There are a few new warriors set to enter the ongoing battle against “you cannot be what you cannot see” — and at 14 inches tall, they might be among the shortest to join in the cause.
Miss Possible is a line of dolls that will immortalize famous women, such as Bessie Coleman, the first African-American female aviator. And much like its predecessors (such as GoldieBlox and Lego’s “Research Institute” collection), the line of dolls is designed to encourage young girls to dream beyond the confines of gender normativity.
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Supriya Hobbs and Janna Eaves, the cofounders of Miss Possible, are both recent engineering graduates of the University of Illinois. The inspiration to create the dolls came during their time together in school, when they frequently noticed the lack of fellow women in their classrooms.
“In typical engineer fashion, once we found a problem we cared about, we attempted to solve it,” their IndieGoGo campaign notes. “We sat down in my dorm room in Innovation LLC (a community for aspiring entrepreneurs on campus) … one Friday night, and came up with the idea that became Miss Possible!”
They aim to change how girls envision their future selves by introducing them to pioneering women such as renowned chemist Marie Curie — the first to be immortalized in the line of dolls. A corresponding app allows girls to further explore the worlds these women inhabited (and the STEM-related lessons that can be learned from their work).
The money raised by their crowdfunding efforts will be used to build the dolls (as Hobbs and Eaves have already completed design elements and selected a manufacturer). They will also continue to test and develop the Miss Possible app.
The campaign is already a success — the duo’s fundraising efforts have resulted in over $81,000 of capital as of Wednesday afternoon (a cool $6,000+ over their original $75,000 target). They hope now to hit their stretch goal of $85,000, which they say will help them develop “even more fun, hands-on, educational activities.”
At present, they are mostly focused on making dolls in the likeness of famous women in STEM, due to the continued dearth of representation for women in those fields. Down the road though, they hope to expand beyond that realm.
They state on their website, “We plan to show girls all sorts of different ways they can change the world. After all, for girls today, ANYTHING is possible!”
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