Ending 2022 on a Positive Note
Priyal Taneja | December 2022 ❄️
Happy New Year’s Eve! I hope the last couple of weeks have treated you well with many joyful moments.
It’s officially that time of the year again… where we try to internalize how time flew by so fast as the earth enters the last arc of its 365-day orbit around the sun.
This year has been far from linear (more sinusoidal if you ask me) — which is perfect because that’s an indication for myself that I lived through a year full of growth and new learnings.
I’m feeling extremely blessed to end 2022 on a positive note full of many memories and experiences I will forever cherish. From submitting a consulting proposal to Walmart to having insightful conversations to end off the year, this newsletter covers the hectic but fulfilling month I had.
Welcome or welcome back to my monthly newsletter! I’m Priyal — a 16 year old quantum computing enthusiast who’s ambition revolves around working on solving complex problems to meaningfully contribute to the world.
Improving the Customer Experience of a Fortune 500 Company 📊
Around a year ago, I was given an assignment for one of my business classes where I had to pick any company in the world to complete a little research on. Nothing intensive, we just had to look into the marketing mix strategies of the business — I instantly chose Walmart as I knew there would be tons of articles online, given that it’s the world’s largest retailer.
It’s insane to think about how I (alongside my team) just submitted a proposal to Walmart BlueLabs — the innovation hub for Walmart — where we worked on improving a customer’s in-store digital journey through simple and scalable solutions.
Going from reading about the colours of the Walmart logo to knowing the in’s-and-out’s of retail innovation and having daily insightful conversations is definitely a huge jump— but it’s allowed me to learn so much about retail industry and how to problem-solve within a short time frame.
It might sound weird though. How are 16-year old’s working on innovating solutions for a legitimate problem that not even Walmart has the answer for?
I’m apart of this program called The Knowledge Society where I was given the opportunity to work on a Global Challenge — basically an innovation project where we work on solving problems for businesses on a global scale. A huge thank you to the directors at TKS who put this all together — none of the things I’ve learnt and experienced in the last couple of weeks would have happened if it weren’t for their hard work.
The problem statement for Walmart was as follows:
"How can Walmart improve the customer experience by developing simple & scalable in-store digital touch points or experiences that further connect customers into our digital journey?”
It goes without saying that the entire process of navigating this challenge was extremely difficult at certain points—but the end result of these new learnings & skills makes it all worth it.
My biggest takeaway from my experience of working on innovating in the retail industry:
Concentrate on the problem rather than the solution! It's very easy to start developing solutions after hearing a problem statement without taking into account what the company is actually asking of you. I’m here to tell you — understand the problem FIRST!
Look at the difference between this…
"How can Walmart improve the customer experience by developing simple & scalable in-store digital touch points or experiences that further connect customers into our digital journey?”
and this…
"How can Walmart improve the customer experience by developing simple & scalable in-store digital touch points or experiences that further connect customers into our digital journey?”
By breaking down the problem statement and identifying the key words present, it’s much easier to conceptualize and you can understand what direction you’ll take to approach the problem. This is applicable to any situation in the real world where you have to solve a problem, not just challenges.
Our final recommendation consisted of frontend and backend digital touch points throughout the customer's journey to create a seamless in-store experience with personalized incentives, time-efficient visits, and an emphasis on community engagement.
It can be broken down into 3 different solutions:
App Enhancements - An ‘omni-channel’ profile that customers can shop under, which interconnects the online and physical in-store shopping activity of a customer into one seamless, personalized experience in-store
SparkYourRecipe - An interactive recipe shelf integrated with a new community engagement tab on Walmart’s app which develops community engagement and customer satisfaction in Walmart
LineBuster - A queue management system that makes it possible for Walmart to operate 1 on 1 cashier experiences while maintaining high profit margins and a great customer experience
Check out our recommendation deck below for a full overview on the solutions we presented!
Thank you to Lynn Jennifer Kulli, Najeeb Khan and Sophia Story for taking time out of their busy days to meet with us and provide us with some of their insights and experiences from working in their respective industries.
A big shoutout to Vinaya, Tanvi, Zara and Krish for being the best team to work with. From all of our late night laughs to 5am morning work-sessions, this entire experience was extremely memorable and will forever hold a place in my heart.
Developing My Passion — a Quantum Update ⚛️
Around 2 months ago, I made the decision to start learning more about the quantum computing and building within the space. What I wasn’t prepared for was the difficulty that would come with self-learning university-level math and physics concepts. I ended up reaching a point where I had no motivation to dedicate my time to learning and was second-guessing my decision of going down this path.
