special edition of "kqed newsroom" about bay area innovateers. from silicon valley tech giants to world class research universities, the bay area is home to big thinkers and ground breaking technology. today we will hear from engineers, entrepreneurs and scientists who are creating new products to help solve products here and around the world. one is helping get interest free loans while building up credit. two young women are helping girls get excited about engineering through toys that spark the imagination. another bay area entrepreneur is hoping technology will help get food to thousands of hungry of

people in the bai. first we start in the world of science. one of four bay area people to win a prestigious genius grant from the mcarthur foundation. he was recognized for creating a microscope out of paper that cost less than a dollar to make. it is being used in 130 countries. he is developing tools to track how diseases are spread in the tropics and u.s. physical biologist demonstrated one of his famous inventions here in our studio. nice to have you here. >> thanks for having me. >> congratulations to you. do you feel any different? are you doing anything differently now that you are officially a mcarthur genius? >> i don't know about the genius, but i'm really humbled to be recognized this way in my scientific career. i'm very thrilled and excited and i think there is a lot more work to be done.

i'm just putting my head down and getting stuff done. >> well, your research falls into the field of physical biology . what is that exactly? >> so i'm a physicist by training but i think a lot about biological problems very broadly. i bring a new set of tools from the field of physics into biology . all of the life forms still obey laws of physics. it's very valuable to think in that perspective and ask ourselves questions. what fundamentally do these life forms change and do to enable what they are capable of. in the end physical biology is a lens into biology but from a physicists' eye. >> when you are in the field one limitation you noticed was the ability to view things on site because you need a microscope to view a lot of tiny things. so you have created a lot of fascinating products and

concepts. you are perhaps best known for the fold scope. >> fold scope is an origami microscope that you fold together from a flat sheet of paper. >> you pop it out. >> you put them together. you assemble them. this is the finished scope. you held it in your two hands and move around and focus with your thumbs. you can take any traditional glass slide and insert it in fold scopes. this is a little bug that i just caught here on your table. and i insert it and you can watch it live. you hold it in both hands. this is panning. i'm moving around walking in a city. and then the focus is just the tension in my hand. what it does is generate flexor. i will pass this. you hold here and here and take

a look. to focus it -- >> is that the bug i'm seeing? >> that is the bug you're seeing. >> it is really gross. magnified 140 times. >> correct. what you are looking at are mouth parts, the manbles. we can tell it is an insect. it has six legs. you can see the hairs. >> it cost just about 55 cents to make? >> that's correct. it took a long time for us to squeeze the cost down in manufacturing and come up with a new way of thinking about optics to be able to do that. >> you have been able to issue 50,000 of these to 135 countries. why is it so important tayou to make sure as many people can get their hands on this as possible? >> i grew up in india. i know what it understands to not have access especially to science. it was very important from the

beginning that we asked this question much more broadly. if you look at all the challenges we face, climate change, environmental challenges, bio diversity we need to engage a much broader group of community, not just scientists. we just announced we will be releasing a million fold scopes. >> that's correct. we have committed ourselves to getting these tools out there. >> a couple of the best stories of the ways people have used your fold scope in unexpected ways? >> i think this is the most humbling experience of the entire project has been once you get the tools to people and get out of the way they do incredible things. an example of pharmacist who has used this to detect fake drugs. bee keepers are using them to identify diseases in their bee colonies. farmers use them to identify pests. you can isolate that specific

plant that got infected. there are numerous examples of disease diagnostics. a fun story is somebody used it to detect fake currency. i think my primary force and i'm thinking about the tools is i'm just waiting for these ideas to pop in from around the world and people getting connected to each other because the tool is exactly the same when i do an experiment here and a kid does an experiment another kid in kansas and boston will be able to replicate the experiment with the same tool. >> were you always like this? were you always passionate about science? >> i don't know -- this is how i grew up. at the same time it has a lot of value to me because it allows me to express myself. i do very strongly believe it

