A research mentorship for 35 high school students

Nexus is built on one belief, Mohammad Aarif says: "opportunities should not depend on a student's background, school, or access to resources." It is an education advisory initiative, and he is working on it while studying at Rochester Institute of Technology, Dubai.

As a student, he says, he noticed that many talented students have the ambition and curiosity to achieve great things but often lack guidance on where to find opportunities, how to build their profiles, or how to navigate scholarships, internships, research, and higher education. Nexus was created to bridge that gap and make quality educational guidance more accessible.

“The world was never meant to be watched from the sidelines.”

Mohammad Aarif

One of its key initiatives is Scriptoria, a research mentorship programme that helps high school students learn how to write research papers. Research can feel overwhelming without mentorship, he says, so the team created a structured environment where students learn everything from developing research questions to understanding academic literature and presenting their ideas.

This year Scriptoria received 250+ applications. Thirty-five students were chosen to take part. Their mentors were professors and researchers from institutions including University College London (UCL), the University of Toronto and IITs in India.

"I care about this work because I have seen how one opportunity or one piece of guidance can completely change a student's path," he says. He wants a system where students from different backgrounds can discover possibilities they may not have known existed.

"My goal is to create a community where every student can access the guidance and opportunities needed to pursue their dreams," he says.