[2] As a high school student, she became interested in environmental issues and joined a local chapter of Roots and Shoots, the international youth organization founded by Jane Goodall.
[5] Ren first wrote a business plan for the company that would become MyH2O in 2014 during her postgraduate studies at MIT, with mentorship from engineer John H. Lienard V.[6] She was inspired by the robust network of water quality and sanitation databases that she observed in India while completing her master's degrees.
She launched the platform in 2015 with the goal of using similar data collection systems to combat a crisis of poor water quality in rural China.
[3] There are tens of millions of people in China who do not have access to reliably clean drinking water; pollution caused by industrial and agricultural runoff is a significant problem in rural areas.
[3] Ren emphasizes that beyond the utility of the hard data collected, MyH2O also has the positive effect of empowering residents of rural villages to raise their voices and take action to improve their own circumstances, connecting them in a grassroots network of citizen-scientists.