Bridgit Mendler's path from Disney Channel star to space startup CEO started with — quite literally — an accident. The 31-year-old is the CEO and co-founder of Northwood Space, a company based in El Segundo, California that aims to mass-produce ground stations — otherwise known as the antennae that communicate with space satellites. "While everybody else was making their sourdough starters [during the Covid-19 pandemic], we were building antennas out of random crap we could find at Home Depot ... and receiving data from [National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration] satellites," Mendler told CNBC on Monday while announcing her startup. "I'm studying anthropology," Mendler told ABC's "Jimmy Kimmel Live" in 2015. While at Harvard, she served as co-president of the Harvard Space Law Society, according to her LinkedIn profile.

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Persons: —, Charlie, Mendler, ABC's, Jimmy Kimmel, Griffin, Andreessen Horowitz, Peter Thiel's Organizations: Disney Channel, Northwood, National Oceanic, Administration, CNBC, University of Southern, USC, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, MIT Media Lab, Harvard Law School, Harvard, Harvard Space Law Society, Founders, Humba Ventures, Elon, SpaceX, Technologies, Northrop Grumman Locations: El Segundo , California, University of Southern California, Northwood