My journey
I applied for The Knowledge Society in February 2022. Initially, I had opened an application but then decided not to go for it, thinking that I wasn't smart enough to get in. Mia Nguyễn was my application advisor who mailed me about my incomplete application, asking me if there was anything I needed help with. There were few interview slots remaining and she asked if they should close my application. I opened her mail and began typing an apology letter, telling her that I would not be applying. As I finished the letter, my finger hovered over the send button. I sighed, selected my mail and pressed backspace. What was the harm in trying?
I typed out a quick message, asking her to hold my slot. I opened MS Word and started on the essays I needed and stayed up all night, only to submit them a few hours before the deadline.
In late April, I was accepted into the 10 month Global Virtual Program as a TKS Innovator with considerable financial aid. Unfortunately, my financial situation did not allow me to pay the remaining fees. I applied for additional financial aid and a few days later, I was offered an invitation to submit a project for the NN Full Ride Scholarship. In late June, I was granted the scholarship and I was finally accepted to the program.
If you have read this far, I assume you already know about TKS. In case you want to explore more, click here. I think they explain it better.
The application
When you apply to TKS, you do not have to fill any forms for financial aid. The financial aid process starts once you're accepted. This year's application asked us answers to four questions. I have attached my answers as links.
Teach us about a topic you are interested in.
Tell us about a company engaged in disruptive innovation that a few people know about.
Interview and Challenge
Once my application was accepted, I was offered an interview where I and three more students from around the world chatted about our interests and aspirations with our interviewer. After the interview, we were given a challenge in which we had to write an article explaining an emerging technology and make a short video about it.
I chose Optogenetics. This was my article and this was my video.
Project for the NN Full Ride Scholarship
Once I received the invitation, I had to make a make a project using an emerging technology. As I always had an artistic inclination, I decided to combine design with technology. I literally searched on YouTube 'Art with technology' and found someone who was making art with Artificial intelligence. I found out the name of the algorithm. Since I didn't have a PC or laptop, I learned about Google Colaboratory, an online cloud server where you could code and use their GPU.
My project wasn't perfect. I made an algorithm where you could input images and it produces similar images of its own but as I did not have a large computational power or the time, my output images were very small and had large pixels.
But it was a great learning experience and taught me a lot of practical skills.
I was asked to make a video with a presentation about my project. You can access my video here.
If you want to know how you can make your application better, I have written an article about what I learned through the process. Hopefully, it helps you too.