Adja Camara continues to level up!

As a contestant on the series, The Level Up Experiment, airing on aspireTV, Camara initially had no intentions of joining the show. Still, thanks to being a Spelman College student in Atlanta, Georgia and having fate on her side, she not only answered the call to compete among other HBCU students but ultimately won the grand prize.

“Being at Spelman, I was exposed to meeting different people, like Ace [Sajed] Muhammad, whom I knew before the show,” Camara told aspireTV in an exclusive interview.

“We had a mutual friend, and his name is Ethan Lewis, and it was Ethan who called me because I was not supposed to be on the show originally,” she explained. “They were all sitting there, all the contestants were picked out, and somebody didn’t show up, so Ethan called me and was like, ‘Hey, they need one more person for this show,’ and I’m like, okay, he explained the show to me and I’m like it sounds like a business show, I’m a biology major, that’s not for me.”

As she scrolled through her list of online followers, Camara began to try to pinpoint a person who would be a great candidate for the opportunity. However, Ethan was persistent, ultimately passing the phone off to one of the producers who convinced her to give one episode a shot. 

Thanks to Camara being willing to answer the call (literally), she was part of an experience that not only changed her life, but it was almost as if it was destined for her to win, because of how everything aligned so seamlessly.

“What was really cool about winning, especially an amount of that stature, is I was a senior at the time of filming the show, and I was at risk for not graduating due to a financial hold, and the financial hold was literally like $4,900 and something dollars,” said Camara.

She added, “All of my friends were like, ‘Girl, you need to go on a trip, you need to go shopping,’ but it was like the show gave me the gift of graduating, and that was so beautiful and sentimental. I do not cry in front of people, but when I saw that check, oh my goodness, I couldn’t even stop the tears from flowing. Because it just felt like everything that i had been working towards, all of the consistency I was trying to show, not just within the show, but within college, because at this time we’re still full-time students, so we were still showing up despite having homework, despite having a test the next day, it just all felt worth it.”

After paying off her tuition, Camara felt a sense of gratitude and hope, one that she says felt like living in answered prayers. 

Today, she’s at PiNBACK with Harvard Medical School doing research for the next two years. As the winner of The Level Up Experiment, Camara also received a business trademark, which she used to launch a nonprofit, the Anchor Project, in response to the current administration’s efforts to stifle scientific voices and creativity.

“I’m not sure if anyone is aware or if you’re aware that a lot of the governmental funding that funds our research and that funds my research on Parkinson’s and Huntington’s diseases has been cut, and so it was eye opening in a way to realize that the scientific community is funded by the government so much that when it’s gone we don’t have a safety net,” said Camara.

“I just hope that the Anchor Project, this nonprofit, will also give way for other people to start their own, to be able to supplement graduate students’ stipends, supplement PI’s, provide research opportunities, and just overall be our safe space and our saving grace when something like this happens again, because that’s a possibility,” she continued.

For Camara, leveling up isn’t just about getting better, but “getting braver and choosing growth over ego.”