In one kit, users are tasked with assembling and programming a model autonomous vehicle that can follow a set path on its own.
Aisha Bowe wants to bring engaging STEM learning opportunities to students across the country, and her initial efforts to do so are taking off.
Lingo, an Arlington startup founded in 2020 by the former NASA aerospace engineer and 2023 Washington Business Journal 40 Under 40 honoree, has sold over 10,000 do-it-yourself coding kits to schools and nonprofits in nearly every state and D.C. to introduce teenagers to the possibilities of careers in STEM, or science, technology, engineering and math.
In one of these multiuse kits, users are tasked with assembling and programming a model autonomous vehicle that can follow a set path on its own. Another lets them construct sensors for a toy racecar that can simulate monitoring the vehicle’s cabin temperature and driver’s heart rate during a race.
Looking ahead, Bowe, who serves as CEO, wants to expand the number of schools and nonprofits the company can reach. She hopes to grow her six-person team to help achieve this effort, which will be aided by the $2.3 million funding deal she raised from outside investors in late October.
How it started
Bowe’s inspiration for Lingo dates back to childhood dreams. She and two of her current engineers had a passion for hands-on STEM learning when they were younger but lacked diversity in options and experiences.
“We are building what we wish we had when we were in school,” she said. “We’ve all been down that path, and we very much enjoyed the hands-on elements, and when we looked back, we said, ‘How can we build a better experience for the generations coming behind us?’”
Lingo began by partnering with a nonprofit called Inroads, an Atlanta-based organization working to create career pathways for high school and college students from diverse backgrounds. Initial work included creating simple kits to expose students to emerging technologies, but Bowe said the demand quickly grew, and Lingo found itself expanding to reach students in nearly every state.
“We realized that we’re meeting a need that not only they had, but that we had,” Bowe said.
The challenge today
Reaching more students and more schools remains the company’s biggest hurdle for now.
While the kits, which retail at $74.99, are designed for at-home use, Bowe enjoys the care and effort teachers take to tie the kits to classroom curriculum, but doing so requires an impressive ground game.
“We actually go to the schools and we work with the districts hands-on,” Bowe said. “When a teacher picks up a kit, we train them and we support them as it’s implemented. As you can imagine, this requires resources, it requires time.”
Lingo’s latest funding raise, a seed round led by Springfield, Missouri-based investment firm Pinnacle Private Ventures, will allow it to scale the company’s support abilities to reach more schools, primarily via the hiring of more employees.
“We’re going to need teachers who want to work with us on the curriculum. We’re going to need trainers who want to work with us on the content and we also need individuals to help us enter into districts where we don’t currently have a presence,” Bowe said. “A lot of our resources are going to be focusing on identifying the right talent and aligning them to help us grow exponentially.”
She said she doesn’t have a figure as it relates to the number of people she’s looking to hire in the next year, but Bowe imagines it will be significant compared with the startup’s current workforce. She plans to fill roles relating to sales and school district engagement efforts in the coming month.
What’s next
Lingo’s recent funding round will also allow it to develop and sell new products such as a satellite prototyping kit and one called “Countdown to Launch,” which will be tied to Bowe’s future journey onboard a rocket from Blue Origin, the space manufacturing company founded by Jeff Bezos.
“I wanted to be able to have an activity where students built a rocket launch countdown timer so that they could go to space with me,” she said.
Bowe imagines future kits will continue to focus on space exploration as an underlying theme, incorporating lessons that allow children to build temperature and humidity sensors as might be relevant for spacecraft development.
Expanding partnerships with other companies to either help develop curriculum or bring Lingo’s products to more schools and students is also top of mind for Bowe. She cited ongoing collaboration efforts with Falls Church-based General Dynamics Information Technology Inc. and Reston-based Leidos Holdings Inc., two tech defense contracting giants, as examples of the types of companies Lingo can partner with for this work.
“I think Lingo resonates because we are channeling what we know, what we’ve used, and what works,” Bowe said, “and we’re delivering it in a compact form factor to people wherever they are.”