A group of students from Robert Burns Academy East Ayrshire recently won the Digi Inventor’s award with a business case for an app aimed at reducing the stigma of Type 1 diabetes in sport.
The name of the group, T1D Trailblazers, stands for type 1 diabetes and being innovators of something brand new. Ayden McGrady, Frazer McFadzean, Lochlan Murdoch, and Josh Kerr (pictured left to right in the photo above) joined forces in Mr Moffat’s S3 Business Management Class with the mission to help prevent any young person living with type 1 diabetes from feeling unwanted or unsupported by coaches.
Their Player Profile App TID aims to break down barriers by providing accessible critical information about a sport participant so that they can continuing playing in the sport they love. This idea is embraced in their project tag line “T1DDOESNTSTOPME”.
Lochlan came up with the idea after he was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes and set up a non-profit to educate people about the sport myths surrounding the disease. When he found himself in a business course with his pals, he worked hard to get them onboard with his idea. Several of them had known a little about his condition previously but this was a huge learning opportunity for them all.
“Our biggest challenge was time management,” said Lochlan. “Since our class was only once a week, our group had to come together over our lunch breaks, and in between our after school sport schedule.”
One of the benefits of the Digi Inventors competition is that it allows students to showcase their entrepreneurial talents, improve their confidence and hone their communication skills. It gives them an opportunity to showcase their creativity, teamwork and business skills while trying to develop an idea that could potentially benefit thousands of young people.
Ayden explained, “Our advice to others is try to be different. Try your hardest to be original. Pick an idea, find a team of people who want your idea to succeed and just go for it.”
One of the group’s favourite parts of the competition was the suspense of waiting to find out who was the winner. The T1D Trailblazers will be working with the Scottish Tech Army going forward to do further research and create a prototype of their app.
Learn more about how to participate in next year's competition: