San Antonio high school student wins national award for helping bring STEM education to underserved communities

Hannah Guan founded nonprofit that provides free online STEM classes, camps to students worldwide

SAN ANTONIO – A San Antonio area high school student is the founder of a nonprofit that is helping bring science, technology, engineering and math or STEM education to underserved communities, and won a national award for her work.

Hannah Guan, 16, said she is hoping to help more students with the money she won.

“It was honestly, it was just so, like, surprising to me,” Guan said.

Guan was named winner of the 2022 Gloria Barron Prize for Young Heroes, an award honoring young leaders who are making a big impact.

The senior at Basis San Antonio Shavano won $10,000.

“I’m planning to us it to further fund my organization,” Guan said.

At the age of 11, Guan launched San Antonio Math Include, with a mission to provide greater access to STEM education to all students.

The nonprofit provides free online STEM classes and camps.

“We have a variety of different programs. We have our school year program which are live run 40 minute lessons provided by our tutors directly to our students. And so that program is actually currently going on right now, which is great. And then we also have our summer camp program, which is around like the last few weeks before school starts,” Guan said.

San Antonio Math Include also has a Youtube page, with math tutorials.

“I a lot of the time work hands on with these students. And so, you know, to be able to see, you know, the fire in their eyes, really, that the passion that they have for learning, I think it’s just so marvelous that they’re able to do all of this here in San Antonio,” Guan said.

Guan said about 30,000 students are using the nonprofits online courses and the students live not only in San Antonio, but in other countries.

“We have students from New Jersey, Washington, and we also have students from different countries as well. So a lot of our students are from Mexico. There’s also a population from India and Canada,” Guan said.

Guan was also appointed by the City of San Antonio to help distribute funds to support at-risk youth.

Her dream school is Massachusetts Institute of Technology and she wants to study math.

She hopes to continue bringing opportunities to other students.

“I really hope to actually work more on the legislative side, on the intersection between math and education,” Guan said.


About the Author:

Tiffany Huertas is a reporter for KSAT 12 known for her in-depth storytelling and her involvement with the community.