Country of Residence
United States
Age
19
Project title
Generation of Innovators, Researchers, and Leaders in STEM (G.I.R.L.S.) Organization
Project Summary: Describe your project in one sentence
G.I.R.L.S. is a youth-led non-profit working with girls to break down obstacles, whether educational, financial, or safety-related, that keep them away from STEM. We have reached over 16,000 students since 2022 in 30 US states and 32 countries, providing workshops, tuition assistance, teacher training, and classroom supplies. We are also creating HavenKey, a wearable device equipped with Artificial Intelligence to detect signs of danger and notify contacts without requiring manual action.
Website URL(s) or social media handles.
Website: www.inspiregirls.net | Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/inspiregirlsofficial/
Project Category
My project is an existing project that I started
Project Stage
Scaling (We’re expanding impact to new locations or in new and innovative ways)
Founding Story: What was the spark that led you to start your project? What was the "Aha!" moment that led you to get started and see the potential for this to succeed?
I co-founded G.I.R.L.S. at the age of 15 when I realized that similar trends were happening in robotics teams, coding programs, and science competitions at Bridgewater-Raritan High School, whereby boys received the bulk of mentorship, encouragement, and opportunities. The girls who were around me were just as talented, but many didn’t know that they had any potential to pursue STEM. I recognized how much having mentors helped me gain confidence in my own abilities, and so I wanted to ensure that other people would gain that same level of confidence through mentorship. We started in September 2022 as one chapter at my school, with peer mentorship, workshops, and making educational resources available. As G.I.R.L.S. expanded, we realized there were even more barriers than we had anticipated. For instance, some of our members declined internships, competitions, and other opportunities because they did not feel safe using the public transport system alone or coming home at night. Then I had my second turning point: I came to understand that access is not just about tuition fees and resources, but about the ability to participate without worrying about one’s safety. This realization prompted me to start working on HavenKey, in tandem with expanding the educational programs being offered through G.I.R.L.S., including paying school fees and training teachers in rural India.
The Problem: What problem are you helping to solve? Why does it matter to you and your community?
The reason girls are leaving STEM fields is not related to ability. They leave because they face multiple barriers simultaneously. A student who wants to become an engineer may be attending a school that does not have the necessary STEM resources or qualified teachers. Her family may also have financial difficulties paying for school. Even when the student has a chance for an internship or competition, she may not be able to go because of fear of traveling alone or coming back late at night. We have experienced these barriers ourselves. For example, around Raipur and Bhimjori, India, school fees force families to make tough decisions as to a daughter’s education. In our chapters, girls tell us that fears about their safety affect whether they want to take advantage of opportunities outside their schools. Although these are different barriers, they can have an impact on the same student at the same time. Safety products today rely heavily on the person facing danger being able to act. They require an unlocked phone, the pressing of a button, or a spoken command. During an emergency, there may not be time for a person to use her phone, she may not be able to use her hands, or she may not be able to physically respond. The World Health Organization reported in 2025 that about one in three women experiences violence in her lifetime.
Your Solution: How are you solving this problem? Share your specific solution.
G.I.R.L.S. has tackled accessibility and safety as interconnected issues. Our accessibility initiatives encompass the Tuition Relief Fund, which provides financial assistance for tuition costs that could pose a barrier to students’ education; the Educator Empowerment Program, which trains instructors to bring STEM learning into classrooms on a systematic basis; and the Backpack to Classroom Drive, which distributes educational materials, including the three computer science books I authored. Our Coins for Futures initiative provides educational funding in the form of tuition assistance through partner schools in Raipur and Bhimjori, India. Our youth activists conduct free workshops based on age, language, and local community needs. In terms of safety, we are developing HavenKey, a wearable device that utilizes AI technology. Differing from existing technologies that require the user to either open an app or press a button, HavenKey passively detects whether an individual is in distress. The classification pipeline I developed analyzes patterns of voice biomarker data, accelerometer data, and heart rate variability. I developed this pipeline in Python to identify possible scenarios that could result in false alarms, including physical exercise, loud settings, or harmless sudden movements. If the classification system determines that the user is in distress, the device will send the user’s location to pre-determined contacts as well as emergency services by way of GSM, without requiring the cellphone, and will continue to track the location until she cancels the alert. HavenKey has not yet been tested in real-life settings. The first closed pilot will include 50 to 100 members from G.I.R.L.S., whose input will be utilized to fine-tune the engineering.
Impact: How has your project created impact / made a difference so far? Or, if at an early stage, what will impact look like?
