She is 12 years old, created a solar backpack for homeless people and was recognized by Time magazine

The solar backpack created by Rebecca Young in Glasgow It did not come from an abstract slogan about social help. It was born from a specific problem: how to provide heat at night to people who sleep on the street.

Rebecca had 12 years when his project began to circulate strongly in the United Kingdom. Study in the Kelvinside Academy, in Glasgow, and its design was designed to combine a backpack with a portable shelter system.

The technical key of the system is simple. Solar panels charge a battery during the day and that energy is then used to power a built-in electric blanket.

The structure of the solar backpack It is designed to solve two things at the same time. On the one hand, it is used to move objects, while on the otherincorporates a system that allows solar energy to be charged and diverted to a thermal blanket.

Rebecca presented the idea in the competition Primary Engineer MacRobert Medal, a national engineering competition for UK students. There the project stood out among some 70,000 proposalsaccording to information released by Time and other British media.

The invention obtained the MacRobert Commendation Medal and was also mentioned with a silver medal in the main competition, a fact that helped give him visibility outside of school. That first technical validation was important because it pushed the project into a later stage of development.

Then came the recognition International. In August 2025the magazine Time included Rebecca in his first list of “Girls of the Year”, dedicated to 10 young girls from different countries distinguished for high-impact achievements in their communities.

How it went from competition to real prototypes and Glasgow shelters

The most important leap came after the award. The signature Thales Glasgowwhich sponsored the competition, took the design and worked on real prototypes of the solar-powered thermal blanket system.

That step completely changed the weight of the news, because the project stopped being a school idea and entered a manufacturing phase. According to TimeThales He managed to manufacture 30 units of these blankets integrated into the system designed by Rebecca.and those pieces were distributed to a homeless shelter in Glasgow.

Other British chronicles also spoke of plans to expand this production with more units destined for local organizations.