There is a lack of women in engineering. Currently, only 14% of engineers are women and this is often attributed to the lack of confidence that women have in their abilities. Debbie Sterling noticed this problem and started a toy company that gets young girls excited about engineering.

Debbie Sterling graduated from Stanford in 2005 with an engineering degree and was bothered by the lack of women in her field. She began to develop a toy that would “disturb the pink aisle” and get girls excited about engineering at a young age. This is how Goldieblox was born.

Goldieblox is a unique toy that features a smart young girl named Goldie, who is dressed in overalls and ready to build! Goldie walks the girls through different toys that the girls build themselves. Goldieblox was originally crowdfunded through Kickstarter, and was fully funded in four days, exceeding its goal of $150,000 by $135,000. The toys began to fly off of the shelves, partly due to their creative, innovative, and viral commercials. Goldiblox is currently sold in Target and Toys R Us and was named the Toy of the Year by the Toy Industry Association for 2014.

Goldiblox is an example of a great toy that isn’t afraid to test the status quo. Debbie Sterling is willing to test the norms of society and is able to influence young girls to get excited about engineering. Her story is truly inspiring.

Josh Nesbit was a 19 year old, pre-med undergrad a Stanford. He went on a trip to rural Malawi in southeastern Africa and was amazed when he observed patients walking up to 100 miles to see a doctor and health workers walking 30 miles to hand deliver reports. He also observed that he got better cellphone reception in a remote village in Malawi than he did in suburban California. While these two observations may seem completely unrelated, Josh was able to combine them into a service that has helped hundreds of thousands of people in 21 different countries.

Medic Mobile is a non-profit organization that gives people living in a community cheap cell phones that allow them to connect to health centers that may be up to 100 miles away. It also has tools that allow health care workers to transmit medical records and explain patient’s symptoms using text messages. Medic Mobile focuses on antenatal care, childhood immunization, disease surveillance, and drug stock monitoring. It helps to remind women of prenatal care visits and ensure safe delivery in facilities with skilled birth attendants, it hopes to register every infant to remind them of immunizations, and it allows people report symptoms to a clinic.

By addressing a deep need in communication within the healthcare system with a simple solution, Josh was able to help countless people’s lives. As entrepreneurs, we can follow his example of not being afraid to address a huge problem and being willing to find new ways of doing so.

Growing up in rural Kenya with no running water or electricity, light at night was a luxury for small Evan. Evan’s parents encouraged him to work hard and do well in school, but the dim light from one kerosene lantern made his homework hard to see at night. His siblings and him would fight over the one lamp in his hut and he often went bed without having his homework done. A lack of lighting is a huge obstacle in education. Evan witnessed many children drop out because they do not have the ability to finish their homework. In addition to obstacles in education, kerosene lamps can also cause many health issues, including blindness, repository diseases, throat cancer, and lung cancer. While they provided light, kerosene lamps came with many obstacles.

After living through all of these issues concerning kerosene in Kenya, Evan Wadongo decided to take action. At the age of 19, while studying at the Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology, he came up with the idea to replace kerosene lamps with solar-powered LED lanterns. He designed a solar powered lantern named MwangaBora (Swahili for “good for light”) and began a company called SDFA Kenya that runs under the motto of “use solar, save lives”.  Through this program, over 100,000 people have received free lanterns and millions of lives have been changed. Using solar-powered lighting allows families to use the money that they would normally spend on kerosene on food and other needs.

Evan Wadongo has been able to change countless lives through his simple product that is able to address a basic and important need. At the age of 24, he was named one of CNN’s top ten heroes of 2010. Homes and schools are now well lit through a safe means of lighting. SDFA Kenya continues to expand throughout all of rural Africa and help more people. As young entrepreneurs, we can follow Evan’s example of identifying an important need and providing a simple, helpful solution for it.