The average age of a Silicon Valley worker is 30.
But one woman is bucking that trend in a huge way.
Ninety-one-year-old Barbara Beskind is a designer at one of Silicon Valley’s largest firms.
She works on design projects primarily related to aging, inventing all manner of innovations and gadgets that help people in their later years.
The company director calls her an invaluable resource and her co-workers love her.
Ever since Barbara was ten she had always dreamt of becoming an inventor. Her high school counsellor at the time, however, told her that girls couldn’t apply to engineering school. She ended up being an occupational therapist instead, along with writing books and being a painter.
An opportunity arose decades later when she applied for a job at a company called IDEO, Just some of the designs that Barbara has invented for IDEO include a device that uses a magnifying glass and specialized clipboard to read the newspaper; a device to help elderly people get off the couch even if they have hip problems, and high-tech walking poles.
This might be her fifth career, having served in the Army and as an occupational therapist, but by far, this is her best job yet.
[H/T: Today]“Every Thursday, I feel thirty years younger,” she told NBC Today correspondent, Jenna Bush Hager.