Cherivirala Wins Second Google Code-In Grand Prize

SUGAR LAND: Sushain Cherivirala, 17, a Senior at Dulles High School’s Math and Science Academy has just last week won a grand prize from Google’s annual Code-In international programming competition that encourages collaboration with free/open-source software organizations. Sushain was one of 24 Grand Prize Winners worldwide, out of which 4 were from the US and a total of six were of Indian heritage or from India. This was the second consecutive year that Sushain has won this Google competition.

During each seven week contest, Sushain worked with software developers from around the world, who form Apertium, a machine translation organization. It develops everything from its new website that receives hundreds of thousands of hits to improvements on the organization’s chat bot. In the past, Sushain has placed third from over 4,500 students in IBM’s international initiative to encourage university students to familiarize themselves with z/OS, IBM’s enterprise computing solution, over the course of three months.

Aside from competition, he teaches at his former middle school’s competition math club, has founded a Computer Science club at his former elementary school, conducts classes at a local tutoring center, instructs weekly at the local senior center on everyday computer usage and coordinates TMSCA competitions at local schools. At his high school, he serves as the Co-President of the Academy Executive Student Council and President of Dulles’ Mu Alpha Theta, National Math Honor Society, chapter in addition to being an inducted member of National Honor Society and Spanish National Honor Society.

Sushain is the eldest son of Anuradha and Dr. Ramesh Cherivirala, an insurance agent and a long-time community activist and past president of the India Culture Center and the Indo American Charity Foundation. They have a younger daughter, Spoorthi, 12 who studies in 7th grade at Quail Valley Middle School’s Gifted & Talented academy.