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16-year-old Swetha Prabakaran has been handpicked by Michelle Obama, US First Lady to work for the inaugural Student Advisory Board. She will be part of the education campaign that will help in providing educational opportunities for teenagers in America.
Swetha is an Indian-American and is CEO of a non-profit organization called Everybody Code Now. Her parents immigrated to the US from Tamil Nadu in 1998. As an acknowledgment of her efforts to educate the youth in computer science, Swetha was selected as the Student Advisory Board for the Better Make Room education campaign.
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She traveled to the White House along with the rest of the board members to attend Michelle’s School Counsellor of the Year Ceremony on January 7, 2017. She is the only Indian-American among the 17 students shortlisted for the Student Advisory Board of the campaign. The inaugural board comprises of 12 students from high school and 5 college students.
Swetha was born in Indianapolis and is a senior at Virginia’s Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology. She is a Bharatanatyam dancer. Her non-profit organization works to empower and encourage the youth to become successful engineers and entrepreneurs.
She was named the White House Champion of Change in 2015. She has also been listed in the International Literacy Association’s ‘30 Under 30’ for the year 2016.
Two-thirds of the Board members selected for the Better Make Room campaign are or will become the first members of their families to get a postsecondary degree. According to the official campaign made by campaigners, these students have the potential to lead, innovate, organise and bring necessary changes in the field of education.
The board of Better Make Room was founded by Michelle Obama to achieve President Obama’s goal – North Star – to lead the world in the field of education with the maximum number of students who have completed college. The aim of the campaign is to create a culture where school-going children will understand the importance of going to college and completing higher education.
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Swetha talked about being selected as a board member and said that she is looking forward with the first lady. She added that creating a college-going atmosphere is what her NGO has been working for and she is more than willing to share her experience.
