How Aurora seventh-graders become 2036 'Person of the Year'

In 2036, the Time magazine Person of the Year will be Trisha Desai.

In 2040, it will be Amara Saleem.

And all the way in 2048, it will be Nikhil Venkatakrishnan.

These are just predictions, of course, but they come from Granger Middle School seventh-graders by the same names, students in Carla Axt-Pilon's English language arts class at the Aurora school exploring a humanitarian way in which they will help the world.

"They've been thinking of different ways they can contribute to humanity," Axt-Pilon said. "It gives me so much hope."

With colored pencil and marker, each student carefully drew her or his face on a piece of paper the size of a magazine cover, adding a symbol or sign to represent future endeavors. The students were told to make their award-winning year at least 20 years in the future and to follow their interests and their empathy to a cause in need of advancement.

On Nikhil's magazine cover, he wore sunglasses and sported a stubbly beard, looking all the high-powered, 40-something tech executive he aims to be. Under his image, he wrote a brief headline describing his contribution to global well-being: Special Media.

"I found a way to integrate people with special needs into social media," Nikhil said.

After learning about cyberbullying in health class, Nikhil said he thought he could help by creating a networking tool to include people with special needs. The tool of his imagination has a filter that removes all content that "might hurt their feelings" and blocks out "malicious intent."

Axt-Pilon encouraged her students to model their "Person of the Year" stories on the accomplishments of someone real - comparing and contrasting, mixing fiction and nonfiction, blending it all into a piece that helped them research empathy in action.

Nikhil chose Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg.

"He found a way for people around the world to connect," Nikhil said.

Trisha based her paper on the accomplishments of someone less widely known, a blind man who helped bring Seeing Eye dogs to the U.S. from Switzerland in 1928. The late Morris Frank inspired Trisha to innovate around the idea of service dogs and how they could better assist their human partners through the use of specialized devices.

"I'm interested in how service dogs are used to communicate," Trisha said. "In the future, we'll have more advanced ways of using technology."

The project that makes her an award winner provides devices to dog and handler alike to help turn certain sounds or barks into signals for emergencies or everyday occurrences. She doesn't have a dog but would love to get one - all as part of her research for the pioneering system she plans to develop by her early 30s.

"This is the coolest project I do," Axt-Pilon said. "I love the specific details that they put in the stories."

Amara based her idea on a bit of real-life experience shadowing her father at work. Her father and uncle both are doctors, and they inspired her desire to become a globe-trotting neonatologist.

"I created a foundation," Amara said. "It helps babies."

Not just any babies, she says, but babies born in countries where they're more likely to be premature, sick or unable to see a doctor. The Seeds of Hope Relief Foundation that Amara aims to found provides free care for infants and education for their caregivers about how to provide a healthy start.

Classmates of these future award-winners also appointed themselves groundbreaking cancer researchers, the president of the United States, a Special Olympics volleyball leader, a homeless services crusader, an education planner and the person on the cusp of eliminating all bullying.

Lofty goals, all, providing further reason for Axt-Pilon to continue the project. She realized she's been assigning it to her classes in Indian Prairie Unit District 204 for 20 years because the laminated covers she uses as examples feature students of the past predicting themselves as the 2016 winner.

The assignment is the same each year, just as the award the magazine has been giving since 1927, and so is Axt-Pilon's overarching goal for her students: "You've got to have a good story to back that up," she says.

In other words, her advice to each future "Person of the Year" is not just to come up with something amazing, but to research it, understand it, describe it well and do it. Then keep at it and watch the awards file in.