Maansi Nema, Founder & CEO, STEM Without Boundaries
Sparky Anderson Award for Youth in Philanthropy
Nominated by: Girl Scouts of Southeastern Michigan
Maansi Nema is a freshman at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor who loves both technology and business. She has been a Girl Scout since Kindergarten, earning Bronze, Silver, and Gold Awards. As a national Gold Award Girl Scout nominee, she has organized several STEM nights in her community with over 1,150 attendees and has reached over 25,000 people. By partnering with more than 20 organizations such as Girls Who Code and Society of Women Engineers, she realized the powerful impact she was able to make in her community.
To give other students the same opportunity, she founded STEM Without Boundaries, a nonprofit organization dedicated to training high school students to host STEM nights by providing resources, funding, and mentorship. It has been able to reach over 200,000 students worldwide and is a team of 50 high school and college students and adults.
Recognizing the importance of diverse voices in STEM fields, Maansi has led conversations in her community with the assistant superintendent and technology leaders on how schools can encourage girls to pursue STEM. Additionally, Maansi is the 2020 Young Woman of Distinction for Girl Scouts of Southeastern Michigan, treasurer of Novi Youth Council (the city’s student board), and a 2019 FIRST Robotics World Championship Chairman’s Presenter.
To further her interest in technology, in 2020 Maansi was selected to participate in Kode With Klossy, an organization which provides learning experiences that increase interest in STEAM at the intersection of technology and creativity for young women ages 13-18 across the country. Attending the program and interacting with her mentors and peers allowed her to connect with a powerful community of women.
Maansi has experience coding in Java, Python, HTML, CSS, and Javascript and is pursuing a computer science major at Michigan’s College of Engineering. She is eager to learn about machine learning and artificial intelligence software and is curious to see how these technologies will shape our future. She cherishes creating connections with people and thrives by challenging herself to grow and reflect every day. In the workforce, she hopes to bring her enthusiasm, background, and lived experiences to contribute to the technologies that are produced today and tomorrow.