Blue Origin To Launch STEM Startup Founder Into Space

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With the number of people in STEM occupations projected to grow over the next decade, an Arlington startup wants to lower barriers to that career path.

Lingo develops and sells educational, STEM-focused kits to teach students in middle and high school, as well as in college. Projects highlight both software and hardware, with one kit showing how to build and code a backup sensor for a car.

Aisha Bowe, CEO and founder of Lingo and a former NASA rocket scientist, wanted to provide hands-on learning to students ⁘ an option she wished she had growing up herself. The traditional school model of memorizing and repeating information didn't work for her, she explained.

"It really was a labor of love," Bowe told Technical.ly. "It was almost as though we were making something for our younger selves."

About 10,000 students have used Lingo kits across the US and in England, per Bowe. She and her team of three, who all have extensive engineering backgrounds, develop the kits themselves. Cofounder and COO Jarvis Sulcer has a master's and PhD in nuclear science and engineering from Cornell University, for example.

Bowe is also heading to space on a celebrity-filled Blue Origin flight, which will launch sometime this spring. The trip, hosted by the aerospace technology company that Amazon leader Jeff Bezos founded in 2000, will also include popstar Katy Perry and award-winning journalist Gayle King.

While on the mission, Bowe will work with the astrobotany lab out of Winston-Salem State University to research plant health and molecular changes when exposed to microgravity.

"It's a dream come true," Bowe said. "From someone who never thought that they would be in this field, to say that not only am I here, but I'm going to space, and I'm taking an experiment ⁘ it's an honor."

To pair with this flight, Lingo released new kits related to space exploration earlier in March. One is a countdown timer for a rocket launch, while an "Earth Observer" set teaches students how to prototype and use a remote sensing satellite.

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