For those who turned in a volcano for your science fair project in school, the annual Time Magazine Kid of the Year may make you feel like you have not done enough in your life — while also giving you hope in the future.
Fifteen-year-old Fairfax, Virginia, student Heman Bekele was named the 2024 Kid of the Year by Time Magazine.
“It’s an incredible feeling, it’s surreal,” Bekele said. “To be honest, I haven’t even taken it in yet.”
What earned him the title and cover of the special edition of Time Magazine is his work in creating a cancer-treating soap.
“Pretty much what it is, it’s a bar of soap that’s very cheap but also very effective at treating skin cancer,” Bekele explained.
The 2024 Time Magazine Kid of the Year said the idea was to provide a cheap alternative to those who can’t afford the price of modern-day skin cancer treatments.
The motivation to fight skin cancer stems from the early years Bekele spent in Ethiopia.
“I saw so many people that were working really long hours under the hot sun,” he said. “What keeps me pushing forward is thinking back to the impact that I will be able to have on those groups of people when I one day release that bar of soap.”
The love for science is not new for Bekele. He started mixing together random household chemicals like laundry detergent and baking soda at 5 years old.
In October 2023, he was named “America’s Top Young Scientist” and won 3M’s Young Scientist Challenge for the soap he created.
On Aug. 19, Bekele will start his sophomore year at W.T. Woodson High School in Fairfax County. That will be quite different from a week ago when he was working at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
“I’ve been working alongside the Rebecca Lab to test the bar of soap on mice. It was a fun process and also very rewarding as well to see all this hard work finally start to pay off as I’m continuing to work toward acquiring FDA certification,” Bekele said.
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