Every so often I come across a young person who truly inspires me. You know, someone who is really talented or gifted, who isn’t a loudmouth or in it for the recognition only exceptional young adult. I rarely get the opportunity to actually interact with teenagers, though that will change soon with my twins getting older. So back in April, I volunteered at our local high school to help with senior portfolios. Basically, in order to graduate, each senior must present a “portfolio” to a panel of 3 adults, usually one teacher and two others from the community. The other participants could be business owners like myself, stay-at-home parents, or anyone who has the desire to mentor students.

The seniors have set criteria of what they must present, with some background on themselves. Of the senior portfolios I sat in on, the students were artists, a musician, a coder, one leaning toward financial management, and one who just wasn’t sure yet. They all did fairly well, some having never stood and talked in front of strangers before. They all had some trait that evoked a sense of inspiration in myself that they all were on the way to doing great things, but one student stood above the rest, as one of “those” types of inspiring people.

Chris Lee is sure to make an impact on this world. While still in high school, Chris taught himself to code and developed a unique web app to help people learn music. Now that he’s graduated, he is on a full-ride scholarship at UTD.

What really inspires me about Chris is not that he wants to discover the next Facebook, but instead is focused on technology to help us all lead better lives, including collision-detection systems. Simply amazing!