Shanya Gill

FIGHTING FIRE WITH INGENUITY

- Sanya Mansoor

SHANYA GILL COULDN'T STOP THINKING about the restaurant behind her house in San Jose, Calif., that burned down in 2022. Neither could her family. Her mom became paranoid and always double-checked to make sure their stove was turned off.

Shanya, now 13, learned that unattended cooking is the leading factor in home firesaccounting for one-third of incidents. She felt that smoke detectors weren't always effective in providing an urgent warning, so she set out to create a device that alerts users to fires before they even start. "What I realized is that... I could learn how to code and I could really make a change," she says.