Posted October 7, 2026

Avani Thakur '27 and SWENext Club win awards

When — 12:00 p.m. - 3:00 p.m. on February 7, 2026

Location — Welcome Center and Innovation Center

The Society of Women Engineers NEXT (SWENext) Chapter at Saint Francis High School has won the SWENext Best Practices Award. This best practices award recognizes SWENext Clubs that have worked to help their members explore their engineering interests and to obtain information on best practices that SWENext Clubs are implementing to share with and advance the SWENext Clubs program as a whole.

Senior Avani Thakur has been awarded the Global Innovator Award. Avani's engineering journey began in robotics, where navigating a male-dominated team sparked her commitment to redesigning systems that expand access in technical spaces. In response, she co-founded her school's SWENext Club and first InnovateHER Conference with the help of a $1,000 SWE grant, which welcomed over 100 girls. As VP of marketing for STEMMABLE, she has helped expand STEM programming to over 3,500 students locally and internationally. Avani also conducts research with UNC Charlotte College of Computing on securing autonomous AI systems. Presenting at IEEE ICDM, her work received a Rising Star distinction, which is only awarded to the top 14% of papers. Her least-permission control protocol is currently in the patent filing process. Due to her commitment to both technology and society, she has received awards from NCWIT Bay Area and the Silicon Valley Engineering Council, and was selected as her school’s only Carson Scholar nominee amongst 1,600 students.

If you are interested in learning more about SWENext, contact Ms. Rachel Sabol rachelsabol@sfhs.com or sfswenext@sfhs.com. 

Learn more about the SWENext awards

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