Fascinated with chemistry since childhood, Heman Bekele’s invention won him a $25,000 youth science prize and TIME Magazine’s 2024 Kid of the Year.
By Jennifer Porter Gore, Word In Black
Photo, A lifelong science aficionado at just 14, Heman Bukele won TIME Magazine’s Kid of the Year for developing a promising treatment for skin cancer. Credit: TIME Magazine
Before he was old enough to start kindergarten, Heman Bekele began using dishwashing liquid and other household chemicals to see what concoctions he could whip up.
At age 7, Heman’s parents gave him a chemistry set for his birthday — and things got a bit more serious. He’d already started learning about chemical reactions online, so he got inventive and mixed the kit’s sodium hydroxide with aluminum to produce heat.
“I thought that this could be a solution to energy, to making an unlimited supply,” he told TIME magazine.
His curiosity and desire to make the world a better place through chemistry resulted in a first-place finish in the 3M Company’s 2023 Young Scientist Challenge — and made him the winner of TIME magazine’s 2024 Kid of the Year. The rising 10th grader created a compound-based soap to treat skin cancer.
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