Meet Yogya Kalra, Executive Director of the CVT

Yogya Kalra, a high school sophomore at Central Peel Secondary School in Ontario, currently serves as the Executive Director of the Coronavirus Visualization Team. His responsibilities currently involve:

• Helping to overlook the core leadership team of CVT (both internal and external operations)
• Directing the onboarding process
• Managing the overall logistics of CVT initiatives

After joining in late March of 2020, Kalra praises the invaluable experience he has gained while working for the CVT. Not only has it enhanced his ability to do quality research, which had always been lacking in his schooling education, but it has also provided him with the resources and mentorship to learn in a challenging yet welcoming environment.

However, his favorite part of the CVT has been the people he has met in this community.

“Over the past year, I have grown so much as a person, but my favourite part about this whole experience has been the connections and relationships I have made,” notes Kalra. “The people I talk with regularly now would have seemed crazy to me when I first started.”

This was one of the main driving factors that influenced Kalra’s decision to join the CVT. As a platform that encompassed research, university students, and a community from all over the world, the CVT was a perfect way for him to fill up his spare quarantine time.

When he’s not working on CVT projects, Kalra serves as an innovator at The Knowledge Society, a global innovation program designed for students who want to maximize their potential and make substantial impacts on the world’s biggest problems. As someone who is extremely passionate about change and possesses a wide array of skillsets, The Knowledge Society is another great space to grow his intellectual pursuits.

Of course, Kalra has several guilty pleasures he has turned to over the quarantine period. He attributes his favorite to spending nights in his bed, under the blanket, and watching movies and TV shows on Netflix. “It is a peace like no other,” he remarks, “and really helps me stray away from all that is happening with quarantine.”

Amidst the chaos of the outside world, the busyness of his high school schedule, and the demands of his leadership responsibilities, Kalra’s experiences in and out of the CVT (as well as his guilty pleasures!) have helped him navigate through the COVID-19 pandemic.

Feel free to reach out to him at: yogyakalra@gmail.com