12-Year-Old Inventor Rebecca Young Wins Girl of the Year Award

The now 13-year-old Rebecca Young, from Glasgow, Scotland, at only 12 years old, designed a solar-powered backpack to help homeless people survive the freezing nights. Inspired when she saw many people freezing on the streets without protection or shelter, she went on to create something that would help them endure better. With her creation, she won Girl of the Year and went on to be shown in the Times Magazine.

The backpack, which is solar-powered, stores energy during the day and has a blanket attached to it. With the energy from the sun, it is transformed into heat for the blanket to warm up, allowing people without shelter to have extra warmth on the cold nights. She was determined to help fix the problem, and though it is not a perfect solution, her willingness to help and her ingenuity in the design helped her earn her spot as one of the Top Ten Girls of the Year and be shown on the cover of Time, a huge honor.

Rebecca’s message to others was, “If you see a problem you think you can fix, you can do something about it. And whatever you do, you should always follow your own path to what you want to achieve.” Homeless people were struggling in sub–zero temperatures in winter in Glasgow, freezing during the nights. The homeless rates in Glasgow are still higher than in any other city in Scotland. On average, there are 208 homeless households for every 10,000 households.

A student at Kelvinside Academy, Rebecca said, “Knowing that something I came up with is helping others makes me feel really proud. By seeing themselves as builders, girls can challenge norms, pursue any passion, and shape the world. It’s easy to fall into thinking that building just means construction. It’s so much more than that.”

Each of the girls and boys had their own Lego piece created and shown in Time magazine, showing their ability to invent and build new things. Rebecca’s passion and others her age continue to inspire people to fight for their beliefs and fix the problems that plague society today.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025/aug/14/scottish-pupil-named-girl-of-the-year-for-solar-powered-blanket-design, https://www.understandingglasgow.com/glasgow-indicators/social-capital/homelessness/scottish-cities#:~:text=Glasgow%20had%20the%20highest%20rate,households%20for%20every%2010%2C000%20households., https://www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/articles/cn02gz9nlw0o