Teen invents cell phone supercharger
SAN JOSE, Calif. (CNN) - A California teen has invented a super charger that could solve a problem many of us have.
Eesha Khare, 18, has invented a supercharger that could cut the amount of time it takes to charge a cell phone. It's called a super capacitor - a tiny version of one, anyway.
"Many teenagers these days have cell phones," said Khare. "I have a cell phone too, and my cell phone battery often dies on me."
Eesha's breakthrough could one day make charging it super fast - as in fully charged in 20-30 seconds, fast.
The 18-year-old first garnered media attention after winning a young scientist award from Intel, beating out more than 1,600 students from around the world.
"There's batteries, capacitors and super capacitors and I think super just sounded really cool to me," Khare said. "And I never heard of it before and I decided to go and see what that is."
The judges were impressed and noted that her technology has wide implications.
According to Eesha, "Energy storage is a really big field, so it could be used in green energy, wind turbines, it could be used in electric cars -- there's a lot of different energy that it could be used for."
Born and raised in Silicon Valley, Eesha said she was constantly inspired by those around her, but not just to pursue her goals.
"Right now, I'm a girl in science and I think that's great. A lot more girls are getting into science, but I think there's a lot of stigma being a girl - being a woman in science - so I really wanted to break that in the world in science."
Besides having a perfect grade point average and being her class valedictorian, Eesha's also a member of the school's varsity field hockey team and she's also an accomplished dancer.
Not surprisingly, she had a few choices when it came to picking a college. After being accepted to Harvard, Stanford, MIT, Yale, Cal Tech and every school in the University of California system that she applied to, she decided on Harvard. Her takeaway from Intel - $50,000, will help pay for that ivy league education.