California Students Won $100,000 Davidson Fellowship
The two teenagers developed an AI-powered system designed to predict and prevent fall risks for older adults.
Updated on Sept. 27, 2026 in Scholarships
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Ruoqi Li and Jason Yang have been awarded a $100,000 Davidson Fellowship for their creation of SafeStrides. The system uses AI and wearable sensors to identify fall risks in older adults before they occur.
Why it matters
The project aims to make fall-risk assessments accessible outside of medical facilities, reducing the reliance on clinical travel and physician availability. This technology addresses a critical health concern for the global population of 1.2 billion older adults.
The SafeStrides system targets the 25% of older adults who experience a fall every year. It integrates a Flutter-based mobile application with hardware components including inertial measurement units, pressure insoles, and an ESP32 microcontroller.
The players
Ruoqi Li
She is a 16-year-old student who plans to pursue academic studies in artificial intelligence and healthcare.
Jason Yang
He is a 17-year-old student who intends to focus his future education on electrical or systems engineering.
The details
SafeStrides synchronizes data from wearable sensors with a smartphone camera feed to perform multimodal AI analysis of walking patterns. Developed by 16-year-old Ruoqi Li and 17-year-old Jason Yang, the device allows for precise monitoring that previously required hospital-based assessments.
Timeline
The students were named Davidson Fellows in 2026.
Culture Shift
This innovation reflects a growing movement to decentralize medical diagnostics through the integration of wearable technology and smartphone-based AI. It represents a shift from reactive clinical care toward proactive, home-based health monitoring for aging populations.
Residents may see an increase in accessible health-monitoring tools as these types of student-led AI innovations transition from research to commercial applications. This technology could eventually simplify how families manage home-based care routines for aging relatives.
The takeaway
Proactive health monitoring is becoming increasingly viable through the convergence of AI and affordable wearable hardware. This development highlights how student-led innovation can bridge gaps in accessibility for critical health assessments.
Further reading
Find more information about student funding opportunities on the California Scholarships page.
Source note: This article includes information reported by The Times of India.
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