“If you understand what you’re doing, you’re not learning anything.” — Abraham Lincoln
Over the last month, I’ve gotten to internalize the fact that passions are discovered developed. It turns out my lack of passion wasn’t because it didn’t align with my interests — but rather my belief that I’ll understand everything in one-go… which is definitely not the case. Investing time into tackling those challenges is a part of the entire process of learning and there’s no shortcuts to ‘hack’ the system in the real world.
I just finished a 3-part project where I implemented Grover’s Algorithm on IBM’s Qiskit to quadratically speed up the process of searching through unstructured data. Check out my article, video and code to learn more about how we can optimize database searching! 👀🔎
Learning (and working on those challenges along the way👀) about how to implement Grover’s algorithm to improve our searching process helped to bring back the momentum that I had lost and I’m extremely excited to continue building (which means you should totally subscribe & stay tuned for January for more quantum computing content!)
Closing the Chapter of 2022 🥂
“Year’s end is neither an end nor a beginning but a going on, with all the wisdom that experience can instill in us.” — Hal Borland
We do hundreds of things every single day — that’s 365 of days full of many different experiences and activities. Understanding the intentions behind the actions you take every single day is important to creating the life you want and that requires a conscious consideration of the steps you’re taking.
Reflections are important — they give our brains an opportunity to pause amidst the chaos of our day-to-day lives and evaluate our experiences in order to identify our meaning.
As the year comes to an end, Tanvi, Vinaya and I decided to translate one of our typical subway chats into a podcast episode where we take some time to reflect on 2022 and share our key highlights and learnings along with ways to optimize our personal and professional lives for the new year.
TL;DR
Identify which opportunities hold the most value to you and align with your long-term goals! It’ll help you prioritize which activities you’re dedicating your time to in a day so you can live YOUR version of a fulfilling life. Don’t work for a title — work on things that’ll help you better yourself as a person.
Make decisions for yourself (even if they’re unconventional!) — Don’t focus on the FOMO you’re feeling if you choose to not go down the same path as everyone else. Focus on becoming more comfortable with yourself & be your own best friend. Listen to your inner voices and understand what your values are.
Put yourself in positions to get judged. It’ll help you get over that initial phase of discomfort and allows you to be one step closer to conquering your fears & being comfortable with yourself.
Set your intentions for the new year! What is that you want to work on and what actions will you take to become the best version of yourself?
A Moment of Gratitude
I wanted to take a second to thank all of you. Writing monthly newsletters has become a practice that I’ve found to be so valuable as it allows me to sit down and reflect on the positives & negatives of each month. I’m so thankful for each and every single one of you who keeps up with my progress and the supportive community I have around me. Thank you for sticking with me through 2022!
Life Updates 🫂
A collection of smaller moments from this month that I wanted to highlight!
Spent Time with Friends & Family
I made sure to prioritize breaks within this hectic month to make sure I was giving my brain a break & maintaining the relationships in my life that matter… it’s holiday season after all! Here are a couple of my favourite pictures from the month:
Created a Personal Website
I finally published a personal website that has an overview of some of the projects I’ve worked on and the content I’ve produced. It doesn’t end here though — personal branding is an iterative process so my website will continue to change and develop as improvements can be made!
More Content Favourites From This Month
Focus Toolkit: Tools to Improve Your Focus & Concentration - Huberman Lab
This podcast episode by Huberman gives a full review of science-supported strategies for entering, maintaining, and leaving a focus session.
The Mountain is You - Brianna Wiest
I read this book about how we can translate self-sabotage into self-mastery and loved it (thank you Zara for this Christmas gift<3) — check out my Twitter thread where I talk a little bit about how the concept of reaching your ‘upper limit’ stuck with me.
What’s Next — Action Items for January 🎯
Continuation of QC Projects
I’ll continue working on developing my quantum computing skills as I work on Shor’s algorithm & begin working towards Quantum Machine Learning! Stay tuned for future projects.
Meet People in the Quantum Computing Space
A priority for me next month is to continue outreach & meeting new people within the QC industry and building valuable relationships.
Focus Hackathon
Next month, I’ll be competing in another TKS Hackathon where we’ll work on tackling a problem using our technologies that we’re focusing on!
As always, any feedback you have for me is greatly appreciated! See you next month🫂
- Priyal
you are AMAZING priyal! I'm beyond excited to see what 2023 has in store for you <3
This is incredible