New USask Schulich leaders excel in the classroom and the community

Sahas Mittal and Rowan Redekopp were selected to receive one of the country’s premier scholarships for their exceptional achievements in academics and leadership in their communities. Through The Schulich Foundation, entrance scholarships are awarded annually to 100 high school graduates enrolled in a science, technology, engineering, or mathematics (STEM) undergraduate program at 20 partner universities in Canada, including USask.

Mittal, a graduate of Carlton Comprehensive High School in Prince Albert is a recipient of the $120,000 Schulich Leader Scholarship and will be entering the College of Engineering at USask this fall. Mittal maintained an average of 99 percent through his last three years of high school – despite financial and resource barriers, largely due to his family immigrating to Canada from India in 2017.

“My parents have had to work extremely hard to settle in a new country, and that is part of what drives me to work so hard to alleviate that financial stress off of their shoulders,” he shared, noting that the Schulich scholarship provides a huge relief. “Receiving this scholarship allows me to fully immerse myself in my studies and extra opportunities without the constant worry about finances.”

Mittal worked part-time throughout school, which meant sacrificing time spent on studies, sports and clubs. However, he still found time to successfully earn his glider pilot license through the Air Cadet program and fill leadership positions within the cadet program, as well as reinstate the robotics club at his school, which is where his true passion lies. He also led the Skills Canada Robotics team at his high school.

“The area of robotics is something I’ve pursued since Grade 9, working on many diverse projects and gaining a lot of knowledge and experience along the way. Within robotics, I have done extensive research and development in autonomous tasks and 3D design.”

Currently, he is working on an ambitious project to design a convenient and cheap modification for a basic wheelchair to make it autonomous and electric. He hopes to push the frontier in the autonomous technology and robotics space that is accessible to everyone.

Meanwhile, Redekopp is a recipient of the $100,000 Schulich Leader Scholarship. A graduate of Martensville High School, Redekopp will be entering computer science this fall. While maintaining a 99 percent average throughout high school, Redekopp pushed himself to learn about topics of interest through online courses, including clean energy generation, business, finance, and computer programming. In addition to Redekopp’s academic tenacity, he ran a small peer tutoring program mainly for science-based classes.

“For more challenging classes, I made myself practice quizzes and tests to help me study. I then made these open source for the next group of students to use in an online program I invented called QuizVault (with permission from my teachers, of course),” shared Redekopp.

Redekopp was involved in multiple school initiatives, demonstrating technological creativity. Throughout this time, he made multiple enhancements for the betterment of the community. Some of these developments include a real-time dashboard program for monitoring inventory for the high school’s local food drive, an application for triggering sound cues during school plays and musicals, and an automated attendance system and an event sorter for track and field coaches.

“I will be eternally grateful and will be working diligently to make the most of this opportunity,” he said.

“We are proud to celebrate the continued success of Schulich Leader Scholarships, the premiere STEM scholarship program in Canada,” explained program founder Seymour Schulich. “This group of outstanding students will represent the best and brightest Canada has to offer and will make great contributions to society, both on a national and global scale. With their university expenses covered, they can focus their time on their studies, research projects, extracurriculars, and entrepreneurial ventures. They are the next generation of entrepreneurial-minded, technology innovators.”