Samantha Ouyang

Samantha is a 17-year-old from Toronto working to empower women in STEM and create global impact with emerging tech. Spurred by hurtful experiences as a teenager, she founded Superposition Toronto, a non-profit dedicated to bridging the gender gap in STEM that has reached 33K+ individuals in 84 countries. She has also won international chemistry awards and top prizes in hackathons, earned seed funding for her moonshot, been interviewed for various magazines and podcasts and was named a Future 25 Under 25.

What are your hopes for the next generation of women in tech?
My greatest hope is for them to find a supportive community early on to help them along their journey so they don’t have to feel alone. I hope the men around them will be conscious of their implicit biases and are willing to call each other out on unacceptable behaviour in support of women.

What’s the greatest piece of advice you’ve ever received?
You are the master of your own destiny. You are capable of doing whatever it is that you want to do. You are capable of making a change in your own life or the lives of others. Once you internalize this, nothing can stop you, because most of the time, the biggest barrier is in your head.