Country of Residence
United States
Age
15
Project title
Emergen
Project Summary: Describe your project in one sentence
Turning bystanders into first responders with a QR based emergency medical platform that gives anyone instant access to life saving information.
Website URL(s) or social media handles.
Instagram: emergenoffical Website: emergen.life
Project Category
My project is an existing project that I started
Project Stage
Pilot-Stage (We’ve tried an activity or two)
Founding Story: What was the spark that led you to start your project? What was the "Aha!" moment that led you to get started and see the potential for this to succeed?
A close friend of mine fainted at school, Nobody nearby (including me) knew her allergies, her medications, or who to call. In those first confused minutes, the thing that could have helped her most was sitting in her backpack the entire time. That moment stuck with me. It wasn't that people didn't want to help, it was that nobody had the information to help safely or quickly. I started asking around friends, family, my school nurse, EMS professionals and heard the same thing over and over: people freeze not because they don't care, but because they don't know enough to act with confidence. I taught myself to build Emergen, a QR-based platform that gives anyone instant access to the emergency medical information that could save a life.
The Problem: What problem are you helping to solve? Why does it matter to you and your community?
Millions of people carry medical conditions that matter most in exactly the moments they can't communicate them: a severe allergy, a seizure disorder, a heart condition. Right now, a bystander in that moment has almost nothing to go on. Medical bracelets hold a few words and never update. Paper cards get lost or outdated. Phone-based medical IDs only work if the phone is unlocked and someone knows to look. This isn't a rare problem: 1 in 13 students has a food allergy, 1 in 12 has asthma, and 1 in 26 Americans live with epilepsy. This matters to me because I've watched it happen firsthand, to someone I care about. It matters to my community because schools, families, and first responders are all working with the same gap: good intentions, but no fast, reliable way to close the information gap when it counts most.
Your Solution: How are you solving this problem? Share your specific solution.
Emergen is a QR-based emergency medical platform. Anyone creates a secure profile with allergies, medications, blood type, and emergency contacts; the most critical information surfaces first. That profile generates a personal QR code for a phone case, keychain, or student ID. When someone is unresponsive or unable to communicate, any bystander scans the code with their phone's camera. No app to download, no account to log into; it opens directly to the emergency profile. Access is tiered: a bystander sees only essential, life-saving information, while a verified professional like a school nurse or EMS responder can see the complete medical history. The moment a code is scanned, Emergen also sends a WhatsApp alert with live GPS location to the person's trusted emergency contact. Hence, the family finds out immediately, not after the fact. If the bystander needs to reach that contact directly, Emergen offers masked calling, connecting the call without exposing either person's real phone number. In practice: a student with a severe allergy collapses in a hallway. A teacher scans the QR code on her backpack. Within seconds, the teacher sees "severe peanut allergy, EpiPen in front pocket" and her mother gets a WhatsApp alert with the exact location. That's the difference between confusion and confident action.
Impact: How has your project created impact / made a difference so far? Or, if at an early stage, what will impact look like?
Emergen is live at emergen.life and has already been tested with real users: 30 people so far, with 100% scan success and an average profile setup time under 2 minutes. In testing, accessing emergency information through Emergen took under 5 seconds, compared to roughly 45 seconds through a locked phone. That's nearly 90% faster, in exactly the moments where seconds matter most. Beyond usage numbers, Emergen has been shaped directly by professionals who'd actually respond in these situations. A school nurse, an emergency physician, and an EMS professional all tested it and changed real features, for example, making sure allergy information appears first, because that's what responders look for immediately. Looking ahead, my near-term goal is a small pilot with opted-in families in my own school community in Frisco, Texas, to validate real-world adoption before expanding further. Longer-term, the potential reach is significant. Frisco ISD alone serves 60,000 students, and nationally, millions of students live with conditions like food allergies, asthma, and epilepsy that make this kind of instant access genuinely life-saving. Because Emergen requires no new hardware, scaling doesn't require rebuilding infrastructure, just wider adoption of something that already works.
Your Innovation: What is different about your project compared to other programs or solutions already out there? How is your project new or innovative?
QR-based emergency access itself isn't new; medical bracelets, paper cards, and phone medical IDs all attempt some version of it. What's different about Emergen is that it solves four problems together instead of one. Medical bracelets hold a few static words and can't be updated. Paper cards get lost or go outdated. Phone medical IDs only work if the device is unlocked, and many people don't even know the feature exists. None of the existing options offer real communication; they give a bystander information, but no way to actually reach the people who matter. Emergen combines real-time, always-current data with tiered privacy control, two-way communication through masked calling, and automatic location alerts all in one system, activated by a single scan. It doesn't require the injured person's phone to be unlocked, doesn't require the bystander to download anything, and doesn't expose anyone's personal contact information in the process. The innovation isn't the QR code. It's recognizing that access, privacy, and communication have always been treated as three separate problems and building the first system that solves all three at once, with zero new hardware required.
How many people are on your team?
1
Your team: What role(s) do your team members play? How do you share leadership with them?
I am currently the sole member of Emergen, handling everything from research and design to development and testing myself. I have relied heavily on feedback from real professionals: a school nurse, an emergency physician, and an EMS professional who each helped shape specific features. As Emergen grows, I would like to bring on teammates who can help with outreach and school partnerships, so I can focus more time on product development and safety.
What’s Next: What are the next steps you plan to take to grow or strengthen your project over the next year? If your project is still in the idea stage, describe the steps you will take over the next three months to launch or begin developing it.
Over the next year, my priority is moving from testing to a real, structured pilot. I plan to launch an opt-in pilot with families in my own school district in Frisco, Texas, to validate real-world adoption outside of controlled testing conditions. In the next three months specifically, I am focused on three things. First, replacing placeholder demo data with a polished, presentation ready profile experience. Second, adding offline functionality using a Progressive Web App approach, so the emergency profile stays accessible even without an internet connection, which testers have identified as the most requested improvement. Third, formalizing relationships with the professionals who have already validated Emergen, including my school nurse and local EMS contacts, so their involvement can support a real school partnership rather than informal feedback. Longer term, I want to explore partnerships with school districts directly, since districts like mine already use QR-based student ID systems, meaning Emergen would require no new infrastructure to adopt. My goal is to prove real adoption at a small scale first, then use that evidence to pursue broader partnerships with schools and community organizations.
How do you encourage other people to join your project or learn about the problem you’re working on? If you have a new idea, tell us how you will do this in the future.
I have presented Emergen at national and international competitions, including live judge panels, which has let me directly reach people already invested in youth innovation and share both the problem and the solution in person. I have also been invited to speak about Emergen's story at TEDx events, which I see as an opportunity to reach a broader, non-technical audience and help them understand that the real barrier in emergencies is often information, not willingness. So far, I have engaged directly with a school nurse, an emergency physician, and an EMS professional, each of whom tested Emergen and shaped real features based on their expertise. I have also tested the platform with classmates and family members to gather everyday user feedback. Going forward, I plan to activate more people through a school pilot, where students and families will use Emergen directly rather than just hearing about it. I also plan to share Emergen's story through local media and school communications, since the most effective way I have found to engage people isn't explaining the technology, it's sharing the real moment that led me to build it, which almost everyone can relate to
