Hannah Myers

I started working in an indoor environmental quality lab in May of last year, and that's where I was introduced to the issues that come with mold, allergens, and other kinds of contaminants. From there, I started working on my business around July and officially started in October. I'm building a device that will capture these kinds of contaminants like mold and bacteria and give a visual indicator. Since then, we've won $80,000 in funding, and I'm currently a second-year in college. We've already built our first prototype, and now we're working to expand on it and build our first real product beyond the prototype. From there, we're going to start doing pilot testing in different businesses, and then we're going to sell eventually, starting by selling to households and then to hospitals. Our business is all women and founded by women, which is something I'm very passionate about. Throughout high school, I was very invested in being there for my community and wanted to be a voice to speak out, especially when it came to being a woman in STEM. I had a lot of rough experiences as a woman in STEM - I was the only girl in most of my STEM classes most of the time, and that was really tough. One time I was put in a group with one other guy, and the first thing he says is 'I hate women' at the top of his lungs. I just felt really alienated, and from there I decided to advocate for women in STEM. I hosted an event called STEM Girls Go to College, where we recruited a bunch of alumni who were successful in STEM, and they talked to some of the girls at the high school who were wanting to pursue STEM in their future. I then committed to OSU, and I'm a computer science and engineering student right now.