Meet The 20-year Old Guy Who Bagged The D2C Competitive Leader Award 2022 (E-School Track)

Despite all odds, there was never a pause in the dreams of Kinshuk Dua from VIT, Vellore. From winning the Atal Tinkering Lab project as a school kid to publishing research papers, winning hackathons and international scholarships, here is a dose of inspiration for the budding stars. Stay glued to read how this 20-year-old guy made it big!

Recently crowned the D2C Competitive Leader Award 2022 (E-School track) for his incredible achievements, this guy has created unbeatable records. His accomplishment can be claimed as one of the finest triumphs as he continued to break stereotypes along with setting impressive academic performance.

If you are wondering, why we are heaping praise on him, here are some of his achievements:

• As a school kid, he cracked the Atal Tinkering Lab project and got his school the tinkering lab
• Bagged a dozen medals in Judo Karate and went into Nationals

• Became one of the three students to receive a scholarship from the Japanese government
• Cleared the Smart India Hackathon by the Government of India
• Claimed the Top 30 Worldwide position and Top 3 in India at Google Hashcode
• Achieved the second runner up title in WaiDATATHON, an Asia-wide hackathon
• He has always been an active member of the dramatics club

• Bagged internship via winning AB InBev Bot-a-thon for creating an OCR system 
• Successfully got into a research internship at Yuan Ze University, Taiwan for 2 months 
• Won a startup competition in the college and received funding

• Tried his hands-on building his own Operating System in the Rust language
• Published research papers
• Became the National Winner of Optum Stratethon - Season 3 
• Bagged the position of National Finalist in Flipkart GRiD and Semi-Finalist in Philips Code to Care Challenge 2021
• Did research internships in ZOHO, Samsung PRISM, and A*STAR
• Made contributions to Python, Pandas, Open SSL, C Compiler

Wondering how he was while growing up? Here you go -

Why do stars twinkle? Why? Why? Why?

Raised as a curious kid, Kinshuk always focused on learning through every experience and social interaction. Yes, he has scored a CGPA of 9.43 in his graduation, but does that translate to the fact that he never looked out of his curriculum and books?

Clearly, not. In contrast, he tried his hands into everything that piqued his curiosity. Be it Judo Karate, hackathons, research papers, dramatics, computer languages, or anything else.

During an exclusive interview, it was interesting to find that being a PCMB student (having both Biology and Mathematics along with Chemistry and Physics) he thoroughly took coaching for medical exams but ended up cracking JEE and taking up computer science in VIT, Vellore. 

In his first year of graduation, he did not even spend much time in his academics, preferring to network with seniors and alumni. If “Main udna chahta hu… daudna chahta hu.. girna bhi chahta hu bas rukna nahi chahta” had a face, it would undoubtedly be Kinshuk.

Throughout his graduation, he never missed an opportunity to compete in coding competitions or apply for research internships.

Competitions can take you places

Winning the prestigious Dare2Compete Awards is a testimony to the power of perseverance, efficient teamwork, camaraderie, and belief in celebrating the culmination of hard work students put in year-round. 

With a penchant for winning and most importantly learning, Kinshuk has added another winner title to the trophy cabinet. He has various wins under his belt, including National Winner of Optum Stratethon - Season 3, First Runners-up - AB InBev Maverick 2.0, National Finalist - Flipkart GRiD, Semi-Finalist - Philips Code to Care Challenge 2021, and many other Government-led hackathons, International Scholarships, Research Papers, etc.

To add to this, he also developed a website to help people in Ukraine's conflict (live-action-map.com) which initially gained popularity with 10k views daily and 166 stars on GitHub.

Another website was for Covid resources, yet another being one for room swapping in college.

Your passport to success is…

When asked about a 30-second pitch, Kinshuk said, 

Focus on learning and grabbing opportunities. Understand how to approach problems, try to better yourself, and never underestimate the power of networking!

Wait! Before you hop onto another article, there is one thing everyone must know - he just like any other student went through various failures. He also lost competitions, but he never lost his competitive spirit.

Through his journey, all he remembered was that there is always another competition/opportunity waiting for you.

So make the best of it! 

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