Sahithi Pingali
Stanford University undergraduate student Sahithi Pingali (a top award winner at the International Science and Engineering Fair, the Olympics of science fairs) is one of the stars of the acclaimed documentary feature Inventing Tomorrow that will have its national television debut on PBS television series POV on Monday, July 29. She has developed an app and innovative crowd-sourcing approach to monitoring fresh water bodies (often the source of public drinking water). After seeing the lake behind her home burst into flames, Pingali decided to combine her love for science and social activist skills to create an innovative method for citizens to gather and share data about the severe water pollution in Bangalore. Sahithi is launching a new version of her app, as part of a Citizen Science Challenge for viewers across the United States, developing a hands-on solution for citizens to collect data about their drinking water and local fresh water bodies.