has value for everybody else. we talk about science education and the challenges we face only if we accepted the idea that you are allowed to tinker i think it would make a big difference. >> what is the next big problem you are working on solving? >> i think there are a lot of big problems. one i have been focussing a lot on is figure out how to attract mosquitos in the field. we have been building tools to do mosquito surveillance. >> is that to help cut down on malaria? >> many different diseases that are carried by mosquitos but empowering citizens to actually engage in the process of understanding what mosquitos do when we are not watching. >> thank you for being here. >> thanks for inviting me. now we hear from another bay area innovator who also won a 2016 genius grant. a financial services expert and the founder and ceo of san

francisco based mission asset funds. his organization helps immigrants and low income individuals build good credit through a unique program that taps into community lending. he brought together nearly 50 national organizations for a summit in san francisco on nontraditional lending. welcome. congratulations to you. >> thank you. glad to be here. >> you and i talked really builds upon community-based building model. and this is a group where people contribute to a pot of money and lend money to each other. why do you choose to focus on this kind of financial model? >> the reason why is because when we were starting our work the conventional wisdom at the time was had the notion of people didn't know enough or that they were doing everything wrong and they needed us to go

in there and help them set them straight. and then so we deviated from that. if you look at what is happening particularly in the immigrant communities they are financially savvy individuals. they know more about than any of us. they are managing budgets across households. they are doing a lot of great things that we never give them credit for any of that. we found out people do come together and save money together. so we wanted to lift that up to sort of start our conversation there and then help them use that practice as a way to get into the financial mainstream. >> a lot of cultures have this. latino culture, asian cultures. lots of different terms. and then once you do this you take it to the next step, though. you formalize this with financial institutions so that the participants can have some kind of credit history and have

relationships with established financial institutions. how do you do that? >> so the first thing was recognizing as bona fide financial information. this is phenomenal. because it is informal nobody really knows about it except the people within that group. what we did was formalized it in such a way that we got it where participants have to sign a promissory note saying i promise to pay $100 for the next ten months. that serves as a legal document that transforms it into a viable financial product. and then collect payments and make loan distributions and to report that information to the credit bureaus. one thing we found out early enough was no matter what we did in terms of helping people develop financial security if we did not help them build or improve credit scores we knew that it was all going to be talk

because we know that without having the credit score on the credit report it is really impossible to do anything in our world today. without that credit report people can't even get apartments or insurance. in a lot of cases can't get jobs. we wanted to address that barrier head on. so by us reporting it to the credit bureau we are helping them build. >> you have an interesting background yourself. you were 9 years old when you immigrated from mexico to california. how has the immigrant experience shaped your work and your motivation to do this work? >> i am an immigrant. i came to this country as a 9-year-old boy undocumented and lived in the shadows of society fearful of the deportation. that was even tough for me, don't say a word, don't speak up. make yourself invisible.

so that shaped me a great deal. thankfully for me and my family we were able to get amnesty through that law that president reagan signed into law. because of that i was unshackled in a way to basically live out the rest of my life here so i continued on with my education, went to princeton, went to congress. i have never forgotten that experience of being in the shadows. i knew that there is more to the story that we have people in the shadows because i know that people are hard working, people are dignified and really just want an opportunity to really live out the true human and economic potential. i dedicated my life and career to do that for them. thankfully through circles i was able to find a tangible way of actually helping people build financial security. >> what is the default like?

>> over the course of the past eight years we managed like $6.2 million in loanps. we helped over 6,000 people. the repayment rate is 99.3% meaning the default rate is 0.7%. there is a lot of reason why that happens because this is their money. this is the relationships that they are holding. >> personally and emotionally invested. >> exactly. >> do you follow up with the participants after they leave? how has this transformed lives? >> we do follow up with them. we have clients who come. one story i go back to we had a client who moved from chicago to san francisco after leaving her abusive husband. she came to san francisco to start her life anew with two kids. because she didn't have a credit report she couldn't find an apartment. nobody would rent to her. she was essentially homeless with her kids living in couches

