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What's the fastest growing threat
to Americans' health?

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Cancer? Heart attacks? Diabetes?

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The answer is actually none of these;

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it's Alzheimer's disease.

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Every 67 seconds,

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someone in the United States
is diagnosed with Alzheimer's.

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As the number of Alzheimer's patients
triples by the year 2050,

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caring for them, as well as
the rest of the aging population,

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will become an overwhelming
societal challenge.

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My family has experienced firsthand

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the struggles of caring
for an Alzheimer's patient.

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Growing up in a family
with three generations,

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I've always been very close
to my grandfather.

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When I was four years old,

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my grandfather and I 
were walking in a park in Japan

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when he suddenly got lost.

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It was one of the scariest moments
I've ever experienced in my life,

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and it was also the first
instance that informed us

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that my grandfather
had Alzheimer's disease.

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Over the past 12 years,
his condition got worse and worse,

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and his wandering in particular
caused my family a lot of stress.

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My aunt, his primary caregiver,

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really struggled to stay awake at night
to keep an eye on him,

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and even then often failed
to catch him leaving the bed.

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I became really concerned
about my aunt's well-being

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as well as my grandfather's safety.

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I searched extensively for a solution
that could help my family's problems,

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but couldn't find one.

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Then, one night about two years ago,

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I was looking after my grandfather
and I saw him stepping out of the bed.

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The moment his foot landed on the floor,

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I thought, why don't I put
a pressure sensor on the heel of his foot?

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Once he stepped onto the floor
and out of the bed,

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the pressure sensor would detect an
increase in pressure caused by body weight

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and then wirelessly send an audible alert
to the caregiver's smartphone.

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That way, my aunt could sleep
much better at night

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without having to worry
about my grandfather's wandering.

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So now I'd like to perform
a demonstration of this sock.

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Could I please have
my sock model on the stage?

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Great.

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So once the patient
steps onto the floor --

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(Ringing) --

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an alert is sent
to the caregiver's smartphone.

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Thank you. (Applause)

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Thank you, sock model.

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So this is a drawing
of my preliminary design.

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My desire to create
a sensor-based technology

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perhaps stemmed from my lifelong love
for sensors and technology.

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When I was six years old,

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an elderly family friend
fell down in the bathroom

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and suffered severe injuries.

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I became concerned
about my own grandparents

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and decided to invent
a smart bathroom system.

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Motion sensors would be installed
inside the tiles of bathroom floors

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to detect the falls of elderly patients
whenever they fell down in the bathroom.

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Since I was only six years old at the time

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and I hadn't graduated
from kindergarten yet,

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I didn't have the necessary resources and 
tools to translate my idea into reality,

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but nonetheless, my research experience

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really implanted in me a firm desire
to use sensors to help the elderly people.

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I really believe that sensors can improve
the quality of life of the elderly.

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When I laid out my plan, I realized
that I faced three main challenges:

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first, creating a sensor;

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second, designing a circuit;

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and third, coding a smartphone app.

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This made me realize that my project
was actually much harder to realize

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than I initially had thought it to be.

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First, I had to create a wearable sensor
that was thin and flexible enough


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to be worn comfortably
on the bottom of the patient's foot.

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After extensive research and testing
of different materials like rubber,

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which I realized was too thick to be worn
snugly on the bottom of the foot,

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I decided to print a film sensor

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with electrically conductive
pressure-sensitive ink particles.

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Once pressure is applied, the connectivity
between the particles increases.

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Therefore, I could design a circuit
that would measure pressure

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by measuring electrical resistance.

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Next, I had to design
a wearable wireless circuit,

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but wireless signal transmission
consumes lots of power

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and requires heavy, bulky batteries.

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Thankfully, I was able to find out
about the Bluetooth low energy technology,

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which consumes very little power
and can be driven by a coin-sized battery.

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This prevented the system
from dying in the middle of the night.

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Lastly, I had to code a smartphone app
that would essentially transform

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the care-giver's smartphone
into a remote monitor.

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For this, I had to expand upon
my knowledge of coding with Java and XCode

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and I also had to learn about how to code
for Bluetooth low energy devices

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by watching YouTube tutorials
and reading various textbooks.

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Integrating these components, I was able
to successfully create two prototypes,

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one in which the sensor
is embedded inside a sock,

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and another that's
a re-attachable sensor assembly

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that can be adhered anywhere
that makes contact

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with the bottom of the patient's foot.

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I've tested the device on my grandfather
for about a year now,

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and it's had a 100 percent success rate

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in detecting the over 900 
known cases of his wandering.

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Last summer, I was able
to beta test my device

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at several residential
care facilities in California,

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and I'm currently incorporating
the feedback

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to further improve the device 
into a marketable product.

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Testing the device on a number of patients

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made me realize that I needed
to invent solutions

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for people who didn't want
to wear socks to sleep at night.

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So sensor data, collected
on a vast number of patients,

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can be useful for improving patient care

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and also leading to a cure
for the disease, possibly.

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For example, I'm currently examining 


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correlations between the frequency
of a patient's nightly wandering

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and his or her daily activities and diet.

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One thing I'll never forget
is when my device first caught

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my grandfather's wandering
out of bed at night.

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At that moment, I was really struck
by the power of technology

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to change lives for the better.

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People living happily and healthfully --

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that's the world that I imagine.

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Thank you very much.

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(Applause)