A pilot’s license can cost thousands of dollars. The app Pilot Fast Track connects rising aviators with scholarships to help them chase their passion.
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Meet Angelina Tsuboi, a 16-year-old pilot and app developer who is using her skills and passion to provide others — particularly women and people of color — with resources to pursue careers in aviation.
“When I was a kid, the superpower I’ve always wanted was to fly,” she said. “Aviation was the closest thing I could get to that.”
But her journey wasn’t easy. Obtaining a pilot’s license costs thousands — if not tens of thousands — of dollars in coursework and flight time. To fund her training, Angela put a lot of energy into searching for scholarships. The more time she spent in aviation, however, the more she started to notice that most people in the industry don’t look like her.
So she sought to help aspiring pilots, especially women and people of color, gain access to aviation by developing an app, Pilot Fast Track, to connect them with a marketplace of scholarships to offset the daunting cost of flight training.
Another one of her apps, Pocket CPR, is an Apple Watch product that provides a real-time guide to administer CPR, and it won the 2022 Apple Swift Student Challenge, which tasks students with creating an “an incredible app playground.” She was invited to Apple headquarters where she met Apple CEO Tim Cook.
Angelina says she wants to continue working on projects that make the world a better place.
“Global problems have local roots,” she said. “And by tackling a small problem within your general community… you can impact a global problem.”
