Emily Pilloton-Lam didn’t grow up in a particularly handy household, but she did spend hours outside building treehouses out of logs and sticks. After years studying architecture at prestigious institutions, she realized she wanted to pursue what made her fall in love with building: working with her hands and with other people on projects that mattered.
In 2008, at age 26, she founded a nonprofit that’s now called Girls Garage, to equip girls with both the personal power and the literal power tools to build the world they want to see.
The architecture, engineering, and construction industries are famously slow to innovate. But Girls Garage is helping to jump-start change. Read the full story.
—Allison Arieff
This piece is from the next magazine edition of MIT Technology Review, set to go live on Wednesday. It’s all about society’s hardest problems, and how we should tackle them. If you don’t already, subscribe now to get a copy when it lands!
How to make government technology better
Who hasn’t tried to fill in a government form online and run into at least one issue? Or even just thought, Hmm, why can’t I easily just do this basic civic activity online, like renewing your license? Can you even imagine a world where you could submit a digital request to fill a pothole in your neighborhood (and it actually got filled)?
