Nothing awakens a person more profoundly than a close encounter with death. I was fourteen when a truck veered into our lane and shattered my world. The air filled with the screech of metal and my mother’s scream. Her blood soaked the seat. Her hand squeezed mine as the ambulance doors closed. In the blur of hospitals and rehab, one thought haunted me: What if I could make sure no one else has to live this nightmare? That thought became my life goal—to engineer safety into the world. With my grandfather, I developed a crash-energy absorption system that deploys beneath vehicles to reduce impact. We earned a patent (IN202121045976), ran thousands of simulations, and presented the system to Mahindra’s R&D team. This instinct to turn pain into solutions now fuels everything I do. Since the accident I’ve published three patents, co-authored a paper accepted at IEEE IATMSI-2025 on AI-driven fruit detection for agricultural robotics, and won the Climate Science “Chance to Impact” contest out of 9,000+ participants. I was ranked All India Rank 9 in the ICSE board exams and recognized as a world topper in four subjects, including Mathematics and Technical Drawing. I lead my school’s robotics club, founded Fun With Science, a nonprofit that distributed 200+ science kits to rural schools, and tutor math and science weekly. I document all of my engineering projects - including code, testing, and outcomes - on my blog: https://neilblog4.wordpress.com. Nothing awakens a person more profoundly than a close encounter with death. But I believe it’s what you build after that defines you.