A student who has already demonstrated a keen interest in innovation will start her studies at Waterloo Engineering with backing from a prestigious scholarship.
Gurnirmal Kaur is one of four winners of James Hillier Foundation scholarships, which provide $20,000 over four years to students from Brantford and Brant County who are entering university in science-related fields.
Gurnirmal Kaur plans to study systems design engineering at Waterloo.
Kaur, who will study systems design engineering, created a device to reduce test stress in Grade 10 and during the COVID-19 pandemic developed artificial intelligence technology to flag phrases indicative of potential mental health problems in social media posts.
“When a phrase like this is detected, I programmed a chatbox to engage the user in a conversation and provide them with resources near their location,” said Kaur, whose project won a national science and engineering fair gold medal.
The foundation was established by Dr. James Hillier of Brantford, who co-created the electron microscope and credited a scholarship with enabling him to attend university during the Depression in the 1930s.