Temiloluwa Adeniyi

"When I was in 6th grade the Howard Hughes Foundation funded a Saturday science program that was targeting diversity and girls.  That summer I was one of five students chosen to go to an extension research program at Duke University. I did research on phage, viruses found in the soil. I discovered a new phage that is still being researched at the Pittsburgh Phage Institute. I knew from the 6th grade that I wanted to become a biochemical engineer.  I want to find the woman who ran the Saturday science program, her name is Rebecca and I'd like to thank her because  there are a lot of federally funded programs but there needs to be a bridge, a person who is dedicated to making a program happen and to making it diverse, she was that bridge.  Innovation only happens when you have diverse perspectives brought together in an integrative way to create a new strategy.  I want to use my STEM background for good, it's the social impact of my work that I am most interested in." -  Temiloluwa Adeniyi is a graduate student at Georgia Tech and she is the CEO/Founder of Nopneu, LLC which has developed Nopneu, a low cost- diagnostic tool for diagnosing pneumonia in a fraction of the time and cost of conventional methods. Temiloluwa was awarded $10,000 from Backstage Capital this week for winning the Pitch Black Competition at SXSW2018