The effect of the project is remarkable, as G.I.R.L.S. has now become a network that is led by volunteers and has reached over 16,000 students in 30 states and 32 countries since the year 2022. In addition, Coins for Futures has helped over 10,000 students in India through tuition assistance and teacher training. My STEM education books have been able to reach close to 10,000 students through various means, including classroom distribution of my books, seminars, and teacher training sessions in their respective areas. More than 100 volunteer youth leaders and a 40-member board serve to implement this project. The students not only learn in classes but also become leaders and help with other training. An instance of how this works is Sierra Leone, where students who complete our certificate program receive their certificates at a ceremony in front of their families and communities. HavenKey’s design placing in the top 3% of the 12,784 competing designs in the Blue Ocean Student Entrepreneurial Competition shows that the design can compete at a high level. I have also been admitted to the Y Combinator Startup School, from more than 30,000 applicants, to help me take HavenKey from being a design to a prototype and ultimately a real service. I was also named to the KidsRights Top 30 for the International Children’s Peace Prize, among nominees from 47 countries.
Your Innovation: What is different about your project compared to other programs or solutions already out there? How is your project new or innovative?
What differentiates G.I.R.L.S. from other educational programs is that it understands that not every student goes through the same difficulties. For instance, those in need of assistance get financial assistance through the Tuition Relief Fund, those who need increased educator capabilities get support from the Educator Empowerment Program, and those who are missing crucial resources benefit from the Backpack to Classroom Drive. For example, when a scheduled session regarding life during the time of AI happened to be beyond the comprehension of village students near Raipur, we adapted and reworded it. We also incorporate some technical projects into the curriculum. A model I created on the resiliency of the power grid during a hurricane, a national finalist in the Modeling the Future Challenge, was transformed into a lesson on the way engineers plan against climatic mishaps. The output of my white paper on gender-biased attitudes in the age of AI was also included in our teachings, which enables children to question the technology that they are using. HavenKey addresses safety, a barrier that education programs usually overlook. Most other products need a button, application, or voice command, but HavenKey creates a blend of the voice and heartbeat pattern along with the movement of a person. Both parts of our work are interrelated. The trusted community of G.I.R.L.S. works with the first pilot of HavenKey, and the participants who understand this problem are going to test the solution before we get in touch with educational institutes. HavenKey’s classification approach has also been reviewed by ROAR, a Philadelphia femtech company, and faculty members in Penn engineering departments.
How many people are on your team?
40
Your team: What role(s) do your team members play? How do you share leadership with them?
As executive director, I set the direction of G.I.R.L.S. and manage partnerships, while our board oversees finance and outreach. Our chapter leads host outreach sessions and workshops in schools across the United States and abroad, and each decides how lessons are taught in her school and language. At all of our partner schools, local teachers teach alongside members of our board. We also host speaker sessions, including ones led by engineers representing the National Academy of Engineering.
What’s Next: What are the next steps you plan to take to grow or strengthen your project over the next year? If your project is still in the idea stage, describe the steps you will take over the next three months to launch or begin developing it.
The first three months are to be spent formalizing partnerships with three to five partner schools and furthering our tuition, teacher training, and classroom resource projects to at least 2,000 additional students. We will also deploy 50 to 100 units in a closed pilot project with members of existing G.I.R.L.S. chapters. During months four to six, we will be utilizing information gathered in the labeled pilot to analyze the results and retrain HavenKey’s classification model. We have set goals of having accuracy above 90% in regard to detection and a false-positive rate below 5%; however, the pilot is aimed at seeing what the technology can do when utilized in real-world situations. If the results do not support expanded use, we will not pursue any further implementations. We will continue standardizing onboarding processes for chapters, enhance tracking of enrollment and retention, and bring our part-time program coordinator on board. The coordinator will be beneficial in management as I juggle the program along with a full-time course load at the University of Pennsylvania. The seventh to twelfth months will consist of initiating conversations with some university safety offices and NGOs, such as possible partners within the United States and India. The pilot results will aid us by allowing us to move with greater purpose, as opposed to employing projections alone.
How do you encourage other people to join your project or learn about the problem you’re working on? If you have a new idea, tell us how you will do this in the future.
Participants in our program have been encouraged to become leaders. Students who finish the G.I.R.L.S. program may volunteer, teach students younger than themselves, or start their own chapters. Youth volunteers complete workshops, mentor various participants, and provide assistance in outreach. Participants also help shape the resources we create. The initial HavenKey pilot group will consist of individuals who voiced safety concerns to begin with. The manner in which alerts are sent, the way the device is put on, and the necessary measures preceding broader use must be shaped through participant input. The individuals who will utilize the technology must be allowed to take part in the evaluation. The chapters provide education in our schools and communities. In Makeni, Sierra Leone, G.I.R.L.S. presented on electronic repair and waste recycling at Mohamed Kargbo’s Repair, Recycle, Regenerate pavilion, and as a Digital Champion for the Global Sustainable Futures Network, we make digital literacy videos for farmers. TAPinto and Patch have written about our founding. Outside of G.I.R.L.S., I was a United Nations Millennium Fellow and Campus Director at Penn, where I helped other students build their own projects for the Sustainable Development Goals.
