Full Throttle
She has done so much so soon, one can’t help but wonder, Is she for real?
“She is the real deal,” says Christine Osborne, School of Business entrepreneur-in-residence, who has mentored Zehntner for more than two years. “She’s probably the most persistent, hardworking, relentless, passionate person I’ve met. When she sees needs, she fills them.”
Which is how the MeeLi (Meet Life) app came about, catching the attention of both the College’s administration and the local startup community.
With an investor and board of advisors, including Osborne, Zehnter hopes to launch the app this summer. The target audience (for now) is College of Charleston students with short videos highlighting student organizations, mental health, restaurants, or interesting students or alumni. The big difference from traditional social media is that MeeLi has no commenting or “like” features, trademarks of what Zehnter calls “soulcial media.” Another big differentiator is that a user can tell the algorithm what they do or don’t want to see – a feature Zehntner says will keep it from becoming instead an echo chamber.
“We’re trying to build a healthy social media, which is a huge task,” says Zehntner. “At the moment, there’s so much wrong with social media – the pressure to be perfect, the addiction, the negative mental health impacts, the comparisons. We want to go back to what social media was supposed to be: connecting people all over the world through authentic stories.”
When it comes to interviewing interesting students, she might want to turn the camera on herself. The daughter of professional dancers, Zehntner spent 14 years as a competitive gymnast in Germany and worked as a paramedic before making the bold decision during Covid to pursue her education in Charleston, home of her aunt and uncle, who once worked for BMW in Spartanburg, S.C.
While attending the College the first two years, Zehntner worked as an EMT with Charleston County on weekends. “One moment, you have a person dying, and the next, another person is giving birth in the very same place in your ambulance,” she says. “It provides a unique perspective on life.”
Her lifesaving skills came in handy on a recent flight from Munich to Charlotte, N.C., when she provided first aid to a passenger experiencing a medical emergency during landing. That incident reinforced her longtime dream of becoming a doctor, specifically a neurologist.
“Those are the moments that I do it for,” she says. “If something happens around me, I want to be there to help.”
After graduation, Zehntner hopes to stay in Charleston for a year or two to develop her app while preparing for medical school in the U.S. if she can extend her visa. Her goal is to work with Doctors Without Borders, combining her passions for medicine, travel and human connection – in between a dozen other things, no doubt.
“We need more Elaines in the world,” says Osborne.