Young Alumni Spotlight:
Lindsey Yu ’14 A M O N G T H E L I S T O F T H I N G S Lindsey Yu ’14 listed as ‘likes’ in her
eighth grade graduation bio was, “sleeping ‘til noon.” But, from the looks of everything she’s accomplished during her last four years of high school, it’s safe to say she hasn’t indulged that desire in awhile! Lindsey attributes her initial passion and spark for coding and technology to her faculty mentors at Peck. After graduating eighth grade, she chose Pingry for high school and in the four years since, she has thoroughly distinguished herself as an outspoken advocate of women in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math), an advocate for environmental sustainability, an innovator, and an entrepreneur. In her freshman year at Pingry, Lindsey continued many of the passions that were nurtured at Peck. Since seventh grade, she had been volunteering with the NJ Bat Sanctuary and had even dedicated her Peck 8th Grade Speech to the topic. Bats are a vital part of the NJ ecosystem and play a major role in pollination and pest control. For many years, a scourge known as White Nose Syndrome has decimated their population by almost 95%. Despite a busy academic schedule in high school, Lindsey worked at the sanctuary to help rescue and rehabilitate bats as well as design an “easy build” bat house, and create online resources and education materials for the organization’s website and social media. In her sophomore year she became head of communications for the Student Technology Committee—a coalition of teachers and students that investigate new technologies for potential student use in the future. She also founded a new club at Pingry called GirlCode that studies programming languages and algorithms, and enters technical innovation challenges. In her junior year, Lindsey became Group Leader of iRT—one of the few selective research science programs at Pingry, where she worked on coding and constructing a real-time vision tracking program and robot. She also applied and was accepted to a variety of selective “hackathon” programs at the University of Pennsylvania, and the University of Michigan. In the summer of 2016, Lindsey applied for and was accepted to the Cooper Union’s Summer STEM program in Manhattan. While attending, she came up with an innovative idea. She developed gardening and farming software that uses a probe to collect environmental conditions and an algorithm to I T ’S N O S U R P RISE TH AT LINDSE Y WAS A WA R DE D P E C K ’ S TE CH NOLOGY P RIZE A T HE R G R A DU ATION IN 2014!
determine which plants best fit a user’s soil and space. The objective was to optimize the planting process, so less experienced gardeners and farmers could plan out a more efficient and sustainable garden. She called her invention PlantSTEM.
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According to Lindsey, “We were able to create a functioning
friendly by offering a real-time, collaborative list for those living
probe and algorithm and were also able to successfully file a
in a communal setting. Our app allows community members to
provisional patent application on our idea. This was achieved by
‘share their shop’ and get items for others nearby.”
writing a plant-selection algorithm in Java code, designing the probe in a CAD (computer-aided design) program, wiring our
Somehow, during all this entrepreneurialism, Lindsey managed
sensors to circuits connected to an Arduino, and meeting weekly
to find acclaim as an athlete, environmental activist, and scholar.
with the patent lawyer.”
She was selected for the NJ Advance Media All-Non-Public
Pushing her invention further, and seeking a platform to locate
First Team in tennis. She has been an active volunteer with the
investors and funding, Lindsey found the Conrad Spirit of
NJ Bat Sanctuary since 7th grade, championing the benefits
Innovation Challenge. She submitted her idea, and in November
of bats and the spread of White Nose Syndrome. She has won
of 2016, she learned that her idea had advanced to the semifinals.
numerous National Latin Exam awards, and was selected as
“This meant that we had to draft a professional, intensive
a National Merit Commended Scholar and an AP Scholar
business plan and make a pitch video, in the hopes of making it
with Distinction in 2017. She also received a Certificate of
to the finals,” she explains. PlantSTEM eventually made it to the final round and joined the top 10% of all international entries in the Energy and Environment category of the challenge (her team was one of 12 selected finalists in the category). In April of 2017, Lindsey and her team attended the Innovation Summit at the Kennedy Space Center, where she delivered her pitch to a panel of judges consisting of leading entrepreneurs, government officials, and scientists.
Distinction last year from the National Center for Women in Information Technology. In the Fall of 2018, Lindsey will attend the Jerome Fisher Program in Management and Technology at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School. The Program combines academics from Penn Engineering and the Wharton School, into one unique educational experience. As the school explains, “Students enrolled in the M&T Program pursue degrees from both schools concurrently, creating a truly interdisciplinary
It seems that starting her own tech firm wasn’t enough to keep
learning experience. This combination enables our students
Lindsey occupied in her free time, so in August of 2017, she
not only to understand engineering and business concepts,
applied for and was accepted to the MIT Launch program. This program “brings together high school entrepreneurs from all over the US and world each summer to launch startups in a
but also to understand the integration of the two and how this intersection distinctively shapes our world.”
4-week program on the MIT campus.”
As Peck alumna Lindsey Yu continues to make a contribution
While at Launch, Lindsey cultivated a new idea—a startup
that “distinctively shapes our world,” we only hope she finds
company called Botelle. According to Lindsey, “Botelle seeks
that occasional opportunity to sleep until noon. She’s definitely
to make grocery shopping more efficient and environmentally-
earned it! Peck News
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