Maya Sharma

ii — Mind What's behind the work

I've never not
been a builder.

My brother got his first iPad when I was two. He never really got it back. By the time I was five I was treating Microsoft Scratch like a toy — drag a block, watch a sprite move, drag another, see what broke. Floor puzzles every birthday, until I aged out of them. I think I've always been a kid who learns by taking pieces apart and putting them back together — code, sprites, ideas, all of it.

The ventures on the rest of this page — HAAL, the American Music Academy, AstroThink — I built each one as a hobby I'd happily lose myself in for weeks at a stretch. Plenty of them broke. When something I'd built collapsed, I'd start again from scratch the next afternoon. Sitting down to rebuild never really felt overwhelming — it was just the next part of the project.

Outside of building, I read non-fiction almost exclusively — biographies most of all. My mom has to ask me to put the news app down to go study, which is, depending on the week, either funny or a problem. I'm loud about laws that haven't kept up with the present, especially the ones with gender bias built into them. I'd rather be argued out of an opinion than left holding it for the wrong reason.

What I have the least patience for is ambiguity in someone's intent — when a person can't or won't say what they actually mean. I'd take a blunt sentence over a polished, unreadable one every time. Last spring I had a calculus exam the next morning, and the rest of my AstroThink team was out the day we'd planned to recruit. I set up the booth alone at a middle school anyway — the truth is, standing at a folding table and pitching a program I'd built to passing families is the part I love most about running anything.

Apps, programs, businesses, puzzles, sentences, an argument over dinner that won't end — none of it feels like work to me, which is probably the only thing about myself I'd say with full confidence.

iii — The Work Ventures & programs

Things I've built
and run.

Flagship · Shipped Maya at the U.S. Capitol with HAAL banner

01

HAAL — a quiet place for teens who aren't okay.

Founder & Builder · Live on iOS + Web · haalapp.com

HAAL began with two observations. First, my grandmother — who has lived with bipolar disorder my whole life — and the way her diagnosis was named in our family but rarely talked about. Second, the bathrooms at school the year we came back from COVID, where classmates were quietly crying between periods.

HAAL is the app I wished those friends had: low-pressure mood check-ins, journaling prompts that don't feel clinical, and a space designed for teens to admit they aren't fine without performing it. HAAL is live on the web at haalapp.com and on the iOS App Store — and distributed to the teens it's meant for through Sanjeevani and 360 Degree Youth Services, both of which include HAAL in their adolescent-wellness newsletters.

In December 2023, when I was a freshman, Rep. Lauren Underwood — whose office runs the Congressional App Challenge in IL-14 — came to Neuqua Valley to surprise me in class. She handed me the certificate in front of the whole room.

LiveiOS App Store + Web

NationalCongressional App Challenge winner

$1,000Rethink Citizens grant

2 orgsSanjeevani & 360 Youth newsletter distribution

TEDxBolingbrook Youth, Sophomore

Program Lead · Ongoing Maya at App Incubation event

02

App Incubation — three middle-schoolers, building real apps.

Program Lead · A program I run within FlyingMinds, our family's edtech

App Incubation is the program I designed and now run. I work one-on-one with three middle-schoolers, taking each one through problem statement, a real user interview, wireframe, and a working prototype. I run the sessions, I assign the homework, I give the feedback, I see them through to a shipped build.

It's the same arc I walked when I was building HAAL, taught back to the next class. Watching a kid go from "I don't know how" to shipping their first build never stops feeling like a magic trick. The platform — FlyingMinds — is our family's edtech; the curriculum and the students are mine.

Program Lead Maya with award plaque

03

AstroThink — eighty kids, building.

Program Lead · A program I built within FlyingMinds

AstroThink is a curiosity-first program I designed and lead — last year it served around eighty students from across the area. I'm responsible for the program experience, the recruitment, and the community presence, which means I'm the one cold-calling parents who've never heard of us, designing the booth at school events, and personally walking up to families to talk about what we do.

Marketing a program for kids is half craft, half conviction. I like both halves — and I like that the work is unglamorous: the parent who needs three calls before they say yes, the booth that didn't get set up right the first time.

Cross-border · Past Music venture

04

American Music Academy — across two countries.

Founder · Bridged U.S. teachers with students in India

Music has been my second language since I was seven, and at one point I built a small academy that connected three teachers in the United States with students learning in India over video. We taught Western Classical and choir technique, on schedules that made the time-zone math a daily exercise.

It's no longer running, but the experience of building something across two countries — and across two musical traditions — taught me more than any class on entrepreneurship could have.

v — The Stage TEDx · Public Speaking

On stage,
at fifteen.

TEDx Bolingbrook Youth · 2024

"My grandmother lived with something nobody named. My classmates lived with something nobody asked them about. I built HAAL for both of them."

As a sophomore, I gave a TEDx talk titled Mental Health and Culture — about HAAL, about my grandmother, and about the silence around adolescent wellbeing in immigrant families. This year I'm on the administrative team for TEDx Bolingbrook Youth, helping put the next class of speakers on stage.

