Junior Yara Samad has always had a passion for designing products that will positively impact the world. From the young age of six, Samad has been fascinated with building and creating whatever she can get her hands on. In the past few years, this interest has mani- fested into a hobby of creating startups and engaging in entrepreneurship; most recently, Samad was a finalist in the National HighSchool Design Competition along with her partner for designing a prototype of her “No- Face” app, a tool intended to level the playingfield in the workplace through an anonymous hiring process.

After starting Gunn’s Design and Entrepreneurship Club during her sophomore year, Samad researched design competitions in which she could present her projects. She was especially drawn to the National High School Design Competition, a contest sponsored by the Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum, due to its prestigious reputation and progressive culture emphasizing diversity. Indeed, the primary question Samad consid- ered in her contest entry was how to promote inclusivity through design.

Samad chose to accordingly address racial and gender injustices in the workplace. After reading “Freakonomics,” Samad was shocked to learn people of color often don’t make it to the interviewing phase of a job solely because of their name. “[Upon seeing the application of a person of color], a recruiter might read their name and see that it sounded Black, and not even take them to the interview,” she said.

Samad also learned that people who “whitened” their resumes through using more white-sounding names would be two times more likely to receive interview callbacks. Her biggest influence for the project, however, came from her mom’s experiences. “Something happened to my mom—she was actually being paid less than the men who reported to her at her work,” Samad said.

With her innate drive for problem-solving and interest in social entrepreneurship, Samad began her project with a partner from the Design and Entrepreneurship Club (Samad’s partner declined to be interviewed for this article). After creating a business plan and revenue model, Samad then compared her plan to that of pre-existing companies, drafted marketing plans and eventually constructed the prototype for her app.