Riyaadh Gani (Runge 2022), one of our top-performing A Level students in 2022, organised a free glucose testing drive in Lenasia at the end of last year, which residents, especially those in informal settlements, were encouraged to attend. The event was endorsed by Gift of the Givers after Riyaadh contacted CEO Dr Imtiaz Sooliman with a proposal, and 167 people were successfully tested. Those with high blood sugar readings were referred to clinics for follow-up testing and treatment. After presenting his results to them, both Clicks and Gift of the Givers agreed to offer free testing to underprivileged communities annually.
Diabetes in South Africa is both prevalent and underdiagnosed. According to a 2022 study, two-thirds of South Africans are pre-diabetic (a condition likely to develop into type-2 diabetes without intervention), and one in five are diabetic.
Among those who have never tested for diabetes, up to 12.8% have the condition, according to the International Diabetes Federation (IDF). “Extrapolated to the population level, that indicates that millions of South Africans could be living with diabetes without knowing it, putting themselves at unnecessary risk,” says St John’s Sixth Former Riyaadh Gani, diagnosed with type-1 diabetes when he was eight years old.
“Diabetes is the second-highest cause of death in South Africa, closely following tuberculosis. But many people don’t know they have the condition until it manifests as a serious complication such as cardiovascular disease or stroke.”
Riyaadh joined St John’s College in Remove (Grade 8). After Upper IV (Grade 10), he began his A Levels, a decision he made after deciding early on what his academic direction would be. “I’d known since Grade 10 that I wanted to study maths and science, with the goal of specialising in artificial intelligence (AI),” he explains. “It, therefore, made sense to enrol in A Levels to allow me the flexibility and time to study deeply within the field.”
That flexibility allowed him to pick up additional American College Board Advanced Placement exams in computer science and statistics this year – completing the nine-month curricula in just three months and achieving perfect scores for both.
Riyaadh developed his interest in AI after beginning to read widely in Upper IV (Grade 10) and with the help of his maths teacher, Dr Stephen Sproule. “Dr Sproule was extremely supportive and sent me notes for AP matric content. He fostered my love and excitement for the subject. In a sense, AI is the future of all technology. It is likely to become a tool that will be used to progress every conceivable scientific field.”
Riyaadh has produced a research paper – currently under formal review – that compares feature engineering to the BERT machine-learning model for text classification. “The paper came out of my learning process,” he explains. “I wanted to have something tangible I could work on to mark my progress and focus my study.”
Riyaadh has applied to top universities in the US and UK, but he is careful not to plan too far ahead. “What I want to study isn’t necessarily what I want to do for the rest of my life. I consider the idea of a legacy most important – the idea that after I’m gone, I’ll leave something behind that benefits other people in some way.”
