It’s not news that there’s a major power imbalance between men and women. While there’s been a wide range of efforts to tackle the imbalance, inequality persists. Daughters of the Evolution tasked us with finding a solution that sits right where the imbalance begins: with adolescents, whose identities are just starting to take shape as they learn about the world in school. During our research we found that women are underrepresented in curricula; less than 11 percent of stories in US History textbooks are devoted to women, which means children aren’t seeing the full picture of what’s possible. It became our objective to illuminate the stories of women in history. But one major constraint is that we would have to convince textbook companies to rewrite, reprint and redistribute textbooks across America. We needed a creative solution that could bring our objective to life without physically changing textbooks.

With the power of augmented reality, we were able to rewrite one of the most popular US History textbooks without changing the textbook at all. With the Lessons in Herstory app, students are able to scan any photo of any man in their textbook and unlock a related story about a forgotten woman in history. For example, when a student scans a photo of Abraham Lincoln, they’ll unlock a story about Rebecca Pomroy, a remarkable woman who is almost always left out of Lincoln’s narrative, despite the fact that she played a major role in his success. In order to bring these stories of powerful women to life, we decided to leverage the excitement of AR with colorful illustrations and engaging animations—a stark juxtaposition to the outdated textbooks that have failed to change throughout the years.

We unearthed the troubling data that less than 11 percent of the stories in US History textbooks are about women. The consequences of that gender-representation imbalance are severe. A Rutgers University study put it well: “When girls do not see themselves in the pages of textbooks, our daughters learn that to be female is to be an absent partner in the development of our nation.” This is particularly crucial for adolescents, who, psychoanalysts claim, are at the most vulnerable stage of identity formation as they eagerly look up to heroes and mentors in the world to model themselves after. This brought us to our insight—“you can’t be what you can’t see”—as well as our target audience—middle-schoolers. The strategy was to illuminate stories of powerful women so that adolescents could see a diverse range of heroes to be empowered by.

We launched Lessons in Herstory in the US during Women’s History Month, a time dedicated to celebrating the contributions of women, and when the nation’s attention is on the gender-imbalance issue in history. To reach our target audience during this pivotal time, we deliberately put AR technology where our audience is already looking: on their cell phones. We also placed Lessons in Herstory in middle schools for teachers to begin incorporating it into their history curriculum. The app was programmed to recognize the portraits of men in one of the most popular US History textbooks. And the best part? The app can be integrated with any textbook.

Within its first month, Lessons in Herstory earned 88 million impressions and over 110,000 downloads. It’s also already been adopted in schools and implemented into curricula across seven US states. History institutions in the US have approached us for partnership, and we are currently in talks with the Smithsonian Museum about launching a Smithsonian edition of the app. We’ve successfully reached and empowered students across the country, and have forged important connections for Lessons in Herstory to enable it to grow and reach many more. We’ve even gotten the attention of notable global organizations, such as UN Women and the World Economic Forum, and have been invited to speak at the Global Summit of Women in Switzerland—increasing our reach from national to global, and amplifying our ability to move the conversation around gender equality.