Denali Walrath was berry-picking with her family in Nome, Alaska, when she came up with an idea for an app that would keep tabs on dangerous animals like bears and musk oxen, KTUU reports.
The fifth-grader took first place in the Cub Division of the state's Arctic Challenge for her "bear tracker," which would alert users if a dangerous animal had been spotted at a specific location.
"It's an ideas competition, so, when she finished, she was speaking with some of the faculty at UAF in the engineering department," her dad says.
"They noted how they would have undergraduate students or graduate students that could work with her in the future doing the programming and coding, skills an 11-year-old just doesn't have."
Another winner in the second-grade division was second-grader Bradley Rowe, who came up with a snow cone machine that uses snowblower blades to churn out balls and put them into cups, then add flavoring, according to the Nome Nugget.
The two will now go forward with their ideas.
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First Enterprise Business Agency (FEBA), a Nottingham-based business support organization, is a contender for two categories at the first Citi Microentrepreneurship Awards to be held this coming February.