Three students from Santa Maria High School won the Innovate Award after showcasing their ingenuity and leadership at the Cal Poly Society of Women Engineers (SWE) Design Challenge and Leadership Conference last month.

Anayeli Astudillo Munoz, a junior; Ashley Astudillo Munoz, a senior; and Guadalupe Mendez, a junior, took on the competition’s prompt, which emphasized the importance of giving back to the community and making a positive impact.

The team developed an innovative proposal to address a prevalent issue in their local community — low self-esteem among young girls. Their solution? A user-friendly app designed to help girls build confidence through interactive features, positive affirmations, and goal-setting tools.

“I was absolutely blown away by Guadalupe’s, Anayeli’s and Ashley’s perseverance, dedication and drive to compete in this competition,” said Shelly Springer, SMHS SWE Next adviser.

“Through brainstorming and working together, they were able to identify a need in our community, and creatively apply the idea of using technology to develop an app that would help girls build their self-esteem,” Springer said.

“Competing in the SWENext Leadership Conference boosted my confidence in my coding abilities,” Astudillo said. “This experience furthermore motivated me to pursue my career in the competitive computer science field.

“I now feel more prepared to take the next step because I have proven myself through this competition of my capability of creating a website. Moving forward, I plan to take this experience with me throughout my journey.”

For Mendez, the challenge was stepping out of her comfort zone to present their project, she said.

“The biggest challenge of this competition was presenting our project to everyone. I was so nervous,” said Mendez. “Afterward, I felt a huge sense of accomplishment. Conquering my fear and knowing that we might be able to help other girls improve their self-esteem made it all worth it.”