First Ask Customers What They Want. Then Build Your ProductThat's how Christine Schindler turned a raw technology into a popular tool to make restaurants safer.

Christine Schindler was obsessed with handwashing way beforeCOVID-19came along.

In 2017, as foodborne illness outbreaks were plaguing businesses like Chipotle and wreaking havoc on public health across the country, she understood how to solve the problem. "No one walks into a restaurant with a vial of E. coli," says Schindler, a biomedical engineer. "Eighty-nine percent of foodborne illness outbreaks caused byrestaurantsare directly linked to poor handwashing practices." She got to work on a solution, calledPathSpot, that would utilize spectral imaging to detect illness-causing contaminants on a restaurant worker's hands, all in a matter of seconds.