Since its recent founding, PIGEONS has tripled online orders for several small businesses, fostered intergeneral connections between tech-savvy teenagers and local business owners, and been recognized by Congress as a U.S. 2025 National STEM Festival Finalist. This data-driven app matches up capable student volunteers with business owners in Chinatown who need support with technologically advanced tasks like building websites and developing social media platforms. As a token of their appreciation, these owners offer Volunteer Coins to the students, which they can exchange for local products such as a small meal or a cup of boba.
Although PIGEONS has achieved national awareness through its awards, founder Xinhe Zhang is less focused on these accomplishments and more on the human side of PIGEONS. After witnessing the disproportionate impact of COVID and Trump's newly announced tariffs on Chinese products, Xinhe sought a solution for Chinatown businesses to expand their customer base outside the confines of their local shops.
When formulating the concept of PIGEONS, Xinhe was attentive to the pain points from both sides that her app addresses. On one hand, business owners in Chinatown from older generations struggled to transfer their knowledge and products into the platforms of the digital age. On the other hand, Xinhe's community of high schoolers needed real-world practice to hone their technological skills. As she aptly explains, "While others see data points, I see stories and opportunities. PIGEONS doesn't just help sales—it quantifies cultural resilience, turning noodle shops into nodes of heritage and code into a love letter to Chinatown's legacy."
When building her app, Xinhe has always kept her human-centered approach to data science in mind. At first, some business owners in Chinatown were hesitant to use PIGEONS because of their cultural resistance to technology. Rather than dismissing these concerns, Xinhe worked to address them by creating data-driven demos that used historical sales data to demonstrate how her platform could boost their revenue. Her willingness to sit down and engage with business owners' concerns and hesitancies has been key to her success in building partnerships.
Given her emphasis on problem-solving, it is unsurprising that both the student volunteers and the business owners have raved about their experiences with PIGEONS. While working with each other, both sides have found profound moments of connection, cultural empathy, and resilience.
Xinhe plans to extend the impact on PIGEONS to more communities beyond the tri-state area in New York. Her expertise in data science—which she has also applied to award-winning projects such as predictive modeling for presidential elections and biological data analysis involving bird feathers—will be her tool to enact social change through a data-driven framework. Currently, she's working on research that reveals how social media may manipulate the stock market with a broader emphasis on how harmful data practices can influence the economy.
When asked about her future endeavors, Xinhe responded, "I intend to strive for ethical data science that dismantles algorithmic divides, using my coding and analytical skills to redesign systems that currently fragment communities. My work on projects like PIGEONS and the Franklin election models has shown me that data can either erase or elevate humanity—I choose the latter... Success means the majority of us recognize data science as a pillar of cultural preservation, not just profit."
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