Brianna was surprised that the next story she was to write involved three alumni of Henry’s foundation. They were the co-founders of Trionyx, a high tech company doing risk assessments from climate change. She was especially interested in how the merger of talents worked.
Lakeesha was the outward face of Trionyx. She was a beautiful African American who came to Henry because of her mother’s concern. Lakeesha was an extrovert’s extrovert. She never met a stranger, and that was her mother’s concern. There were just too many ways Lakeesha’s outgoing nature could get her in trouble.
Alicia was on the autism spectrum. She was high functioning but yet found it very difficult to connect with others. She often ate alone until Lakeesha sat down beside her. Alicia became Henry’s go-to person whenever there was a computer issue.
Carmella was very quiet but joined Lakeesha and Alicia at meals. When she met with Henry, he was surprised to see her looking at videos of landslides on her phone. This was the first thing that Carmella ever seemed interested in. When they went to the beach, Henry observed her using water pours to see the effect they had on the sand castles other students had made.
Henry helped all three girls go to college. Lakeesha was a natural for marketing, as was Alicia for computer science. Henry helped Carmella find a major he never knew existed: soil mechanics.
This trio had kept in touch and after graduation they decided to join forces. It was Carmella who had the idea to use drones to gather data on potential hazards brought about from soil erosion. Carmella developed an artificial intelligence model for predicting hazards from visual images from drones. Alicia developed the software for translating the images into hazard predictions. Lakeesha was the marketer of the company.
After a slow start, Trionyx became an essential service for coastal areas facing beach erosion. It was also vital in predicting landslides in hilly terrains to prevent life threatening landslides. The success of Trionyx was so great that virtually no development project could get insurance coverage without a Trionyx assessment.
As Brianna reflected on the stories of the three founders of Trionyx, she marveled at how Henry had not only helped them find their individual talents but fostered the connections that led to their collaboration. Clearly each of their talents was enhanced by the others.
* * *
“Collaboration allows us to know more than we are capable of knowing by ourselves.”
– Paul Solarz (Educator)