VT Seva Seattle - STEM Week 2025 for VT Seva’s Healthcare, Education & Environment Pillars

Hello everyone! We, Saicharan Vellanki and Sathkrith Segu, are both high school students in Washington and part of VT Seva Seattle. Both of us have been passionate about science and service, and this summer, we had the privilege of planning and hosting STEM Week 2025, a six-day virtual event rooted in the pillars of VT Seva: Healthcare, Education, and Environment.

As many of you know, VT Seva works tirelessly to support the underprivileged through education and healthcare initiatives, while also promoting environmental sustainability. Wanting to do our part for this mission, both of us designed STEM Week to educate youth on the advanced technology of artificial intelligence, along with its applications in complex global health and environmental problems.

Over the span of six days, 100 youth participants joined us from across the country. On Days 1 & 2, Dr. Sudharshan Raghunathan led AI Foundations & Applications, explaining the fundamentals of AI and teaching how to build an actual Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG) Large Language Model (LLM). On Day 3, I, Sathkrith, presented a session about CS in High school with focus on AI projects like NASA’s Kepler dataset to predict exoplanets, interning at Waste Management to design AI-driven contamination solutions, and researching the impact of climate-induced heatwaves on honeybee populations with predictive modeling. On Day 4, students heard directly from Dr. Robert Wieder about breakthroughs in breast cancer research, and on Day 5, I, Saicharan, shared his work with quantum machine learning for breast cancer detection. The week concluded on Day 6 with youth presenting their own projects, showing the capabilities of youth innovation.

For us, STEM Week was more than an event—it was a reminder that young people can design state-of-the-art solutions to build a future where healthcare, education, and environmental sustainability go hand in hand.

We would like to sincerely thank the VT Seva leadership team, Guest Speakers (Dr. Sudharshan Raghunathan and Dr. Robert Wieder), participants, and fellow youth leaders who made this vision possible. With your encouragement, we hope to continue building programs that bring science and service together to advance VT Seva’s pillars of healthcare, education, and the environment.

Saicharan Vellanki & Sathkrith Segu