Impact Spotlights

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  • Invention Roundup: Food Systems

    Invention Roundup: Food Systems

    Three Invention-Based Companies Whose Ideas Could Lead to a Healthier Future In honor of World Food Day, we’re spotlighting inventors whose work is rooted in rethinking food systems to benefit people and the planet. Across the world, hunger is the leading cause of death. Unequal access to food and inefficient supply chains leave millions of…

  • How Building Skateboards Inspired One Young Woman to Become an Engineer, Physicist — and Prizewinning Inventor

    How Building Skateboards Inspired One Young Woman to Become an Engineer, Physicist — and Prizewinning Inventor

    From a family of Vietnamese refugees and the only girl in her college physics program, Kayla Nguyen has overcome her share of obstacles. Now she’s working to encourage other women and girls interested in science. What do skateboards, surfing, and the astronaut Sally Ride have in common? For postdoctoral researcher Kayla Nguyen, they all played…

  • Invention for All

    Invention for All

    Global challenges are stacking up around us, from new emergencies like COVID-19 to existing issues like climate change. We are already seeing dramatic repercussions for our economy, our lives and our livelihoods. In the latest article in Invention Notebook, Foundation Executive Director Carol Dahl examines the role that invention and inventors can play to help…

  • How To Keep Kids Inspired During Quarantine

    How To Keep Kids Inspired During Quarantine

    “STEM-thusiast” Nate Ball Recommends Shifting Gears and Thinking Like an Inventor As pandemic life persists, millions of parents are facing the same daily dilemma: How to keep kids engaged and inspired in a time when so much of the world is off limits. For inventor and father of two Nate Ball, the solution involves equal…

  • What Tomorrow’s Innovators Need Today

    What Tomorrow’s Innovators Need Today

    By Phil Weilerstein Phil Weilerstein is the President of VentureWell The global coronavirus crisis has served to underscore the vital role innovation now plays in our economic and social lives. In the face of this novel threat, we have come to assume and even expect rapid scientific solutions—new tests, vaccines, devices, treatments. It’s an expectation…

  • 5 Young Inventors Aim to Change the World

    5 Young Inventors Aim to Change the World

    Anyone can be an inventor. There are no restrictions on having a bright idea that can change the world. Note: This article was originally published in the Mechanical Engineering magazine at ASME. Click here to read more of ASME’s content. Hannah Herbst with President Barack Obama in front of her research for Beacon, a water energy-capturing device.…

  • Converting a Classic Car into a Zero-Carbon Ride

    Converting a Classic Car into a Zero-Carbon Ride

    This college student is tackling climate change by making eco-friendly cars more affordable.

  • During a Health Crisis, Look for the Inventors

    During a Health Crisis, Look for the Inventors

    It was a deadly pathogen that turned Jason Kang and his friends into inventors. But it’s not the one you’re thinking of. In 2014, Ebola was ravaging West Africa. Kang was a junior at Columbia University at the time. Like many other people, he wanted to help but felt there was little he could do.…

  • Invention Roundup: Inventors Rally in Response to a Health Crisis

    Invention Roundup: Inventors Rally in Response to a Health Crisis

    New products and devices address COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic is igniting a flurry of invention to address urgent issues of prevention and detection and treatment. From multiple efforts to address the need for ventilators to open-source face shields to drones that can detect potential respiratory infection, university researchers, engineers and private entrepreneurs have stepped…

  • Inventing a Better Insect Trap

    Inventing a Better Insect Trap

    How One Pennsylvania Teen Found Inspiration in Her Own Backyard How do you quash an insect invasion that threatens your favorite trees? For fourteen-year old Rachel Bergey of Harleysville, Pennsylvania, the answer involves inventing a new product out of garden netting and aluminum foil, and one key strategy: outsmarting the enemy. The spotted lanternfly is…

  • Going Beyond the Horizon

    Going Beyond the Horizon

    Jim West has been at the forefront of acoustic science for nearly six decades. From his childhood in the segregated South to his recent work on an advanced digital stethoscope, West has always looked for “what exists beyond the horizon.” This article was originally published on USPTO.gov on November 2019. Each month, their Journeys of Innovation…

  • A Teen Inventor’s Experience With Hurricane Sandy Spurs Innovation

    A Teen Inventor’s Experience With Hurricane Sandy Spurs Innovation

    That event spurred her to think about other communities vulnerable to natural disasters. Helen Lyons was inspired to invent by a problem she encountered close to home. When she was in fourth grade living in New York City, her neighborhood was devastated by Hurricane Sandy. “The streets turned into rivers, and I remember watching the…