A 16-year-old high school student hailing from Palo Alto, California, has garnered widespread acclaim for leveraging artificial intelligence (AI) to develop applications aimed at advancing healthcare solutions.
Adrit Rao, currently serving as a research intern at Stanford University, has engineered AutoABI, an iOS application designed to detect peripheral arterial disease (PAD) by analyzing arterial sounds in the ankles. Clinical trials are underway, alongside a patent application, to further validate its efficacy.
This Indian American prodigy has also spearheaded the development of A4, an AI system tailored to measure abdominal aortic aneurysms (AAAs) using CT scans, and has contributed to Stanford’s Spezi, an open-source framework dedicated to constructing digital health applications.
Rao’s journey into programming commenced at the tender age of 8, initially experimenting with rudimentary block programming. Amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, he embarked on a self-taught journey in app development, drawing from online resources including YouTube.
His accolades include clinching the prestigious Apple Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) Swift Student Challenge at just 12 years old, which subsequently granted him an audience with CEO Tim Cook. At 13, he embarked on a research internship at Stanford, where he dedicated his efforts to crafting AI-powered healthcare applications and co-authored numerous research papers.
Beyond his contributions to healthcare, the Palo Alto High School junior has also left his mark on the app development landscape with non-health applications currently available on the App Store. These offerings encompass MoTV, a platform providing comprehensive information on movies and TV shows; Signer, an innovative tool translating sign language gestures into speech; Virtuthon, offering a virtual walkathon experience; and Get Involved Service Hours, facilitating student tracking of community service hours.
Moreover, Rao assumes the role of founder and CEO at Aretech Inc., a nonprofit entity committed to imparting app development skills to young individuals. He further extends his impact as a board member of the Get Involved Foundation, an organization with which he collaborated for the development of his community service hours tracking application.
