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For a moment, Emma Yang was stuck.

It was March 2016. She was trying to get a new project off the ground. She needed artificial-intelligence technology that could identify faces in photographs. IBM鈥檚 Watson wouldn鈥檛 work. Developers at Google couldn鈥檛 help.

Undeterred, the 7th grader kept pushing.

Online, she came across a Miami-based startup called . The company鈥檚 new developer-friendly AI platform seemed promising. Emma wrote to the company鈥檚 chief technology officer.

鈥淚鈥檓 a 12-year old student in New York. I found your email on GitHub, hope you don鈥檛 mind. My passion is to use computer science to improve people鈥檚 lives. I鈥檓 currently working on an iOS app to help Alzheimer鈥檚 patients鈥�I鈥檓 struggling a bit. I鈥檓 trying to ask for two favors.鈥�

And with that, another door opened in Emma Yang鈥檚 extraordinary education.

Now in 9th grade, Emma is the first student featured by Education Week for our new series, 鈥楩aces of the Future.鈥� These profiles will be part of our ongoing special coverage of schools and the future of work. We believe the stories behind these exceptional young people hold important lessons about the promise鈥攁nd peril鈥攖hat all of today鈥檚 students will face in tomorrow鈥檚 uncertain labor market.

In Emma鈥檚 case, for example, there鈥檚 no doubt she鈥檚 a remarkable coder.

But that鈥檚 just part of what makes her as close to future-proof as a 13-year-old can get.

As technology reshapes the labor market, experts are sharply divided over how disruptive the long-term impact will be for future workers. With so much uncertainty, what will give today鈥檚 students the greatest chance to thrive?

The best guess is to combine technical ability with passion, people skills, and the probing mind of a scientist.

That鈥檚 where Emma truly stands out, said Cole Calistra, the Kairos chief technology officer who received Yang鈥檚 email inquiry back in 2016, and has been collaborating with her ever since.

鈥淓mma has the vision to stitch together different pieces of technology to solve a real-world problem,鈥� Calistra said. 鈥淚 don鈥檛 know how you learn that, but she did.鈥�

鈥楯ust Let Her Explore鈥�

Across the country, talented and driven young people are pushing well beyond the boundaries of school, finding new ways to learn advanced computer science, tackle big challenges, and start mapping an uncharted future.

Emma鈥檚 journey began in Hong Kong, where she lived for the first decade of her life.

Her dad, Adrian Yang, was working as a software engineer at an investment bank. When Emma was 6, Yang introduced her to , a kid-friendly programming language.

鈥淚 just let her explore,鈥� he said.

It worked.

By the time she was 10, Emma had developed a passion for computer science. She took part in the , an international competition for girls using technology to solve social problems. Emma鈥檚 prototype for an app to help sports teams diagnose concussions won second place.

A light bulb went off.

鈥淚 realized I could make an impact,鈥� she said.

But as the precocious girl鈥檚 world was opening up, her grandmother鈥檚 world was going dark.

Emma and her parents had moved to a neat 5th-floor apartment on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. But back in Hong Kong, Emma鈥檚 beloved grandmother, who had helped raise her, was struggling with Alzheimer鈥檚 disease. Phone calls and video chats became harder.

Emma got the notion that she could help鈥攂y building her own app.

She won a $3,500 鈥淒iscover Your Passion鈥� scholarship for promising New York City students. She used the money to enroll in the Flatiron School, a coding bootcamp for adults. Her goal was to learn how to develop mobile apps using Apple鈥檚 platform.

Emma kept thinking about the whiteboard that her family used to help her grandmother manage her contacts, communication, and calendar.

She also kept thinking about the online tutorials on machine learning and artificial intelligence she liked to stay up late watching.

An idea started to form.

What if she could create an app that helped Alzheimer鈥檚 patients by performing the same functions as her grandmother鈥檚 whiteboard鈥攁nd also by employing facial recognition algorithms to help them recognize the family members in their photos?

The idea sent Emma鈥檚 education spiraling off in new directions.

鈥淨uestions lead to other questions,鈥� she said.

A network of mentors

More than anything, that mindset is why Emma has captivated luminaries like computer scientist , the creator of the Mathematica programming language and the Wolfram Alpha search engine.

In the fall of 2015, Wolfram was giving a talk at the New York City Maker Faire. Afterwards, a small girl approached him. She asked whether his programming language could support facial recognition in mobile apps.

It could not. But the two struck up a correspondence anyway. Wolfram asked Emma to review a draft of a book he was working on.

