This blog is about the Min Family Social Entrepreneurship Challenge, but stick with me through the antidote.
Yes! Engineering can help social issues too. When I went into engineering I thought I wanted it because I wanted to help people. I wanted to solved problems that meant something to me. I know what you’re thinking, aerospace engineering? Yeah, I slowly grew out of loving engineering fasteners and engines, but fell in love with materials, and small technologies that can change underprivileged communities and I wouldn’t have learned of these things if I didn’t study aerospace engineering, so I’m sticking with it!
My friend Adam and I started on this journey of helping people through engineering with engineering through the Min Family Social Entrepreneurship Challenge. We saw the winners at last years Viterbi Gala and the impact they were making and knew we had to be them this year.
Last years applicants:
All my friends know this about me, but over blogs it’s probably hard to tell, but I’m super open about anything that grosses other people out so sorry if this does, but our Min Family Project has to do with Homeless women’s periods. If you don’t know the struggle homeless women go through, then watch this:
Our project engineered a menstrual cup designed for the needs of homeless women. For those not familiar with a menstrual cup, they’re awesome! Honestly, if you have questions email me, bstearns@usc.edu, but it’s a one time purchase, reusable menstrual cup that you can leave in for 12 hours and use for up to 15 years. YES! No buying tampons or pads for 15 years!! So immediately we wanted to help homeless women with this awesome concept. Our cup is made for the everyday woman, but with a social benefit. For every cup you buy, we donate one to a homeless women.
The Min Family Challenge is keeping our dreams alive of helping women through engineering. The process starts by submitting an application with a description of your project. They said over 50 teams applied and only 7 made it to the next round, where we are now. The rest of the competition is made up of customer discovery where we interview potential customers to find our market.
It’s so far been an incredible experience and I can’t wait to see where it takes me.
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