Oct 26, 2023
Black Teen Creates Soap To Treat Skin Cancer, Gets Named 'America’s Top Young Scientist'
- 5 minutes
This is actually a very beautiful story.
A young black male creates
a new soap that has
him basically the smartest
kid in the world.
This is a scientist, put him up full mass.
[00:00:15]
Heman Bakele, and I love the fact
his first name is spelled Heman.
A black Virginian teen has
recently been recognized
as one of the smartest
people in the nation,
[00:00:33]
developing a soap that helps
treat skin cancer, a 9th grader.
The teen scientific discovery has
won him a five figure cash prize and
the title of
America's Top Young Scientist, so amazing.
[00:00:50]
So let me give you some background.
The 14-year old student at
WT Woodson High School in Annadale,
Virginia, has been named
the winner of the prestigious
2023 3M Young Scientist Challenge
presented by 3M and
[00:01:05]
Discovery Education at the company's
global headquarters in St.
Paul, Minnesota, October 9th and
10th were the date.
So this 14-year old outshined nine other
finalists over a four-month
competition period.
[00:01:24]
His submission, a groundbreaking
compound-based Skin Cancer Treating Soap,
SCTS, blew the judges away and
secured him the grand prize.
As the winner,
he walked away with a champions title and
[00:01:41]
$25,000 in the pocket.
All of the young people were paired with
3M scientists before being charged to
navigate a series of
interactive challenges.
Over that time, the nine students were
rigorously evaluated based on their
[00:01:57]
ingenuity, application of STEM principles,
passion for research, presentation skills,
and their ability to inspire.
He also started to delve deeply into
the research about skin cancer and
then dendritic cells that
informed his submission video.
[00:02:14]
His mentor, Deborah Isabelle from
3M's Automotive Aftermarket Division,
and she helped him bring
his idea to reality.
That's called mentorship.
His student's melanoma-treating
soap will be cost-effective.
[00:02:33]
Each bar can be manufactured and
sold for $0.50.
The youngest, or the young scientists
wanted the innovative treatment to be
an accessible and affordable alternative
to conventional methods of skin cancer
[00:02:49]
treatment, and that is only the start.
Skin cancer is the most common in
people living in developing countries,
so now we have international application.
However, the average price
of an operation is $40,000.
[00:03:05]
So Heman told Fairfax County Public
Schools, according to WION News,
leading him to speak about how
people who lack money are victims.
Quote, there are so
many preventable deaths, he said.
[00:03:21]
Looking ahead to the next five years,
he intends to establish a nonprofit
organization dedicated to making
the medicinal cleansing compound
readily available to those who
require it the most at a low cost.
In the next 15 years,
he hopes to become an electrical engineer.
[00:03:37]
Put his picture.
You see, this is the future of our world.
While old decrepit, political pundits and
their cronies who call
themselves public official
[00:03:56]
wax poetic about capitalism,
making more money,
getting an increase to the bottom line,
there's an emerging
class of leadership from
[00:04:12]
my youth population who says,
you all got it wrong.
You all got it wrong.
People are more important than money.
I congratulate,
salute this young man, his family,
[00:04:28]
the mentors that he has around him.
Very proud of him,
very thankful for his leadership.
He is my future, he is your future.
All right, Yasmin thoughts here.
>> Speaker 2: Yeah, I love this.
My fiance is white, and
he's always outside in the garden.
And I'm always like,
can you please just wear your sunblock?
[00:04:45]
I'm always just preaching to
him to put on some sunblock.
But these are my favorite
kinds of stories, I love this.
I love to see young people thriving.
And I love that this kid was in
an environment that was supportive enough
that he was allowed to
thrive in such a way.
So much of education is
about the teachers and
[00:05:02]
about the resources that
are available to those students.
There's so
much potential in these kids, and
I will always support efforts
to bring that out of them.
I think people that seek to
stifle young ingenuity and people
who try to defund education and things
like that are a special kind of evil.
[00:05:20]
But things like this make
me feel a lot better.
>> Speaker 1: There you go.
The scripture says, and
a child should lead them.
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