It is hard to condense Bigyan into a snapshot, but I will definitely try. He seems to have a list of successes as long as the road to Kathmandu and I had heard his name mentioned many times before I met him, both from the staff at Pestalozzi and the students. All had nothing but positive things to say about him.

Bigyan grew up in Gorkha, Nepal and attended the prestigious Gandaki Boarding School before continuing his studies in the UK as a Pestalozzi Scholar.

In 2016 he was accepted into Duke University, where he is currently in his senior year majoring in Economics. More impressively than this, he is the founder of a mentoring programme called Bull City Scholars, where he helped to set up a programme that tutors middle school students from low income backgrounds, assisting with college applications and also acting as a role model. Alongside this, he was also in Berlin earlier this year, taking classes in energy transition in the EU and also a class in Film. Finally, with so many strings to his bow, he is the Ted X Duke Vice President.

Bigyan took a gap semester from mid-December 2018 to mid-May 2019. During this time he hosted a conference in Malaysia, moderating a session with Asian Pacific diplomats.

He also went back to Nepal to work with different ministries and meet with politicians. As well as this, he started a company in Pokhara that helps students to connect to professionals in their field of interest. The organisation is called ‘Mero Dream’ and he works to bring people such as doctors, police and accountants to different schools to give talks at events and inspire students. He then spent time at Oxford over the summer 2019, taking a class on the Political Economy of Immigration.

When I asked about his experiences at Pestalozzi, he told me, ‘When I was back in Nepal I always knew I wanted to go into social sciences but this just wasn’t an option. Pestalozzi gave me the opportunity to branch out into my unexplored interests. Being in a multicultural space also benefitted me richly because it encouraged me to question myself and reconstruct some of his beliefs’.

With regards to his career after university, Bigyan hopes to work within the political field in Nepal, with a focus in policy making. ‘My goal is to gain significant executive power within politics to drive Nepal’s economic transformation’.

My only want for my time with Bigyan is that I wish it could have been longer. I truly feel that my time with him only scratched the surface of someone who is destined to do something remarkable.

Surely enough, a few days after I met with him I saw a photo of him with the Indian ambassador for the USA. I wasn’t surprised at all. As cliché as it may sound, in my mind and in several years to come, there will be a small Nepalese boy just as excited at the prospect of meeting Bigyan for whatever he has gone on to achieve.