Area High School Students Compete In Waltham STEM Competition

From YES:With the Youth Entrepreneurship Services (YES) program concluding recently, high school students across the state presented their STEM-focused business plans to a panel of judges at Thermo Fisher Scientific in Waltham. The winning team, Allerfree, developed a prototype that could scan the barcode on food packaging using a phone app that touted artificial intelligence and machine learning capabilities. The student who designed the code for the application was 14 years-old.

The event took place in Waltham at the Thermo Fisher Scientific headquarters. High schools that participated in the event were: Lexington High, Concord Carlisle High School, Randolph Community Middle School, Newton High School, Winchester High School, Sharon High School, Roxbury Latin High School and Boston Latin High School.

YES is a six-month long program focused on building STEM and entrepreneurship skills among 9th-12th grade students. More than 44 students from 27 high schools across the state participated in this year’s program and 15 Thermo Fisher employees participated as mentors or judges. In total, Thermo Fisher volunteers spent 300 weekend hours supporting the program.