Ayush Paul

Ayush Paul has always been fueled by a desire for self-reliance. After he learned to code with Python in 5th grade, he spent countless hours tinkering with different programs, scouring the internet for tutorials, guides, and other resources to help him grow. Ayush says, “I wanted to make everything I could by myself from scratch.” This passion drove him to explore everything from web development to machine learning to hardware, and he soon realized that technology was not just a means of building software, but a tool to improve people’s lives and solve real-world problems.

There weren’t many students his age interested in programming at his school in Concord, North Carolina. Early on, Ayush found several forums on Reddit and spent time on GitHub to connect with the hacker community. Discord servers provided more opportunities, but it wasn’t until Ayush found the Hack Club community on Slack that he truly felt welcomed and supported. He attended numerous Hack Club events and soon founded a chapter at his school.

“From my early days on forums to my involvement with Hack Club, I have always been passionate about sharing my knowledge and resources with others,” Ayush says. Through Hack Club, Ayush flew out to San Francisco to attend Assemble, which he sees as a formative part of his hacking career. Ayush says, “my experience at Assemble opened my eyes to the power of the hacker community to affect positive change.”

Inspired by his experience at Assemble, Ayush founded Queen City Hacks (QCH), a hackathon through which he aims to empower underprivileged high school students to code their own solutions to social problems. The hackathon is entirely funded by sponsors, and Ayush strives to create an educational environment for attendees to learn and create transformative projects. Through his work with QCH, Ayush says he has already seen incredible projects tackling the homelessness crisis, improving equity through educational games, and increasing access to blood donations in Charlotte.

To Ayush, founding QCH has been his greatest project to date. With the assistance of the Major League Hacking (MLH) Pizza Fund, the event brought together students from all over the Charlotte, North Carolina area to collaborate and innovate. Ayush made sure the event included targeted support, useful workshops, and even a robotics demonstration by FIRST® Tech Challenge teams. Ayush has continued to provide mentorship by co-organizing UniHacks, an official Major League Hacking (MLH) season event.

Ayush’s involvement in the hacker community has also included roles on his robotics team, a stint working with local science museum Discovery Place’s volunteering department, and even the founding of Bit by Byte, a nonprofit focused on promoting computer science education in North Carolina. Through his work, Ayush hopes to inspire other young programmers to use their skills and knowledge to create meaningful change in their communities. When he is not programming, Ayush can often be found scuba diving off the Atlantic coast. Ayush says being underwater is like “stepping into another universe entirely,” and the tranquility he finds there helps him reset and unwind.