12-year-old inventor celebrated by Time magazine

A UK pupil who designed a solar-powered backpack when she was 12 has been recognised by US magazine, Time.

Rebecca, now 13, from Glasgow has been named on the first-ever Time magazine Girls of the Year list alongside nine other girls from around the world.

She came up with the idea of a solar-powered backpack with an electric blanket after becoming worried about homeless people sleeping on the streets during winter.

"Seeing all the homeless people, it made me want to help – it's a problem that should be fixed," she explained to BBC Scotland.

"During the day, the heat from the sun can energise the solar panels and they go into a battery pack that can store the heat. When it's cold at night people can use the energy stored in the battery pack to sleep on.

"In Glasgow it can be freezing at night and they [homeless people] will have no power, so I thought the solar panel could heat it."

Rebecca designed the solar-powered backpack and blanket for a competition

Rebecca thought up of the idea at an engineering club, she then came top in the UK Primary Engineer competition, where more than 70,000 pupils entered ideas aimed around addressing a social issue.

An engineering company then turned the design into reality, with 30 of the blankets given to a homeless shelter in Glasgow, with plans to make more.

As part of the honour, Rebecca and the other nine winners are appearing on a digital cover of the famous magazine, where they are styled as Lego mini-figures - something she said was both "really cool and crazy".

Rebecca has been turned into Lego mini-figure as part of the award

US news magazine, Time, is best known for its Person of the Year feature which it has run since the 1920s.

In 2023, Taylor Swift was named Person of the Year, while in 2024 it was Donald Trump.

The digital magazine cover features the while the girls' stories will be featured in TIME for Kids

The Time 100 list, which lists 100 influential people around the world and Women of the Year are also well-known features.

This is the first Girls of the Year list and honours "10 extraordinary young leaders" between the ages of 12 and 17.

The list also includes15-year-old French singer Zoé Clauzure, who won the 2023 Junior Eurovision Song Contest with an anti-bullying song and 15-year-old skateboarder Coco Yoshizawa from Japan, who won a gold medal at the 2024 Paris Olympics.