A 10-year-old girl has won a place on a summer fellowship designed for computer scientists. She’ll be helped to make robots to cheer up the people of Paris.

The Paris Summer Innovation Fellowship offers two weeks of funding and practical assistance to help “city problem solvers” find ways to improve the French capital. The company says its suitable for people from backgrounds including ” data science, hardware development, product strategy, data visualization, industrial design, GIS and beyond” and that its mainly computer science PHD students who apply.

However, a 10-year-old named Eva applied with a pitch that read in part:

[translated] The streets of Paris are sad. I want to build a robot that will make them happy again. I’ve already starting learning how to code on Thymio robots, but I have trouble making it work. I want to join the program so the mentors can help me.

Eva has written on her own blog about work with a Thymio robot including programming it to draw chalk stars on the sidewalk.

Kat Borlongon, who runs the program, replied to say that “There was nothing on the website that said the program was open to 10 year olds but–as you must have noticed–nothing that said that it was not.” She added that she was particularly impressed that Eva had asked for help:

You’ve openly told us that you had trouble making the robot work on your own and needed help. That was a brave thing to admit, and ultimately what convinced us to take on your project. Humility and the willingness to learn in order to go beyond our current limitations are at the heart and soul of innovation.

Not only will Eva be allowed to take up the fellowship, but the President of Thymio will act as her mentor for the two weeks and will be bringing the company’s latest model for her to work on.