A 10-year-old girl has won a PhD fellowship, and will be mentored by the president of the group whose robots she uses, after her application to “make Paris happy again” moved the program’s founders.
Kat Borlongan, whose company Five by Five organises the Paris Summer Innovation Fellowship, posted an open letter to the girl, Eva, on Facebook in which she said she was moved by her proposal, and offered her a place.
She summarised Eva’s pitch: “The streets of Paris are sad. I want to build a robot that will make them happy again. I’ve already starting learning how to code on Thymio robots, but I have trouble making it work. I want to join the program so the mentors can help me.”
Borlongan replied saying that she loved the project, and “the answer is yes.”
“I love your project and agree that more should be done – through robotics or otherwise – to improve Paris’ streets and make them smile again.”
She wrote that Eva had been selected “among an impressive pool of candidates from all across the world: accomplished urban designers, data scientists and hardware specialists.”
“There was nothing on the website that said the program was open to 10 year olds but – as you must have noticed – nothing that said that it was not,” she wrote. “You’ve openly told us that you had trouble making the robot work on your own and needed help. That was a brave thing to admit, and ultimately what convinced us to take on your project.”
The post took an even more heartwarming turn when Borlongan revealed that she had spoken to Thymio, whose robots Eva is trying to code on, and the company had offered to give Eva their latest robot to work with, as well as mentorship from the Thymio president.
“It is my hope that your work on robotics will encourage more young girls all over the world – not just to code, but to be as brave as you, in asking for help and actively looking for different ways to learn and grow,” Borlongan wrote, before finishing: “tell your dad to call me!”