and in hallways. once she got a credit report she was able to get that apartment. she came to our office to tliv the news and she was literally in tears because her life was transformed because of that. >> you get a grant of $625,000. what are you going to do with it? >> i'm going to go to disneyland. >> and then what? >> i'm going to keep doing what i'm doing. i think this is a phenomenal recognition. this is providing like a jet fuel to our work. i'm thankful that i will continue to do this work for years to come. >> award winner and leader of the mission asset fund. from lending circles to the classroom our next guests are making an impact on society by shattering stereotypes. they first met as engineering grad students who went on for a

startup. getting girls excited about science, technology, engineering and math. it must be fun to engage the next generation of female scientists and engineers. welcome to you both. what makes you decide to start? >> i studied mechanical engineering in college. there weren't maybe other women around. and when we met in graduate school that was one thing we talked about why there weren't more women in our classes. we realized we were inspired to love engineering. >> did you have access to building toys that you felt were friendly and interest to you? >> for me i played with my brother's building toys and a lot of legos, lincoln logs and looking at toys for girls today when starting the company we thought those were marketed only to the boys. we saw a gap for girls.

>> and why did you pick toys as opposed to doing something else? there are a lot of classes for young girls. >> we want to start earlier before the classes, before math problems coming up in the classroom, when girls are 5 and 6 years old we wanted them comfortable building so they can develop spatial skills and comfortable with circuits. >> so what separates your product from all the other more traditional construction toys out there? >> one exciting thing is that we bring in a lot more technology into our product. you can put a light together or motor together. maybe you make a fan or a merry go round. that is really exciting moment for girls when they put that together and see that they have built something that moved. that is so empowering. now this year we introduced a

new technology where we can control everything from your phone. it's even more cool things you can do and we can introduce a lot more advanced technology with that. >> let's see how it worked. >> we built a house. a lot of girls know about doll houses. as a hook we -- then they design and construct the whole thing. they build a structure and design furniture, couches, and then they put in circuits to make it come alive. you can have your fan, put in lights. it is about creating their own world. they are in control. >> how does this work when you are operating it from your smart phone? >> we have one set up here. this is our power. it connects to your phone via blue tooth. you can turn on the lights. you can set the lights to blink if you want. you can turn on the motors and control how fast the motor spins. if you don't want animals to fly off you can change the direction

of the motors. so imagine having an elevator up and back down or a car that you can drive around. it opens up a lot more customization for girls. >> do you think girls learn and play differently from boys? >> from our testing we found that girls are loving playing with circuit toys we brought but putting them into their own story. we wanted to give them a chance to tell their story and make them actually real. by giving them the context of something they have seen in other toys we are not the first influence. we know they have played with a lot of other toys. by doing something comfortable with we can get them hooked and playing. >> were there things that happened that you felt discouraged you from trying to pursue careers in stem? >> in school i think there is always an element of a girl that likes science and math. when it really hit me was when i

was in college and studying mechanical engineering and people would say you are not really studying mechanical engineering that attitude is making women question themselves. >> did you question yourself? >> were there any discouraging things that happened with you? >> one of the biggest things is when i was at stanford coming from caltech every time i meet someone new they are like what are you studying and i say electrical engineering and then they back away. it's like it shouldn't be abnormal for girls to want to do engineering. it should be cool and fun and exciting. having that be the norm will be really important. >> thank you both. 27 years old and already a startup under your belt. a fresh approach to thinking about a problem can be just what is needed to solve it even one

as big as hunger. a young entrepreneur thinks hunger is a problem of logistics and not scarcity. she created a startup that combines mobile technology and logistics to redistribute food. it is a win for the environment by keeping tons of food out of land fills. so nice to have you here. >> thank you so much. >> how did you come up with this idea? >> so a few years ago i was walking in berkeley and i encountered a homeless man begging for food. during lunch he sat across from me just scarfing down food. he was really hungry. in between bites he said my name is sean. i just came back from my second tour in iraq. i have been waiting weeks for v.a. benefits to kick in. because they haven't i haven't eaten in three days. this is a veteran only to come

