“Innovations” was a prompt that I had tons of ideas for, but few ideas that actually worked for me. I asked for advice, I looked at the top search results on Google, and I looked up previous winners, and even then, nothing really stuck out. Dozens of mental crumpled up papers in a mental garbage bin. Then, I thought that if I don’t just look at the literal definition, but also look at what innovators had to do to become innovators I might find something just right. With this line of thinking, I got to an idea which I felt related to my life in a meaningful and powerful way.

When I was almost five years old, my father got in a horrible bicycle accident and was temporarily paralyzed from the waist down. It’s a miracle that he was ever able to walk again, and he has not let it go to waste. His life since then has been about working hard and finding ways to live a normal life in his condition. I thought that a picture of my father working on one of his many woodworking projects in his garage workspace represents the drive, grit, and perseverance that one needs to have to be an innovator. I placed him farther up in the frame in order to represent how I’ve seen him my entire life; tall, confident, and always looking out for me.