Talk

Mental Health & Culture

Year

Sophomore · 2024

This year

TEDx Admin Team

vii — Voice Music & performance

Trained across
two traditions.

I have been studying Hindustani Classical since I was seven, and Western Classical alongside it for almost as long. The two traditions sit differently in the body — and learning both has taught me that voices, like ideas, get richer when they're held in more than one tongue.

Hindustani Classical

Trained since age seven · Bollywood & Hindi repertoire

Western Classical

Concert technique, jazz & opera

Choir & Ensemble

Varsity Choir · A Cappella · Wildcats · "Every Seat Turned" Voice audition, Neuqua Choir 2023–24

ILMEA Jazz Fest

Selected for Illinois Music Educators Association District Jazz Festival · 2023

Piano

Level 11 · Illinois Music Certification

The Voice — Every Seat Turned! certificate, Neuqua Valley High School Choir 2023–24

Listen — YouTube

@mayasharma48

A quiet public archive of singing — Hindustani & Western, year by year, since I was small.

Watch →

ix — Awards Teacher-nominated, three years running

Three years.
Three different teachers.
Same handwriting at the bottom.

Each spring at Neuqua, certain teachers can nominate one student in their classroom for an end-of-year award. I've been on the receiving end of one each year of high school so far — from three different teachers, in three different subjects. They wrote the citations themselves; the words below are theirs, not mine.

Maya holding the Leadership Award certificate beside the Neuqua Valley banner — At the Neuqua Valley banner, holding one of the three.

2024 · Freshman

Leadership Award

Nominated by Mr. Polanski · AP Human Geography

"You have done a great job this year in AP Human Geography. You have very thoughtful insights and this adds to the atmosphere of our class."

2025 · Sophomore

Leadership Award

Nominated by Mrs. Ryder

"Your interest in current events and willingness to explain your perceptions stand out. You exhibit a desire to excel and think deeply about a lot of issues the world faces. Your commitment to excellence has been noticed, especially in trials."

Service and Civics Award certificate — Mr. Rossi, April 28, 2026

2026 · Junior

Service & Civics Award

Nominated by Mr. Rossi

"Like many of your peers, Maya, you are an excellent student. However, unlike many, you are also driven by a sense of civic responsibility… You don't receive extra credit for this; instead, you get extra work and broad indifference. But it makes you extraordinary."

xi — Beginnings Where the building started

Cold-calling, since
elementary school.

I founded the Puzzle Club at my elementary school. Then, because the club needed a guest speaker, I wrote to Joel Falgiano — a puzzle maker I admired — and asked if he'd come talk to a room of kids. He said yes.

That's the original version of every venture I've built since: notice a thing that should exist, make a small space for it, then ask politely until someone interesting shows up to fill it.

Music started even earlier — Hindustani Classical at seven. Building started, apparently, at nine.

Young Maya meeting Joel Falgiano on a New York street at night — With *Joel Falgiano* — the first adult to say *yes* to a kid with a cold-email.

Before all this

xiii — Connect

Say hello.

maayusharma@gmail.com

HAAL YouTube Wordpress LinkedIn The Echo Thoughtful India

Maya
Sharma

A builder
who tells stories.

I've never not
been a builder.

Things I've built
and run.

HAAL — a quiet place for teens who aren't okay.

App Incubation — three middle-schoolers, building real apps.

AstroThink — eighty kids, building.

American Music Academy — across two countries.

A few things people
were kind enough to notice.

On stage,
at fifteen.

I write things
and edit them.

Trained across
two traditions.

In rooms where
young people need rooms.

360 Degree Youth Services

One sophomore summer

National Merit, and three years of teacher nominations

Seven advanced courses

Three years.
Three different teachers.
Same handwriting at the bottom.

What people who've
watched her grow up
have said.

Cold-calling, since
elementary school.

When I'm not
building, I'm somewhere.

Say hello.

MayaSharma

A builderwho tells stories.

I've never notbeen a builder.

Things I've builtand run.

HAAL — a quiet place for teens who aren't okay.

App Incubation — three middle-schoolers, building real apps.

AstroThink — eighty kids, building.

American Music Academy — across two countries.

A few things peoplewere kind enough to notice.

On stage,at fifteen.

I write thingsand edit them.

Trained acrosstwo traditions.

In rooms whereyoung people need rooms.

360 Degree Youth Services

One sophomore summer

National Merit, and three years of teacher nominations

Seven advanced courses

Three years.Three different teachers.Same handwriting at the bottom.

What people who'vewatched her grow uphave said.

Cold-calling, sinceelementary school.

When I'm notbuilding, I'm somewhere.

Say hello.

Maya
Sharma

A builder
who tells stories.

I've never not
been a builder.

Things I've built
and run.

A few things people
were kind enough to notice.

On stage,
at fifteen.

I write things
and edit them.

Trained across
two traditions.

In rooms where
young people need rooms.

Three years.
Three different teachers.
Same handwriting at the bottom.

What people who've
watched her grow up
have said.

Cold-calling, since
elementary school.

When I'm not
building, I'm somewhere.