For many teenagers, their lives typically might revolve around schoolwork and spending time with friends. Not so for Emma Yang.

At the age of 14, the Hong Kong-born Yang has already created her own mobile app for Alzheimer’s patients, which has impressed the likes of Microsoft Corp founder Bill Gates and Alibaba Group Holding executive vice chairman Joseph Tsai.

The Timeless app, which Yang spent two years developing and refining, comes with several core features. It uses an artificial intelligence-powered facial recognition system, from Miami-based start-up Kairos, to help Alzheimer’s patients identify people in photos and remember who they are.

It also allows photos to be grouped by individuals as well as provide a picture-based phone book, which enables a user to tap on photos to call or text a person.

“What really motivated me to [work on Timeless] was seeing how many people were reacting to it, saying I would love to have this for my own family members [who have Alzheimer’s],” Yang told the Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post.

The inspiration to develop an app that would help Alzheimer’s patients connect with their loved ones came to Yang at the tender age of 12, when her grandmother — who suffers from the chronic neurodegenerative disease — started forgetting things like what she ate for dinner and Yang’s birthday.

“I wanted to create something to help people like my grandmother stay connected with her family,” Yang said. It was a task she was well-prepared to undertake.

“I started learning coding when I was around 6, and later began developing games and websites,” Yang said. The young software developer said winning a competition, in which she developed an app to identify whether a head injury could be a concussion, led her to appreciate the impact of technology on people’s lives.

“I thought [then] that if I know how to code, I should also have the ability to help people,” she said.

Yang’s father, who works in the technology industry, was the one who introduced her to computers and Scratch, a block-based visual programming program targeted at kids.

Still, Yang’s life as a young software developer and entrepreneur has not been without formidable challenges. She cited as an example how venture capitalists have not taken her work seriously. Some of these people even suggested that she exhibit her project at science fairs or “put it online and see how it does.”

Undeterred by those setbacks, Yang started an Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign in March last year to support her Timeless app project. That effort raised more than US$10,000.

“I think perseverance is really important,” Yang said. “Never let anyone tell you that you shouldn’t be in the field that you want to be in the most.”

At present, Yang works with an international team that includes a designer in California and a developer based in Cologne, Germany. The chief technology officer of Kairos, the AI start-up whose technology is used in the Timeless app, is now Yang’s adviser.

She urged other young, aspiring entrepreneurs to believe in themselves, because the teenagers of today will be tomorrow’s leaders.

(SD-Agencies)