by Gianluca Berardis
Imagine the pressure of running a nonprofit while in high school. That’s the challenge Zameer Bharwani chose back in 2010. His motivation, initiative and efforts to help others, along with strong academics, were instrumental in Bharwani being awarded a Future Aces Foundation Scholarship a few years later.
“I think it just gives you confidence,” says Bharwani, reflecting on that time in 2014 when he claimed the $1,000 scholarship prize as a student at Marc Garneau Collegiate Institute, located in the Flemingdon Park neighbourhood of Toronto.
“I think it just gives you confidence,” says Bharwani, reflecting on that time in 2014 when he claimed the $1,000 scholarship prize as a student at Marc Garneau Collegiate Institute, located in the Flemingdon Park neighbourhood of Toronto.
“If the decisions you made leading to that point were recognized, it gives you confidence to go pursue whatever you want to do.”
As a high school student, Bharwani set his sights on wanting to become a nanotechnology engineer.
The road to pursuing that goal has been paved with several additional, notable achievements including, winning the President’s Scholarship of Distinction at the University of Waterloo in 2015 — where he also earned two degrees — both with distinction — in Honors Computer Science and Honors, Nanotechnology Engineering.
Ten years later, Bharwani fondly remembers the impact of the Future Aces scholarship award, for several reasons.
“…being in grade 12, not really knowing what it means to be an engineer or a lawyer or a doctor and having to make that choice feels really consequential especially when the stakes are really high in terms of finances, going into debt, things like that,” he says. “That was my biggest concern at the time.”
Recalling that time, Bharwani says the scholarship gift, “enabled me to move away from home and attend the university of my choice.”
He was nine when he arrived in Canada from India with his family, which includes a brother. The scholarship helped relieve a looming burden.
“I knew it would be difficult for my parents to fund both of our educations, so being able to fund it heavily through scholarships, and then having some supplemental help from things like O.S.A.P [Ontario Student Assistance Program] loans and family funds, helped a lot just to know that my parents nor I had to go into deep debt. It gave me a lot of peace and happiness to know that.”
It also helped further fuel his academic and career desires, which had begun taking shape even earlier.
In 2010, while a middle school student, Bharwani was paired with a mentor, a neuroscientist from the UK, who would plant a seed in the young student that just kept growing.
The mentor taught him about the brain, the nervous system, dementia, and the variety of other neurological disorders that many people suffer from.
It led Bharwani – at age 15 – to create a nonprofit called, Initiative for Neuroscience & Dementia (I.N.D). The organization garnered media coverage.
Over the span of seven years, I.N.D., “hosted educational campaigns, funded research towards a cure, and worked with patients,” all while Bharwani balanced the various pressures of high school and future planning.
His advice for current students is to “leave your comfort zone,” something he has done throughout, having lived in Massachusetts, California and currently, the United Kingdom.
“We lived in Boston earning close to nothing, around $750 a month for a research position,” he says, of an experience several years ago.
“It was a really complicated time to make ends meet. It was a difficult life, but one that helped cultivate some of the best friendships and experiences.”
In 2022, Bharwani got accepted into Harvard for his master’s and had his mind set on going. He eventually turned down the opportunity to move to London, England, where he is now building a health and social care startup company.
Throughout his academic, entrepreneurial and life pursuits, Bharwani’s penchant for setting a high bar for himself has been evident, so too is his gratitude and appreciation for the Future Aces financial award that supported him at a most pivotal time in his life.
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