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KC Native is the Youngest on the Forbes 30 Under 30 Healthcare ListLast week, KC area native Erin Smith was named to the 2019 Forbes 30 Under 30 Healthcare list. The list seeks out the best young entrepreneurs in the country and, Erin, who was one of the youngest on the healthcare list by nearly a decade, was recognized for her company 'FacePrint' which identifies Parkinson's Disease symptoms using only a computer and a webcam. Erin believes that mental and neurological conditions like Parkinson's can be beaten if detected early. "Diagnostic methods have experienced minimal advances since the description of Parkinson's 200 years ago. FacePrint turns previously subjective, subtle facial changes often imperceptible to medical professionals into objective indicators of disease onset," says Smith. Erin has been working closely with the Michael J. Fox Foundation and will begin clinical trials with her medical technology soon. Erin has had a growing presence in the KC community for the last several years and continues to garner national attention. As a star pupil of the Shawnee Mission Biotechnology Signature Program, she was a 3-time finalist and winner of the Kansas BioGENEius Challenge administered by BioKansas, and winner of the International BioGENEius Challenge, the premier biotechnology research competition for high school students. She was also recently awarded a Thiel Fellowship, which provides $100,000 to allow young entrepreneurs to focus on starting their own companies. After the fellowship, she plans on attending Stanford. Erin has numerous other achievements including being a Three Dot Dash 2018 Global Teen Leader and winning $10,000 as part of the BuiltByGirls Future Founder challenge in San Francisco. Erin also co-founded Kansas City STEMinists, a program to empower young women to harness coding and computer science in order to address global challenges. About BioKansas: BioKansas serves as the voice of the bioscience community in Kansas, connecting, educating and advocating to grow bioscience jobs in human, animal and plant science technologies across the state. BioKansas is a member- and donor-funded 501(c)(3) public charity. BioKansas programs include monthly BioBreak networking events and educational programs that are open to people involved with and interested in the biosciences, health care and medical devices. BioKansas also runs awards programs for students in high school through post-doc studies, including the BioGENEius Challenge. Visit https://www.BioKansas.org/ for more information. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20181120005687/en/ |
