Wakefield Girl Tackles Concussions With A Winning Idea

Concussions are studied at colleges like Boston University, analyzed by Fortune 500 companies, and blamed for the drop off in football participation across the country. And the NFL? The leaders of America's love affair with football would love to make them go away.

But maybe, just maybe, the solution for concussions won't come from any of the above. Maybe it will come from a high school girl in Wakefield.

Tiana Rossi, a senior at the Pingree School in South Hamilton, with the help of Envision has designed a wearable concussion detection system that she hopes will one day help both athletes and coaches. It's not Rossi's first experience with Envision, a leading experiential education organization founded in 1985 and based in Virginia.

"These past five years I have been involved in several different Envision programs," said Rossi, who lives in Wakefield. "My first being in fifth grade when my teacher first nominated me to go to D.C. for the Jr. National Youth Leadership Conference. I enjoyed this program so much that when I was given the opportunity again in sixth grade I went to the conference held right here in Boston and then again in seventh grade I went to the 2012 presidential inauguration with Envision. In eighth grade I went to the Alumni Boston Conference and just this past summer I went to San Francisco for a conference on how to successfully begin a start-up company."

It was her work at a National Youth Leadership Forum in California this summer that resulted in Rossi being named one of 13 winning students and the only one from Massachusetts. The forum culminated with an investor pitch presentation, where teams presented their idea to a "Shark Tank-style" executive panel of business experts and owners. More than 250 students participated with 13 chosen to take their start-up idea to the next level by attending an all-expense paid trip to Washington D.C.

"Along with being able to go to incubator’s and see successful business owners speak, the group and I also got the opportunity to experience D.C. as a city along with doing some sight-seeing," said Rossi.

And about that product. Working with her business partner, Sam Bianchi, she created a wearable concussion detection system that is designed using a raspberry pi and accelerative gyroscope. You don't have to understand it to appreciate it. The idea is that the system will detect the amount of G-Force a player receives and will report to coaches if the player is in danger of having a concussion.

That's just the start.

"We made the product and after developing the model through Envision we are now looking to further testing and developing and eventual selling of the product and getting it out there on the market," said Rossi, who has applied to the University of Miami (Fla.), Villanova, and Maryland and plans on double majoring in finance and accounting with a minor in business analytics.

Nothing against the average classroom, but it's nothing compared to the hands-on experience she's gained through Envision.