind the camera and into the world of storytelling, where I took on roles as a director, screenwriter, and narrator in two films: A Million Lives in One Pixel and Ground Truth.

Each project became an opportunity to explore ideas beyond my own perspective and transform what I discovered into something others could connect with. Through filmmaking, I found a way to bring together my curiosity, creativity, and desire to understand the world - not just by looking at it, but by telling its stories.

I enjoy the quieter moments, too: spending time outdoors, noticing things I would normally walk past, and taking a break from the screen. They remind me that curiosity doesn't always begin with a question I know how to answer. Sometimes, it begins with simply paying attention.

I'm still figuring out what I want to build, what I want to learn, and where these interests will take me.

For now, I'm happy to keep exploring, keep making things, and stay curious about the world beyond my own corner of it.

More to come.

If something here caught your attention, I'd be happy to hear from you.