Advanced Category- Winner

Advanced Category Winner: Mariya Vanchugova
School: NYLC - Upper West Side
Teacher: Melinda Hummel

     





   I want to share my story when technology helped me to conquer a barrier in my life. It was a very stressful situation and I am so thankful to the smart people who created it, because it was impossible to overcome this problem so fast five years ago.

        I live in Kazakhstan, in Almaty. Kazakhstan is a big country with a low population density. In general, there are large areas which are not very suitable for life, because there are steppes everywhere and not enough water. My city is located around mountains, that is why we have a very bumpy and sandy terrain. This is a paradise for people like me who are crazy about off road sports. I dreamed about owning a good car and I had been saving money for one year and half before I had saved enough money to buy the car of my dreams.

        I read about a new alarm. It was a new unique kind of technology which could control the car from my cellphone. I could open and close all doors and windows of my car, also it gave me an opportunity to stop and to start the engine or just to check the temperature in the engine or inside the car. All these options I could do from a distance. This alarm had a lot of sensors as tilt a sensor which protected the wheels and it made it impossible to steal them, because an alarm would have gone off and alerted me of any theft.

        One evening I went to a big premiere at the theater. I switched off my cellphone because it was not allowed in the theatre, but after the performance I turned it on and I was in shock, because I got about 25 different notifications from alarm. It was written that one window was broken, engine worked... I couldn't believe it. The theatre is in the center of the the city. There are hundreds of cameras. Nobody would taken a risk to steal it! But, in fact, my car was stolen! I called the police and when they arrived I panicked, but 40 minutes later the car was found and the thief was put in jail. The police found my car on "Google maps" by a GPS signal. When they began to pursue him, he was trying to escape, but the policeman’s partner shut off the engine by using my smartphone.


         Nowadays technology is everywhere. Gadgets count our heart beats, amount of steps we take every day or help us to control of our weight. People are developing cutting-edge technology help us investigate space and find breakthroughs. It helps us to save millions of people on Earth. At the same time, we use technology for the production of weapons, which also kills millions of people. I strongly believe it depends on who uses for good or bad purposes. However, the main point is what yesterday seemed impossible, now has become a reality.