When you were in high school, did you make mostly B’s and have nothing under your yearbook photo but your name? If so, get ready to meet your opposite—because Sachchit Balamurugan has already racked up several lifetimes of achievement. And he’s not even a senior yet.

Sachchit, an incoming Little Elm senior at Texas Online Preparatory School (TOPS), a tuition-free online public school that serves students in grades K-12 across Texas, is in the middle of a trip across the world thanks to his latest achievement. 

Last Friday, he flew from DFW Airport to Tokyo, Japan, to present an AI-powered early cancer detection tool at the prestigious International Young Researchers’ Conference at the University of Tokyo. He’ll be presenting the AI tool and his related research at the conference this Saturday.

Sachchit posing with a presentation board on his cancer detection tool.

The AI model he developed combines MRI imaging, transcriptomic data, convolutional neural networks (CNNs), and interpretable AI to enhance diagnosis of adrenocortical carcinoma (ACC).

Think that’s impressive enough for one teen? Just wait—there’s lots more.

Inspired by his grandfather’s cancer battle 

ACC—the cancer Sachchit’s AI tool aims to detect—wasn’t chosen by random. He was inspired to create it when his own grandfather died after battling the disease.

“My grandfather lit up every room with his booming laugh and boundless energy,” Sachchit told Dallas Innovates. “His loss gave me purpose and pushed me to work toward saving others from the same fate,”

“Motivated by his legacy, I spent months collecting rare MRI data and developed AI models to detect adrenocortical carcinoma early,” he said. “My models achieved over 90% accuracy and strong AUC scores, showing real potential to assist radiologists.”

As he developed his models, he overcame issues with overfitting by using data augmentation and transfer learning. The real challenge came from the genetic side: figuring out how to analyze complex gene expression data without having a background in bioinformatics.

“I spent months learning new tools, cleaning datasets, and running tests,” he said. “Since it was genetic data, I had to find a way to develop a model that could check for key things to predict the cancer through it and discover the top biomarkers used in the classification of the cancer. Despite the setbacks, that process led me to discover a novel potential biomarker for ACC, making all the struggles worth it.”

After presenting his AI tool at science fairs and conferences—and earning recognition as a global finalist at the RISE Challenge—Sachchit was invited to speak at the conference in Japan this week.

Sachchit pitching his PandaByte gamified coding instruction app in Frisco.

His (very) next stop: a conference in L.A.

After his presentation in Tokyo, Sachchit will earn more air miles. He’s flying directly from Tokyo to Los Angeles for the Future Business Leaders of America National Conference and state officer training.

His other achievements? While taking dual credit courses and many AP courses at TOPS—along with countless hours of tennis competition—Sachchit has leveraged the flexibility of online learning to pursue a long list of tech endeavors.

“The main reason I switched to [TOPS] is because I play tennis full time, and learning online gives me the flexibility to do tennis, school, robotics, start initiatives, and all of my competitions as well as extracurricular activities,” he said.

The results are in. He won first place at the 2025 Business Professionals of America National Leadership Conference for his mobile fitness app SoulSync Fitness, as seen in the photo at the top of this story.

He was a semi-finalist for America’s Top Young Entrepreneur at the 2025 Young Entrepreneurs Academy National Competition for creating PandaByte, an app that teaches coding through a gamified approach. You can see him pitch it—while wearing a panda hat—on this YouTube video. He’s the CEO of PandaByte’s “upcoming business,” by the way.

As a sophomore, he placed in the Top 10 for computer modeling and user experience at the 2023-2024 BPA National Leadership Conference for his 3D-modeled home design for disabled veterans and more. 

As a sophomore, Sachchit Balamurugan placed in the top 10 for computer modeling at the 2023-2024 BPA National Leadership Conference. [Photo via Sachchit Balamurugan]

Sachchit’s team at the 2025 FIRST Robotics Competition advanced to the World Championships, placing 27th out of 3,690 teams.

At the 2024 NASA Space App Challenge, he earned the People’s Choice Award and was selected as a global nominee for his work in innovation and problem-solving in tackling climate change.

This summer, he snagged a full-time internship at State Farm as a software data infrastructure engineer. He also serves as the first-ever Future Business Leaders of America (FBLA) state officer (State Vice President) from his school. And he started a new club at his school called UNA-USA, where students focus on service projects aligned with the UN Sustainable Development Goals. 

Sachchit was a national semifinalist this year for America’s Top Young Entrepreneur.

This year, Sachchit also took part in the Young Entrepreneurs Academy and was a semi-finalist in a national competition for the title of America’s Top Young Entrepreneur.

He also started his own International Toastmasters Gavel Club, where he teach members public speaking. “A lot of people in my community struggle with nervousness and confidence in public speaking, so in order to tackle that problem I created this club to help members attain these skills,” he said. “I also helped them earn leadership certifications.”

But the initiative that’s most important to him is his nonprofit, Youth Opportunities in Tech Innovation (YOTI). “YOTI helps students learn computer science and gives the opportunity to work on real projects from clients,” he said. “We make free websites and apps for businesses and nonprofits and the students get to work on these projects to get real world experience.”

YOTI’s biggest project to date was for Project Surya, an international organization that raises money for children with Type 1 diabetes living in India.

Oh—and did we mention Sachchit is an Eagle Scout? Somehow amid all this, Sachchit found the time to earn a whole sash-load of merit badges, too:

You may not be surprised to learn that Sachchit is an Eagle Scout, too. [Photo via Sachchit Balamurugan]

“What I’ve come to realize is that I genuinely love research—both the kind that solves real-world problems and the kind that explores the unknown,” Sachchit said. 

His work on the ACC cancer detection tool combined his passion for healthcare and technology.

On the other hand, his research at Southern Methodist University, where he explored whether 2,4,6-Triaminopyrimidine could be an RNA ancestor using quantum chemistry simulations, “opened my eyes to the power of fundamental science,” he said.

So what’s next? 

“I’m looking ahead,” Sachchit said, with plans to continue his cancer research.

“I’m passionate about the intersection of AI and healthcare, and I hope to launch a startup in that space,” he said. 

During his full-time internship this summer at State Farm, he’s developing his skills in AWS, Lamda, Opentofu, Python, AI, and creating an infrastructure.

“Along the way, I want to grow my business skills and surround myself with like-minded innovators—ideally at institutions like MIT, Caltech, or Carnegie Mellon,” he said. “My long-term goal is to collaborate with brilliant minds and build technologies that reshape how we approach health and healing.”

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