Dublin Students Speak At UN, Provide 15,000 Educational Books To African Schools

DUBLIN, CA — A group of Dublin High School students have founded Project Catalyst, an organization that offers free, personalized education experiences in both biotechnology and engineering. Since its founding, Project Catalyst has helped supply over $1.2 million worth of books, helped educate thousands of students through free workshops and webinars, and spoken at various UN conferences.

The group was initially founded in 2022, when students Shivansh Bansal, Raman Arora and Aditya Lagu felt there weren’t enough opportunities for STEM education outside the classroom. They created their own curriculum, and soon offered over 50 free online lessons, as well as engineering workshops at Fallon Middle School and Alameda County Library. The students curated this curriculum after studying papers on neuroplasticity, and how to help students recall information.
Through its different branches, Project Catalyst has now hosted over 65 workshops around the country, with the help of partnerships with the Georgia Institute of Technology, Johnson & Johnson, and Girls Inc. Roughly 12,000 students across the United States have taken part in Project Catalyst lessons or workshops, according to the group.

The group also partnered with UNESCO to help distribute over 15,000 copies of interactive engineering workbooks to underserved schools in Ghana and Ethiopia. UNESCO specialists estimated that the workbooks saved the schools a total of roughly $1.2 million.

They’ve also participated in several international webinars and conferences, including the World Federation of Engineering Organizations, and several United Nations conferences like the Continental Conference on Transforming Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics in Africa, UN World Education Day, Digital Learning Week 2025, and the upcoming General Conference of UNESCO. They were also one of the only high school organizations to speak at the Stanford SURGE Expo 2025.

“We believe our work at Project Catalyst was truly impactful in changing the learning experience for students around the world. Through focusing on personalized education needs, we realized we can tailor our curriculum to what certain communities need the most,” said Project Catalyst co-founder Shivanth Basal.

For more information, visit projcatalyst.com.