{"id":16968,"date":"2013-07-02T15:36:03","date_gmt":"2013-07-02T19:36:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/?p=16968"},"modified":"2013-07-02T15:39:34","modified_gmt":"2013-07-02T19:39:34","slug":"unionville-student-wins-microsoft-competition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/?p=16968","title":{"rendered":"Unionville student wins Microsoft competition"},"content":{"rendered":"

Shea thanks community support that will help her go to Africa next month<\/span><\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

\"SheaPocospon\"<\/a>

Meghan Shea, a 2013 Unionville High School graduate, shares a moment with some of the Pocopson Elementary School students who helped out with her video. That video entry made Shea one of five finalists for the Microsoft YouthSpark for Change contest \u2014 meaning she will be headed to Kenya next month.<\/p><\/div>\n

By Mike McGann<\/strong>, Editor, The Times<\/em><\/span><\/span>
\nWorking for months at a time, Meghan Shea had to rely on research and the Internet to get a sense of what life was like in Africa, as she refined her work on a simple, portable water filtration system.<\/p>\n

That work<\/a> led to her being named one of 40 national finalists in the Intel Science Talent Search and gave her a chance to meet President Barack Obama.<\/p>\n

But now, the 2013 Unionville High School graduate will be able to learn first-hand about Africa, as she discovered Tuesday, as one of five winners of Microsoft\u2019s YouthSpark Challenge for Change. Shea\u2019s entry, Minds (to) Matter, would help teach elementary and middle school students about the scientific method and how to improve their research options.<\/p>\n

As one the five finalists, Shea wins a bunch of cool tech gear from Microsoft as well as a three-week trip to Kenya in August and $2,500 to implement her idea.<\/p>\n

As part of her entry presentation, Shea recorded a video<\/a> with students from Pocopson Elementary School and Patton Middle School in May shot with the help of fellow Unionville grads Adam Carl and Alan Dembek, already award-winning filmmakers in their own right.
\nUpon being named one of 20 national finalists, Shea needed the support of friends, family and the Unionville community \u2014 and she got it in droves, as the winners were decided by online voting. Thanks to social media, much of the local community stepped in to support her entry.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat was so exciting,\u201d said Shea, a Birmingham resident and the daughter of Kathleen Brady Shea, The Times<\/em>\u2018 managing editor, the younger Shea saying she was \u201cincredibly thankful\u201d for all of the support from the greater Unionville community.<\/p>\n

Although the news of being one of the five finalists was still too new for her have concrete plans for the grant money, she said she expects to split it between Palo Alto, Calif. where she will begin attending Stanford University in September, and the Unionville-Chadds Ford School District.<\/p>\n

Better, she said, by seeing conditions on the ground in Africa, she will improve her understanding of village life and what will work \u2014 and what won\u2019t \u2014 as she works to refine her water filtration system.<\/p>\n

\u201cHopefully, I\u2019ll be able to get a sense of the water culture in Kenya,\u201d she said, noting that in conversation with two other other finalists, she discovered they already had first-hand experience in other parts of Africa, and she hopes to mine their experiences to better inform her ongoing work. \u201cGoing to Africa has been on my bucket list.\u201d<\/p>\n

Because of the tech nature of the company \u2014 Microsoft \u2014 Shea said that the five winners will have Wi-Fi Internet access during the trip and will be able to blog, shoot videos, and in-general send constant updates back home, via their Windows Phone 8 and Surface tablet computers. An avid photographer \u2014 and former co-editor of the Unionville High School newspaper, The Indian Post \u2014 she expects to upload photos, text and maybe even videos as she journeys across Kenya.<\/p>\n

With everything that has happened this year, Shea said, it\u2019s been a bit much to digest at times.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s crazy,\u201d she said. \u201cIf you asked me about any of this a year ago, I would have said \u2018no way.\u2019 \u201c<\/p>\n

Shea will also get to spend the next year as an Ambassador for the YouthSpark program, while settling into her freshman year at Stanford.<\/p>\n

When asked about whether this run of awards and notoriety puts additional pressure on her to achieve, she said she doesn\u2019t think so.<\/p>\n

\u201cI really don\u2019t think it increases the pressure,\u201d she said. \u201cI\u2019m just really happy that so many things that I put time and effort into were successful. Believe me, though, there were a number of things that didn\u2019t work out, too.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Shea thanks community support that will help her go to Africa next month By Mike McGann, Editor, The Times Working for months at a time, Meghan Shea had to rely on research and the Internet to get a sense of what life was like in Africa, as she refined her work on a simple, portable […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16972,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,7],"tags":[3763,3671,3762,7428,577,7427,3761],"class_list":["post-16968","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-featured","tag-africa","tag-meghan-shea","tag-ntel-science-talent-search","tag-patton-middle-school","tag-pocopson-elementary-school","tag-unionville-high-school","tag-youthspark-challenge-for-change"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16968","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16968"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16968\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/16972"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16968"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16968"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16968"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}