Indian origin teen Eesha Khare invents a device we all might want to own

Eesha Khare, an 18-year-old from Saratoga, California, showed up at the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair in Phoenix, Arizona, with the gadget of everyone's dreams: a tiny device, small enough to fit inside a cellphone battery, that can fully charge in 20–30 seconds. Yes, you read that right — 20 to 30 seconds. A normal phone battery takes hours.

The device is a supercapacitor — an energy-storage device that bridges the gap between conventional capacitors and rechargeable batteries, offering higher energy density than a capacitor and higher power density than a battery. Khare, then a senior at Lynbrook High School, designed and synthesized hydrogenated titanium-dioxide polyaniline nanorods for a flexible, high-performance prototype. In testing she used it to power an LED. The prototype withstood more than 10,000 charge-recharge cycles — about ten times the life of a typical rechargeable battery.

The judges were impressed. Khare took home the Intel Foundation Young Scientist Award and $50,000 in scholarship money at ISEF 2013, where she was one of two runners-up among more than 1,600 finalists from over 70 countries (the top Gordon E. Moore Award went to Ionut Budisteanu of Romania for a low-cost self-driving car design). She said the $50,000 would go toward her college education — she was headed to Harvard. Google reportedly reached out to her about the technology, which could have applications far beyond phones, including roll-up displays and electric-car batteries. (EDN, EE Times, SlashGear)

The honest fine print: what Khare demonstrated was a lab prototype charging quickly — not a finished phone battery. Supercapacitor energy density remains far lower than lithium-ion batteries, and scaling the idea up to a real phone was, and is, the hard part. Still: an 18-year-old who told NBC News her motivation was simply "my cell phone battery always dies" walked out of Phoenix with $50,000 and Google's attention.

Eesha Khare, you are leading the way — especially for STEM for girls.