(Caroline Woods): Joining me now, Kevin Tang, the winner of the 2020 3M Young Scientist Challenge. Kevin, congratulations. Thanks so much for joining me.

(Kevin Tang): Thank you.

(Caroline Woods): So tell me, what does it mean? How does it feel to be America’s top young scientist? You are the brightest mind—brightest young mind—in the U.S.

(Kevin Tang): It feels great. I’ve gotten a lot of attention from this, this challenge. And it’s brought a lot of attention onto my project for good. So now more people can reach my project, too.

(Caroline Woods):  Yeah, so let’s talk about your project. It’s called Fall Guard, and I understand your grandma was the inspiration for it. Tell me more about it.

(Kevin Tang): So my grandma sadly fell at home a few years ago, and because we didn’t notice immediately, she was left with permanent brain damages. Also, one of my friend’s grandfather, who lived alone in another state, fell at home too, and his family didn’t find out until the next day. Because of this, I just realized how important this problem was, and how millions of families each year face this same risk. So I decided to create my device, Fall Guard.

(Caroline Woods): So tell me, you come up with this idea because of a pretty awful circumstance with your grandma. Then what was the next step?

(Kevin Tang): So my next step was to create a device and also a notification system, and like, many different systems to make sure that the device solves every pain point in this—like in fall detection. So on top of not only creating the Fall Guard device itself, I also created an app so that people can get instant notifications when a fall happens.

(Caroline Woods): So how does this advance what’s already out there? I remember that there’s the devices that help—the “I’ve fallen and I can’t get up” kind of devices. What does your Fall Guard do differently?

(Kevin Tang): So current devices, like you know, like a watch or like a necklace—they are hard to remember to wear, and they also are hard to remember to charge. So my device is different because it works all the time. If you just put it on the wall, it can work all the time.

(Caroline Woods): So it’s kind of a video feed? It’s monitoring that way, and it can even do it in the dark from what I understand?

(Kevin Tang): Yeah.

(Caroline Woods): Wow. So you win the prize here, and then what? How do you bring this to market? Are you looking for investors? What’s the next step?

(Kevin Tang): Yeah, so because of this competition, many people know about my device. And so far, already a few companies want to, like, work with me and make my device global.

(Caroline Woods): Wow, that’s impressive. Congratulations on that front. There’s also a $25,000 prize, yes? What does an eighth grader do with $25,000?(Kevin Tang): So that’s the one thing that I was thinking about a lot. And what I’m going to spend some of my money on, at least, is to further produce more Fall Guard devices to give out to more people, and also spend more time researching on how I can reduce the cost of Fall Guard.