Commonapp Personal Statement

Prompt

Discuss an accomplishment, event, or realization that sparked a period of personal growth and a new understanding of yourself or others. (650)

AUG 16, 2024 [811/650]

As the relentless Tanzanian sun beat down on my neck, I walked alongside my new friend, Joseph, on the rugged path to his home. His shoes were made from cut-up tires and string. Joseph was about my age and part of the oldest tribe in the world, the Maasai. On our walk, I began to grasp the gravity of the water crisis in his community. 30,000 Maasai walk nearly nine hours every day searching for water. He explained that climate change and deforestation destroyed the soil of his land, exacerbating the droughts that killed cattle and floods that destroyed homes. After two hours, I stopped to rest. As I reached into my backpack for my water bottle, a wave of guilt washed over me. Here I was, a visitor with easy access to what Joseph’s family spends nearly every waking hour searching for.

For the first time, I felt guilty about drinking water.

That was five years ago. That year, I had fundraised to deploy a 100,000-liter rainwater harvesting unit where water is collected from the community center roof in Losimingori Tanzania. I realized a single water harvesting unit would never solve their problems. I prepared presentations and made them for students and industry experts so they can help to fundraise three more units and get more help.

After deploying the first unit, I also wanted to identify the impact on the community. So, the following year, I returned to Tanzania with six high school students. Through a series of interviews with Joseph as our translator, I saw how the unit changed the lives of the 4500 Maasai who used it. The women who previously walked nine hours daily for water now only walked two to three hours to the unit. There was a cascading effect on the rest of the community. Children could use water for bathing and fell ill far less frequently. The local teacher was elated because more children were coming to school. Women had time to create jewelry, grow crops, and could now generate income.

Although the situation had improved in a small area, deeper concerns surfaced: How much water can one family take at a time? Who maintains the units? and whether water can be shared with animals? Everyone worried about the thousands of Maasai spread across hundreds of miles of wilderness. With the Maasai leader's help, I organized a series of community gatherings with elders, women, and teenagers. Much of our brainstorming in a room of 20 Maasai with two translators was through visuals, like drawing or facial expressions. The adults suggested a bucket with an upside-down umbrella to catch rainwater on the go. The teenagers were eager to incorporate drone delivery. One of the elders, who was skeptical initially, started to plan how to run “water councils” for equitable access.

One of the many ideas I decided to pursue with the Maasai community was to subsidize 5000-liter rainwater harvesting units that can be deployed within a family's living units. We subsidize 80% of the water harvesting units, and the other 20% comes from labor and materials provided by the Maasai. I learned that engaging the community through both the development and deployment of a project ensures future maintenance. The community takes ownership and treats the project as a permanent solution rather than a temporary fix.

For the actual placement, though, there were no maps, roads, or infrastructure. To tackle this, I turned to satellite imagery. After countless hours of research and trial and error, I trained an object detection model to recognize living units or ‘Bomas’ from public satellite data. This technology became the cornerstone of our deployment strategy, allowing us to allocate resources across vast, uncharted territories efficiently. We have deployed 10. So far, 150 families have signed up and we are on the way to deploying 100 units in 2024.

I love this job, so I continue to lead these projects. On my vacations, I wake up at 3 AM to lead discussions with engineers in Israel, Maasai leaders in Tanzania, and fund managers in California. I was even called to take a 96-hour trip to speak at a global conference when I should have been preparing for my math test. These experiences and my work are the most rewarding parts of my life.

Today, over 2 billion people lack access to clean water, and the situation is getting worse every day.

Joseph’s family welcomed me with open arms in his home. As the sun dipped below the horizon, the stars emerged in the Tanzanian night sky, unimpeded by city lights; I realized my trek with Joseph was more than a journey—it was a path toward understanding the power of empathy and the importance of action. My commitment to solving the global water crisis is unwavering, driven by the knowledge that real progress is made through collaboration, compassion, and perseverance.