Recognize this Scout? Yes, he’s one of the standout delegates from 2015’s Report to the Nation delegation that traveled to Washington, D.C. earlier this year. He’s also the 16-year-old the New York Post dubbed “An Upper West Side teen genius.”
This is Eagle Scout Kenneth Shinozuka. And he made another trip to Washington D.C. Monday – this time for the White House Science Fair.
President Obama invited young science minds to the White House to share their inventions in the 5th science fair hosted at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. In the same league as a young man who invented a spinal implant for scoliosis patients and a group of Girl Scout Daisies who crafted a page-turning device (more on that in a minute), Shinozuka demoed his app aimed at helping people like his grandfather. In fact, that’s who inspired the technology.
When Shinozuka was younger, he watched as his grandfather, who has Alzherimer’s disease, repeatedly got lost. This sparked an idea in the young man.
“I saw him stepping out of the bed,” Shinozuka told the New York Post. “When he stepped onto the floor I had this light-bulb moment. I thought, ‘Why don’t I put a pressure sensor on the heel of his foot?’ and the idea just took off from there.”
Shinozuka’s app, when paired with a sock with a small sensor on it, helps protect people living with Alzheimer’s or other forms of dementia. It alerts caretakers to patients’ movements with a distinct phone alert.
Scouts at the White House Science Fair
The Alzheimer’s app wasn’t the only technology focused on helping people with specific needs on exposition at the White House Science Fair. A group of show-stealing 6-year-old Daisies shared their page-turning tech to President Obama. They’re kind of a huge deal and they’re kind of going viral.
But Kenneth, still in high school, is a veteran in this arena.
This isn’t Shinozuka’s first (or even second) sighting in the young, genius scene. He’s done TEDyouth events, and his device won the Science in Action award at the 2014 Google Science Fair. Learn more about the young Eagle Scout who could mitigate the effects of Alzheimer’s forever, see his app in action, and hear his plans for the future in Google’s video below.
