About
Creativity before capital.
How a teenage volunteer became a founder, engineer, and advocate, and what she learned along the way.
The origin
As a teenager, I volunteered at juvenile centers and federal prisons. I watched kids who had never touched a circuit board light up with excitement when we handed them one. I saw potential wasted, not because it wasn't there, but because no one had given them the time nor resources.
So at 13, I founded Juvie for STEM. Not waiting for funding or a large support system. Simply the belief that education belongs everywhere, and the resourcefulness to make it happen.
Today that work reaches beyond the classroom. Outside of the classroom, I'm advocating for carceral employee and inmate safety, and education equality, fighting for enforceable safety standards for everyone in the justice system.
“Schools should teach students how to think, not what to think.”
For fellow founders
What six years of building from zero taught me.
Resilience
When funding fell through and partnerships stalled, I kept showing up at detention centers. Consistency builds trust faster than any grant.
Empathy
The best programs came from really listening to what incarcerated youth actually needed, not what I assumed they needed.
Resourcefulness
Creativity before capital. We turned cardboard into circuit boards, volunteers into teachers, and a high school idea into a national movement.
“Always have an opinion. Society pushes us to conform and lose ourselves, but it's opinions, and the actions behind them, that create change.” Emily Cho