This new year has brought countless technological breakthroughs and developments that will undoubtedly reshape our future. However, most notably, it has brought the return of CEO, Movie-Star, Scholar Brigit Mendler.
Mendler is Ready to be named a “Hurricane” of Inspiration
Brigit Mendler is many things and recently has been trending online for achieving various successful careers and starting a family all by 31 years old. She was a notable former Disney Channel star, playing treasured roles in “Good Luck Charlie,” “Wizards of Waverly Place”, and “The Clique”. Along with this, she was a successful pop singer, creating smashing hits like “Hurricane,” and “Ready or Not,” with millions of streams each.
Apart from this, she received her degree from the University of Southern California and received her Masters degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Currently, she is finishing up her Ph.D. at MIT in Science and a law degree at Harvard University, where she was co-president of Harvard’s space society.
In February 2024, She even announced that she was a proud mom to a four year old boy after his adoption in 2022.
“You said CEO??”
Brigit Mendler founded Northwood Space, a satellite data startup that essentially aims to create a “data highway” directly from space to ground stations on Earth. The company strives to do this using its mass produced data-retrieving ground stations found on Earth.
After noticing that ground architecture for the ground stations receiving information from satellites orbiting Earth had been primarily unchanged since the 1960s, Mendler, along with her husband Griffin Cleverly who is now the CTO of Northwood and the current head of software, Shaurya Luthra, decided to take action against the difficulty of sending data from space and back.
Mendler recalls her time during the Covid-19 Pandemic: “While everybody else was making their sourdough starters, we were building antennas out of random crap we could find at Home Depot … and receiving data from [National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration] satellites.”
The company will produce new and improved ground stations which will act as antennas on the Earth to receive and communicate with satellites in space. This is becoming ever more critical as the space industry soars to greater heights. And major Venture investors agree: Northwood has raised approximately $6 million in initial funds by high-profile VCs like Founders Fund, Andreessen Horowitz, and Also Capital.
As with all good things, Mendler came up with the startup’s name when she was spending time with her family during the Covid-19 pandemic, inspired from a lake in New Hampshire. The development process led the company to focus on mass production to improve the current patterns of customer service, including duration and access, of the satellite transmission process.
Later this year, we will be able to see this company take off—quite literally—as they test their first satellite connection.
Ready, Set, Soar
Mendler’s legacy inspires youth everywhere to strive for their goals, proving that they can do whatever they set their mind to. Her work with Northwood Space brings promises of technological growth and observable changes to the way space information is carried out. Only the future can tell where we see her next!
Image caption:
Northwood CTO, CEO, and Head of Software pictured respectively.
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