Four Surrey Schools students among Surrey Board of Trade’s Top 25 Under 25

Four Surrey Schools winners of this year's Surrey Board of Trade Top 25 Under 25 Awards. From right to left: Finn Liu, Gurleena Sukhija, Zora Heer, Simrit Mangat.

Four current Surrey Schools students were recently named winners in this year's Top 25 Under 25 Awards by the Surrey Board of Trade.

The annual awards event, now in its 13th year, recognizes business and community-minded people under the age of 25 who either work in Surrey or on a Surrey-related business or community-related project.

This year the following students from our district were recognized:

• Finn Liu, 16, Fraser Heights Secondary: An active member of the school's debate team who helped elevate them to the national debate circuit after missing the previous five years. Liu also hosted his own talk at this year's TEDxSurrey event and qualified to represent B.C. in fencing at the 2023 Canada Winter Games.
   
• Gurleena Sukhija, 17, Semiahmoo Secondary: President and founder of the Anti-Prejudice Project, a student-led initiative that strives to analyze local matters within the community and enforce change through fundraising, outreach, and other community-oriented initiatives. Sukhija is also an International Baccalaureate Diploma student and has earned several writing distinctions, including national recognition from the League of Canadian Poets for the Jessamy Stursberg Poetry Prize in 2022 and placing third in the Surrey Libraries' Youth Writing Contest the same year.
   
• Zora Heer, 17, L.A. Matheson Secondary: Having volunteered with the Next 100 Years program, Surrey Steps Up, and the City of Surrey's Youth Event Squad, Heer has made it a goal to make a difference in his community. In addition to taking part in the RCMP's BC Youth Advisory Committee, Heer has also spent time helping youth access mental health support through Foundry Surrey.
   
• Simrit Mangat, 17, Semiahmoo Secondary: Developer of the Nailsight App, an application designed to help detect disease and other health conditions by reading the slight manifestations in the fingernails using convolutional neural networks. With her app, Mangat was named a finalist in the Rise Scholarship Program and was a top 10 global winner in the Microsoft Imagine Cup Junior Competition, as well as a finalist in the Climate Science Olympiad.

Winners were honoured at a reception on May 3, which was hosted by media personality George Stromboulopoulos.

Congratulations, Finn, Gurleena, Zora, and Simrit!

See a list of all of this year’s winners here.