鈥淪he read it and gave me a bunch of comments, especially about one section she thought was awful,鈥� he said. 鈥淲hich I changed, because she was right.鈥�

In return, Wolfram arranged for Emma to become the youngest student to ever take part in a mentorship program run by his company, Wolfram Research. The focus is on cultivating 鈥渃omputational thinking.鈥� Wolfram believes deeply this is the key to the future.

鈥淚t basically boils down to this,鈥� he said. 鈥淐an you take something you鈥檙e wondering about and understand it deeply enough that you can explain to a smart computer how to do it?鈥�

Through the program, Emma first worked on a project to look for patterns that might explain where, when, and why cars crash in New York City. Then she began using machine-learning techniques to , a key technology for self-driving cars.

For the past several months, Emma鈥檚 been working to use those same types of techniques to detect cancerous tumors in human lungs. It鈥檚 difficult to describe how advanced the work is.

Among the steps in Emma鈥檚 process have been helping build computer-vision and machine-learning algorithms that can identify cancerous nodules in human lungs; applying the algorithms to CT scans to determine if patients are at risk of lung cancer; and finding new datasets that can be used to improve the algorithms鈥� accuracy.

鈥淎ll the things that seem out of reach, Emma will reach for them,鈥� said Andrea Griffin, her mentor at Wolfram Research.

Griffin said her main job is to help connect Emma with other experts, such as machine-learning developers and oncologists.

Emma says those are the types of learning opportunities she values most.

鈥淪ometimes, when I鈥檓 curious to learn more, people will say, 鈥榊ou won鈥檛 understand 鈥榯il later,鈥欌�� she said.

鈥淏ut at my mentorship program, they give me all the information I want, and I can go as deep into it as I want. I really appreciate that.鈥�

鈥楢 traditional liberal arts education鈥�

Despite all her drive and accomplishments, Emma has only taken an introduction-to-programming class in school.

That鈥檚 by design, said her mother, Alyssa Tam.

鈥淚 wanted her to get a traditional liberal arts education,鈥� said Tam, the director of innovation for a large life insurance firm that operates in Asia. 鈥淚f you read well, you write well. And if you write well, you think well鈥�.

Since moving to the United States, Emma has attended the , a prestigious private school a few blocks from her home.

The classrooms are small. Brearley鈥檚 computer lab is cramped. The middle-school hallways feature antique science instruments, rather than the latest robotics equipment.

But parents like Adrian Yang and Alyssa Tam don鈥檛 pay the school鈥檚 hefty annual tuition primarily because of the technology it offers.

鈥淲e place a high value on cultivating girls鈥� voices and helping them find their own unique creativity,鈥� said Tim Brownell, Brearley鈥檚 head of middle school life. 鈥淚t鈥檚 important to make sure every student feels known and encouraged in who they are.鈥�

In Emma鈥檚 case, Brownell said, that鈥檚 meant pushing her to take part in free-flowing classroom debates, challenge her teachers, and practice public speaking.

It鈥檚 also meant encouraging her relentlessness, even when it creates administrative headaches.

Back in 7th grade, for example, Emma decided she wanted to start an after-school coding club. She sent Mr. Brownell a proposal. His response: Who would the faculty advisor be? Where would they meet? How long would it last? What curriculum would they use? Why was coding more important than other activities?

In shredding Emma鈥檚 initial idea, though, Brownell also outlined for the girl a process by which she might craft something better.

So Emma kept revising. She found an advisor. She sketched out a sequence of units and projects that would build upon each other.

The past two springs鈥攊n between swapping ideas with Cole Calistra at Kairos; and preparing for her ; and pitching potential investors in her app, now called Timeless; and trying to explain the project to her grandmother back in Hong Kong鈥攖here was Emma, teaching coding to other Brearley girls.

The future of work may be uncertain.

But we already have a pretty good idea of how to best prepare students for whatever may come, said James Paul Gee, an Arizona State University professor who has been studying the intersection of technology, learning, and identity for the better part of a decade.

The adults in Emma Yang鈥檚 life take her seriously. She鈥檚 constantly encouraged to cross the boundaries between school and society, and between the physical and digital worlds. Everywhere she goes, there鈥檚 someone to feed her curiosity. The focus is always on making sure Emma has a problem-solving process she can apply, not an answer she can recite.

鈥淪he鈥檚 getting a beautiful education,鈥� Gee said. 鈥淭he real question is whether we鈥檙e willing to give that to every kid.鈥