Valentino Ponce (11) used a personal condition as a source of inspiration to help others.
Since he was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes at 6 years, insulin is part of his life and from there an unprecedented idea arose: he imagined an application for cell phones that will change the way of life of thousands of people suffering from the same disease.
The app allows a diabetic through the cell phone to enter the blood sugar level plus food or drink that will consume and, in a second, the phone indicates how many insulin units should be applied.Among the functions is also to bring a medical history and link with another device for a third party to serve as comptroller.
Info meals (the name that Valentino put) took all the compliments in a symposium of entrepreneurs sponsored by Internet giants such as Google and Amazon;He quickly transformed into the representative of Latin America (under the Sweetlife -Life Dulce-) and now competes with six other projects worldwide.The winner will obtain the necessary resources to develop and bring the tool to the market.In the case of small Sanfaelino, yes or yes it will be at no cost for future users.
"I have diabetes five years ago and all the time I have to be counting the carbohydrates that I am going to eat, measure blood sugar and then know how much insulin I need," said the young man.
“If I'm going to eat two pizza portions, I know there are 30 carbohydrates but, if it's a flan, I don't know how much it has.Everything is mental, that's why one day I was sitting, I grabbed the insulin bomb, then insulin and I saw my mother that I was with my cell phone: the idea occurred to me.First I thought about it to help other children, I had many drawings, ”Valentino continued.
Antonella Calabró carefully followed her son's sayings and when he closed the phrase quickly introduced a comment as a reflection: “You have to have a lot of self -control with this disease and a lot of information.We help it a lot and we monitor constant but all that is not easy and more for a child.Also in all houses it is not the same, so he thought first about boys and in general in those with food problems. ”
Among the tasks of Antonella is to organize the Startup Weekend event and saw the fair possibility for Valentino to make his ingenious app public.
This weekend for entrepreneurs extends over 54 hours.The meeting begins with a presentation in society of all the inventions that walk around.The interested party goes up to a stage and simply tells what he imagined.Each of the startup participants (programmers, business development specialists, marketing, graphic or industrial design, among many other professions) choose to join one of the inventions and make up work teams.The goal is to present a business plan that explains the project and culminates with the product in the street.In addition, there is a vote and among the 33 comings that were presented, Valentino's app was among the most chosen.
“I got on stage and told how it was.10 seconds passed and people began to get closer to work in the idea and in a second we were all above the computer.I really thought it was going to take longer, because there were others more voted than mine and yet they could not build a team, ”he said between smiles.
Between Monday and Wednesday the final verdict of this world contest will be known.“It is not an award in money but it is very valuable because each of the team has his family, his life, his work and also dedicates hours to this project.That time is worth a lot too.It is not done overnight, ”added Carolina Ramos, a member of the app team.
A simpler lifeSince they diagnosed type 1 diabetes to Valentino, "in the house we all become diabetic in some way, we all collaborate with him," said Antonella Calabró, his mother.
The application “does the easiest things: for example he is Scout and at the beginning when he left the camp, we had to see what he was going to eat, giving the indications to the people who accompanied him or called us on the phone.With this, he would make a much simpler life, ”he concluded.
The application
It has a series of screens that guide the diabetic.In the first, data and weight are entered.Another has a list of consumable products and nutritional information.There is also a Scanner function (with the phone camera) to introduce a food that is not in the list.
In summary: The user enters the sugar levels at the time, marks what he will consume and the app indicates the number of insulin units that he needs to be administered.
The team
Those who developed it: Valentino Ponce, Sofía Torelli, Carlonia Ramos, Jimena Rada, Celeste Gómez, Eduardo Romero, Adrián Quinteros, Pablo González, Tatiana González, María Paz Camacho and Celeste Gómez.