Teenage tech stories

Each month, Tech For Good speaks to one teenage entrepreneur about their incredible achievements in the world of tech, and how they’re contributing to making the world a better place

Name: Emma Yang

Age: 17

Born: Hong Kong

Achievements: This 12th grader is the founder of Timeless, a mobile app that helps Alzheimer’s patients stay connected to their loved ones. Emma is a three-time Carnegie Hall performer, MIT-Solver and TEDx Speaker. She was also recently named as one of the 100 Faces of Impact globally.

I’m the founder of Timeless, which is a startup that seeks to empower Alzheimer’s patients using AI-based technology. Outside of that, I love history, I love languages and I really love foods, especially those that I grew up with.

I started coding when I was around six years old with a tool called Scratch, which was designed by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to teach kids about coding. But when I was around 10 or 11 years old, that’s when I learned how to create apps for iOS.

I am really passionate about Computer Science, and especially the ability of technology to spread social good.

I was inspired to create Timeless by my experiences with my grandmother. When I was growing up in Hong Kong, I spent a lot of time with her. And when I was around seven or eight years old, she was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease and it made it a lot harder for us to communicate.

We think of technology as being something that touches so many parts of our lives. But a lot of people — especially the elderly — are still really underserved by technology.

My family was looking around for ways that we could help my grandmother and we really found no technological tools that were developed for Alzheimer’s patients. And so I really wanted to take everything that my family had been using to help her cope, and put that together into an app that could help her connect with us and keep her posted on what was going on in our lives.

With Timeless, loved ones can send photos to the patient and a facial recognition technology will tag all the faces in those photos with their names. For example, if I send a picture of me, it will say, ‘This is Emma, your granddaughter.’ We also have other tools that remind the patient of events or show them picture phone books.

All these different things serve to empower Alzheimer’s patients and give them some control to stay up to date with things like weather and doctor’s appointments and stay in touch with family and friends.

My grandmother is definitely using Timeless. We send her photos all the time! And we’ve also gotten overwhelmingly positive feedback online.

As an entrepreneur, there are so many roadblocks, especially when it comes to getting funding. That was even more challenging for me as a young person, a young girl, who is trying to persuade people that I am really serious about creating Timeless.

My age definitely made things a challenge at times. But I think it’s also one of the things that is unique about me as a founder.

It was really a vote of confidence to get these awards and to be able to take the funding and really push Timeless out. Because that funding was what allowed me to put Timeless on the App Store and take it to where it is today.

I think young people have this new optimism of what is possible, rather than what might not be possible. I think that was what has driven me to keep on persevering through all these challenges.

I participated in the White House Opportunity Project as part of Wolfram Research and it was my first time using Wolfram Language. I built a tool that visualises free summer lunch sites in the US.

I have been part of their mentorship programme since I was 11 years old. Today, I am a Teacher Assistant at their summer camps for high school students, and I recently ran their first middle school summer camp for girls.

Even though it seems it’s so hard to get started, especially with STEM, I would tell young girls to just get started and to just persevere. It may seem daunting to learn something like programming for the first time. But, for me, it’s been a really rewarding experience.

I’m going to be starting in college this fall, and I’m hoping to study Computer Sciences and also delve into Maths and Economics and maybe Neuroscience. I hope to continue working on Timeless as well and potentially expand it to make it more accessible globally.

Learn more about Emma’s story and meet other incredible teenagers by listening to our new Teenage Tech Stories Podcast!