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CNIB Scholarship Essay
Intro
Question: How will this scholarship change what it is to be blind for you as you pursue your post-secondary education?
Answer: I have taken every opportunity of my short life to deny being defined solely by any disability. This essay will focus more on my educational goals and career aspirations on their own merit.
I would love your support in accomplishing these goals!
Goals
My current educational path involves finishing a diploma program, then transfering to a Bachelor's of Technology program in cybersecurity and digital forensics at BCIT.
Cybersecurity was not an overnight choice. It became interesting to me over time as I saw ordinary people give up their privacy because they wanted their phone to tell them the weather---or some such other minor life enhancement.
Of course, it is a exaggeration to say that this is the reason people give up privacy, but consider the extreme case: You have your phone location on at all times; you own an Alexa which listens to everything you say at home; you text and call others using a service that openly collects the contents of your messages.
Would you want every single text you have sent to appear on the front page of the newspaper? What about every thing you have said in the privacy of your own home? Do you want just anyone to know where you were today?
If any one person had access to all this information about you, it would likely make you uneasy. I know it makes me a bit nervous at least.
One of the primary goals of my career is to build tools that empower the individual. Tools that make the individual more independent, not less. These tools must be for the average consumer. They must appeal to a mass market without compromising the secure, private foundations. This is my goal: Allow normal people, non-techies and techies alike, to just be able to send a text message without the world watching over their shoulder.
The second goal I have is to make this technology accessible to everyone. Security-focused apps need to be fast so they will run on less expensive phones. They need to be simple so that screen readers can process them correctly.
These are not hard things to do. In fact, I would argue that designing software this way: independent of third parties, simple, able to run on cheap devices---is actually easier than designing it the way large companies seem to design software.
Conclusion
I have a vision for how to build open, secure, private and accessible applications. Your help in moving that goal forward would be much appreciated.
Without you I can do it.
With you I can do it better.