home to face another battle of hunger and homelessness. right across the street throwing away thousands of pounds of edible food. it is a stark reality. those people right across the street from one another. and what i realized is that in every single day in america over 365 million pounds of edible food is wasted. the paradox is that while all of this is happening one in six don't know where their next meal is coming from. it's just an inefficient distribution. this is a logistics problem. >> a way to solve that logistics problem. >> imagine if you have a bunch of food you take a picture of the food and you would say we need it picked up by this time. it is geolocated and sends to a virtual market place. our algorithm will match that

amount and type of food to the nearest nonprofit and dispatch food hero to pick it up and drop it off. we send back food managers photos and testimonials along with data and analytics that help as well as enhanced financial savings by doing good. >> how many businesses have signed on now? how many people have you fetd? >> we have hundreds that work for our platform. we are always looking for more businesses whether a grocery store, corporation, tech company whatever you want to be. and then nonprofits, as well. we serve from saint anthony, boys and girls club, a whole gamut of people.

>> what about the practical reality? are there liability issues? is it hard to convince businesses to sign on? what if someone gets sick from eating their food? >> 97% of why businesses don't donate the food there are five different ways. number one is all nonprofits that work with us directly indemniify us from liability and puts owners at responsibility. congress in 1996 passed the good samaritan act that protects all donors from liability. the number of claims and lawsuits filed against any business or organization or individual has been zero. and that's very hard to prove. we have a $5 million insurance policy that protects every donation that happens as well as all drivers we are a profit company so none of the drivers

are volunteers. a lot of recipients have come on as drivers. it's not just a handout but a hand up. >> copia started out as nonprofit and is now for profit. >> we decided because we are solving the world's largest problem. we are for profit for scale. we want to scale fast. this is the first time in human history that we can solve some of the world's largest problems and with technology we can do it faster than before. for us to spend time fundraising doesn't make sense. to it makes more sense to use technology to develop and put the resources behind it to solve it. right now we are moving food and redeveloping technology to be so much more sophisticated. it can redistribute medicine,

books, clothing. it is not a lack of resource. it is inefficient distribution of it. our technology team can work together to make that happen. >> how do you make money? >> like you pay for composting you pay for us. and then in turn we provide you receipts that actually give you 200% to 400% return on bottom line so it is a cash benefit after our fee for businesses that work with us. it is basically getting money you would have left on the table or worse in the trash. and you are getting that -- >> can anyone download the app? >> anyone can download the app. any business or grocery store or company are encouraged to participate. >> have people outside the bay area contacted you, as well, in termsoffs how to bring this platform to their country? hunger is a world wide problem. >> thousands. we received over 60,000 requests

already for global expansion. government officials in germany and austria saying we want this platform so we can redistributte food. there are so many resources that people need in real time it just needs to move quicker and faster. we are really excited to see how this is going to expand ask evolve to really solve a problem that has existed since the beginning of time. >> we did not have time to get into this but you are just 26 years old. you already spoke at the white house and at the united nations this year about copia. congratulations. >> thank you so much. >> a wonderful idea. >> thank you so much. thank you for having me. >> copia is working with the san francisco 49ers to reduce the football team's food waste and startup has plans to expand

services beyond northern california. we hope you have enjoyed hearing from some of the bay area's top innovators. for more coverage go to kqed.org/newsroom. thanks for watching.

>> the russian meddling probe hits close to home for president trump. i'm robert costa. why the president's son-in-law is being considered a person of interest. plus, how trump's america first agenda played out on the world stage. tonight on "washington week." >> the f.b.i.'s russia election investigation takes them inside the white house, directly to jared kushner. but unlike former national security advisor michael flynn and former trump advisor paul manafort, kushner is not considered a subject in any federal probe. still, the russia questions are only mounting. and the former head of the c.i.a. tells congress he saw evidence last year of russian officials interacting with people involved in the trump campaign but stopped short of calling it collusion.