High schooler makes 3D-printed, machine learning-powered eye disease diagnosis system

If, like me, you’re one of those people who worries that you haven’t accomplished much in your life, you probably shouldn’t read this profile of Kavya Kopparapu, a teenager who has probably done more in her time at high school than I’ve done since I graduated. Most recently, she created a cheap, portable diagnosis system for a common eye affliction her grandfather suffers from, but which often goes undetected and leads to blindness.

A 3D-printed mount and lens lets retinal scans be taken with an iPhone, and a machine learning system using readily available services and trained on thousands of such images does the diagnosis. She presented her work last month at O’Reilly’s AI conference.

You should read IEEE Spectrum’s article and her blog — again, though, only if you feel like staring into the distance and contemplating your own inadequacy. I look forward to hearing about Kopparapu’s next project.

Featured Image: Kavya Kopparapu