A high school senior entrepreneur invented a device named the “Guardian Locket” designed to help women who are in danger of getting sexually assaulted.
The device could possibly save countless lives, by alerting authorities and loved ones of the wearer’s location.
“We live in a world where one out of three women has a chance of being sexually assaulted,” inventor Crystal Sanchez, 18, recently said in an interview with local CBS News affiliate in Los Angeles.
The locket uses a cellular chip to alert loved ones and the police that the person wearing it is being attacked using a discrete button on the back of the locket. Sanchez came up with the idea after learning that one of her friends was raped and focused her her senior thesis requirement for high school graduation from the Environmental Charter School in Lawndale on sexual assault on women. This week, she received an honor in Beverly Hills this week at the annual Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year gala, where she was the youngest entrepreneur in attendance, CBS Notes. Sanchez could wind up being very successful before the end of her freshman year at UC Irvine, where she is headed in the fall.
Student spotlight: Crystal Sanchez, CEO of Guardian Locket from Environmental Charter High School #nftegreaterla pic.twitter.com/MdTOIzvSob
— NFTE Greater LA (@NFTEGreaterLA) May 20, 2015
She will reportedly be competing for a national prize worth $25,000 this summer which could help her take her invention into production if she wins the second round in the fall. Sanchez will reportedly be the first member of her family to attend college.
She told CBS that her advice for fellow, young entrepreneurs is to “look for an injustice in your community and then go out and change it.”
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