The event was organized by Warren and the speaker was courtesy of Julie Pantiskas, who has mentored students at USC’s Viterbi Startup Garage for the past five years. Pantiskas was keen to have AWIU members hear from Lauren Yen, a USC graduate and mentee of hers for the past year.
Yen spoke about Frontida, the non-profit startup organization she’s built in the last two years. “The Startup Garage selects 18 for-profit companies twice a year for mentorship,” Pantiskas explained in her introduction. “Lauren’s non-profit didn’t fit the model, but her project was so compelling, the Startup Garage accepted her anyway!”
Frontida (which means caring in Greek) grew out of Yen’s experience working as a pre-Covid volunteer at Camp 4 Moria in Greece, then Europe’s largest refugee camp. “Over time, I saw a need for better documentation of medical records,” she explained. The electronic health records that Yen developed at the camp are now in use for 20,000 patients in seven countries. Data is stored in the cloud, and can be requested by medical staff.
Frontida digital health records were designed to be portable digital health records for low-resource, rural and refugee communities. “We designed the app for use on the phone or tablet, which is what most people have,” Yen said. “The apps are country-specific, but module-based, so they’re easy to customize.” The drag-and-drop modules use icons and pictures and are functional offline.
Frontida digital health records were designed to be portable digital health records for low-resource, rural and refugee communities. “We designed the app for use on the phone or tablet, which is what most people have,” Yen said. “The apps are country-specific, but module-based, so they’re easy to customize.” The drag-and-drop modules use icons and pictures and are functional offline.
Earlier this year, Frontida was selected out of 4,000 applicants worldwide to become a United Nations Digital X Solution to improve health documentation in vulnerable populations such as Afghan and Ukrainian refugees.
“I just went to Africa to work with the governments of the Gambia, Uganda, and Rwanda on Frontida startups,” Yen told her audience. “The Africa startups are country-wide models, which is the first time we’re doing this.”
Yen was a hard act to follow, but Maggie Sabbag and Justine Wolcott got members excited about working with refugees locally. Wolcott outlined opportunities for L.A. members, mentioning group activities with Miry’s List, a non-profit serving newly arrived refugees. “Or, if you’d prefer to work with an individual refugee, we can help to pair you with someone who will benefit from your expertise,” she said. “You can design your own course of action.”
A donation by Carol Ann Warren of $500 covered the evening’s dinner. AWIU, in turn, donated that amount to Frontida to continue its work.
In a separate action, AWIU has partnered with United Nations Association Pasadena on the printing cost of a recent Passport project designed to benefit local refugees. Read about it here.
