Nova Scotia, known as Canada’s Ocean Playground was established in 1867 as the first Province to make up the country of Canada. This homeland of Krista Donaldson centers its beliefs on family values; “In our society, citizenship is viewed as a balance between rights and responsibilities” (Canada and the World 1998). Donaldson grew up with parents teaching her to defend their core values. Values that included, “helping one another in times of difficulty” (Canada and the World 1998). These traits pressed into Canadian beliefs highly influenced Donaldson to become the non-profit CEO she is today. Donaldson puts others before herself through her affordable and effective prosthetic limb invention. Her company carries the same values her community grew up believing in. These culture values all stem back to the 1800’s when Nova Scotia became a province. It was nearly forty years later when civilization became normalized when the wars ended and women and men began having equal rights. 1918 women got the right to vote (CultureGrams 2015). Men in the labor force fished, acted, directed, performed, taught, and managed businesses. Women occupations included dancing, crafting, and managing heritage groups. These cultural professions provided highly varied incomes. The more educated workers saw higher salaries while the less educated earned a lower amount. Regardless of salary placement, all jobs reflected Canadian values and culture. Teachers taught the culture; actors lived the culture, and artists painted it (Frank 1996).

Krista Donaldson grew up in a time where women were given many of the same opportunities as men. Schools were co-ed; women were becoming more dominant in the workforce, and were given more say in the government. By the time Krista Donaldson graduated from college and began her research in forming her newly improved prosthetic limb, it was 2013 and in The United States. Many women inventors were highly educated engineers at this time. There were unlimited amounts of tools and resources to study new ideas and methods for testing theories. For example, technology became so advanced with microchips; cell phones were able to photo call a person across the country, and even deposit bank checks by a picture. Donaldson attended very prestigious schools for earning her degrees. Today, more women are becoming confident and a more influential part in S.T.E.M. fields of study, but not enough to compete with the number of male participants. According to USA Today, women only make up 24% of S.T.E.M. jobs;

“[R]esearch shows that girls who enjoy–and excel at–math and science in high school are less likely than boys to pursue a college major in those fields. And even if they start college majoring in a S.T.E.M. field, women are more likely than men to change majors, federal data show” (Marklein 2012).

There are online communities supporting women engineers such as http://societyofwomenengineers.swe.org. Schools encourage young women to pursue subjects they find interesting rather than subjects like English that they are just expected to strive at. Today, S.T.E.M. fields still battle with a lack of women influence. Krista Donaldson was one of the few to look past societal standards and get involved in what was needed to support her goal and change the world amputees live in.