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  • Escaping the Ordinary in the Classroom

    Escaping the Ordinary in the Classroom

    Grant Kightlinger and Molly Grace, co-creators of the “FairPlay Challenge.” This innovative education curriculum uses an escape room model to engage students in important life lessons. Many of us have had that experience in school of feeling trapped in a boring lesson about a topic that didn’t seem to have any relevance to our lives.…

  • Transforming the Game with Invention

    Transforming the Game with Invention

    Shawn Springs, CEO of Windpact. This former athlete turned entrepreneur and inventor is creating new sports technology to improve player safety. Who can be an inventor? A dynamic new exhibit at the Smithsonian’s Lemelson Center for the Study of Invention and Innovation is posing that question through a unique lens, andMore

  • Recharging the Electric Vehicle Industry

    Recharging the Electric Vehicle Industry

    Siblings Steven (left) and Zora Chung (right) co-founded technology company ReJoule. This sustainable startup is building a circular economy for EV batteries from the ground up How do you make a critically important sustainable industry even more sustainable? For electric vehicles, one of the challenges is the sustainable source itself — the lithium-ion battery. Although…

  • Achieving that Lightbulb Moment

    Achieving that Lightbulb Moment

    How two high school inventors created a flashlight to help light the way for their community’s first responders

  • From Waste to Wattage

    From Waste to Wattage

    This student inventor uses an innovative renewable energy source to help monitor natural disasters.

  • This High-Schooler is Harnessing Chemistry to Combat Pollution

    This High-Schooler is Harnessing Chemistry to Combat Pollution

    An award-winning student inventor, Tarun Batchu has discovered an eco-friendly way to convert plastics into fuel.

  • How an After-School Invention Program Helped Launch a Career in Big Tech

    How an After-School Invention Program Helped Launch a Career in Big Tech

    Through Oregon MESA, engineer Thien Nguyen discovered his facility for numbers and a supportive community.  Thien Nguyen was born in Vietnam and lived there until fourth grade, when his family immigrated to the United States. At the time Thien spoke no English, yet as he adjusted to his new surroundings in Portland, Oregon, he quickly…

  • This College Inventor Is Making Medicine More Equitable

    This College Inventor Is Making Medicine More Equitable

    University of Iowa sophomore Dasia Taylor has created low-cost, infection-sensing stitches.  Inventor Dasia Taylor is one of those people who seems destined to change the world. At just 14 years old, she was consulting at Harvard on the topic of equity. Now 19, Dasia is in the process of patenting her first medical device —…

  • Meet the Woman Who is Transforming Early Breast Cancer Detection in India

    Meet the Woman Who is Transforming Early Breast Cancer Detection in India

    Through her novel thermal imaging device, Indian entrepreneur Geetha Manjunath is making breast cancer screening more accessible to more women.

  • This Former Rugby Player is Now a Game-Changing Inventor

    This Former Rugby Player is Now a Game-Changing Inventor

    Personal experience drove Jessie Garcia to create her novel head impact indicator. Identify a problem, then work to solve it. That’s the basic formula for invention, and that’s exactly how Jessie Garcia came to create the Tozuda Head Impact Indicator, a tiny tool that attaches to a helmet and signals to its wearer when a…

  • Fighting Global Infant Mortality Through Hypothermia Detection

    Fighting Global Infant Mortality Through Hypothermia Detection

    Biomechanical engineer Ratul Narain’s monitoring devices help detect hypothermia and other illnesses in underweight newborns. Every year, 20 million clinically underweight babies are born worldwide. Of these, eight million are born in India, where many parents don’t have easy access to neonatal care resources. Yet low birth weight — generally defined as less than five…

  • It’s Not Always Easy Being Green, But It Should Be

    It’s Not Always Easy Being Green, But It Should Be

    A pioneer in the field of green chemistry, John Warner talks about the successes and challenges in creating sustainable change. John Warner is, to put it mildly, passionate about his work. He is a prolific inventor holding more than 300 patents, as well as an educator and entrepreneur. He is most passionate when talking about…

  • From Plastic Surgeon-in-Training to Inventor: How a Family Tragedy Led One Latina to Improve Lung Disease Diagnosis for the World

    From Plastic Surgeon-in-Training to Inventor: How a Family Tragedy Led One Latina to Improve Lung Disease Diagnosis for the World

    Maria Artunduaga is the CEO and founder of Samay, a successful startup aimed at providing low-cost, at-home diagnostics for dangerous respiratory conditions. At age 34, Maria Artunduaga took a leap of faith. Ambitious and focused, she was studying plastic surgery — a highly competitive specialty — at University of Chicago Medicine, on track to become…