The Entrepreneurial Spirit is Alive, Well, and Youthful

By most measures, Will Manidis is like many other American high school students. He plays lacrosse for Westtown, his Quaker boarding school outside Philadelphia. He’s captain of Westtown's robotics team, which has deepened his interest in math and computer science. Last fall, in the heat of the election, he helped organize debate nights.

Such activities are great material for college applications. When he enrolled at Westtown, Manidis figured he'd wind up at Harvard or Princeton, maybe go on to earn a Ph.D. and do cutting-edge research.

"I was going to be that dude behind a keyboard that never talked to anyone," he recalls.

Over a year ago, though, those plans started to change, after many hours of working closely with two fellow members of the robotics team, Roger Balcells Sanchez and Rachel Coe. Balcells had recently lost his grandmother to Parkinson's disease. Instead of programming robots to defeat other teams' robots in games, they thought, what if the three of them used their knowledge of algorithms and technology for something more meaningful? Could they help Parkinson's patients live longer, richer lives?

They set out to develop a smartphone app that provides Parkinson's patients with feedback on what activities make them feel better. Manidis now often uses recess for quick calls to medical doctors or tech experts. He sometimes schedules business meetings in the school's science building. And he occasionally relies on his mom to drive him to connect with venture capital firms. The company, TrackYourDisease, is hoping to raise $150,000 from investors.