I saw this article the other day, and it made me so happy. Emma Yang is going to do amazing things with her skills, of that I am sure. Maybe she could unite with Shubham Banerjee and do some amazing things.
She saw her grandmother struggling with the effects of Alzheimer’s, and at 14, built an app to help others with the disease. This app sounds super cool. It’s kind of like Seeing AI for folks with Alzheimer’s.
In her app under development, called Timeless, Alzheimer’s patients can scroll through photos of friends and family, and the app will tell them who the person is and how they’re related to the patient using facial recognition tech. If a patient doesn’t recognize someone in the same room, they can take a picture and the tech will also try to automatically identify them.
“I saw a lot of things about how AI and facial recognition were really evolving and being applied in more and more areas, especially healthcare,” she says. She partnered with mentors at the tech company Kairos, which makes the facial recognition software that is now used by the app, and learned to code for the iPhone for the first time.
The app also includes a simple reminder screen that lists appointments for the day, along with a simple contacts screen that shows photos of family members along with names. If a patient tries to call a contact repeatedly–something that can sometimes happen because of the disease–the app will flash a quick reminder: “Are you sure you want to call? You just called less than five minutes ago.” A “me” page shows the patient’s own name, age, phone number, and address.
A caregiver maintains some of the other parts of the app, including putting events on the daily calendar, and inviting friends and family to send an initial set of photos that the facial recognition algorithm can use to learn to identify them.
Isn’t that the best thing in the history of ever? And she’s 14!
If you are as moved as I was, contribute to her campaign. This sort of thinking needs to be encouraged.
Good luck, and keep using your coding power for good.