March 30th, 2021

Written by Emma Somerville, Grade 12 Leadership Student at SSS

Abdul Haseeb, an 11th grader here at Southwood Secondary School, recently participated in the University of Waterloo’s Hi5 Health Informatics Challenge, earning himself a place among the top student innovators in all of Canada. He sat down for an interview in early March to elaborate on this great achievement.

The Hi5 challenge involved students from across Canada creating their own technological solution for a COVID-19 related issue (i.e. an app or a new product). Hi5 was a national event hosted by both school and public health systems, as well as the University of Waterloo. Abdul Haseeb from Southwood competed out of pure interest in the subject, submitting an app he personally designed. As he explained: “I designed an app that uses input about feelings, emotions, stress, and anxiety, and outputs a different level of information about COVID-19 cases. This app is designed to limit the amount of detailed and unnecessary information with cases when may be more stressed or anxious, and to deliver detailed information when someone is feeling better.” For example, if an app user is experiencing high levels of stress or negative emotions, they will receive less information on the COVID-19 pandemic compared to someone who is in a more positive mood. Essentially, it allows for people to regulate what information they see and when. Later on, Abdul expressed a wish to go further with this idea: “I am hoping I can work on this and assemble a team to professionally design something that could hit the App Store or be released to the public, maybe even as early as next year.” I’m sure we’ll all be anxiously awaiting the release of this truly spectacular creation. Times have been stressful for all of us lately, especially with the amount of upsetting information pouring in, but Abdul seems to understand exactly what kind of comfort the general public needs.

Abdul competed in his final round of the competition not long after the interview, and came out on top with an astounding third place among forty contestants. We as a school community are immensely proud of how far one of our peers has come, and wish him luck on all future endeavors surrounding his brilliant ideas.

The full interview is available to watch on Southwood’s Leadership Instagram, as well as Southwood’s Youtube page (Announcements March 8-12).

Watch the video on Instagram here

Categories: Events