The Future is FEmale: Meet Teen Entrepreneur Krisha Singhani

Startup Tri-Valley Podcast – Krisha Singhani

Yolanda: This is the Startup Tri-Valley podcast, featuring in depth conversations with the leaders who are making the Tri-Valley the go to ecosystem for science based startups. I’m Yolanda Fintschenko with Startup Tri-Valley. 

Katie: And I’m Katie Marcel with Innovation Tri-Valley Leadership 

Group. 

Yolanda: I’d like to begin by welcoming Katie Marcel the new CEO of Innovation Tri-Valley as a co host.

And our guest today is Krisha Singhani. Krisha is a Dream Makers and Risk Taker 2024 award winner. She is 16 years old. She is a student in San Ramon Valley Unified School District. And before we dive into Krisha and why she’s here and why she’s a guest on the Startup Tri Value podcast, I just want to let Katie first talk a little bit about ITV and the Dream Makers Risk Takers event and how she came to know Krisha.

Katie: Awesome. Thank you for hosting. Thank you for allowing me to be a part of this, Yolanda, my predecessor. Lynn Wallace Naylor was a guest host on some of the Game Changers episodes, and she did such an elegant job as podcast co-host, and so I hope to uphold that legacy and I appreciate you including me.

So, Innovation Tri-Valley Leadership Group is a collective of leaders and influencers committed to connecting the businesses and the educational institutions, the research labs and the civic leaders in the Tri-Valley, where we’re driving a thriving economy powered by innovation and an unparalleled quality of life.

And that quality of life piece is incredibly important and one of our greatest and impactful institutions are our public school institutions in the Tri-Valley. So our organization has hosted the Dream Makers and Risk Takers event for the past 13 years. It was started by ITV’s founding CEO, Dale Kay.

And the whole point of it is to honor the region’s next generation innovators and visionaries. And so we partner with the four school districts, the San Ramon Valley Unified School District, which is where Chris is from, and that encompasses both Danville and San Ramon, Pleasanton Unified, Dublin Unified, Livermore Joint Unified.

The Tri-Valley Regional Occupational Program and Las Positas College. So we’ve been doing that for 13 years. And we’ve had the privilege of honoring some really extraordinary young people. And this year, Krisha was one of our honorees. So in November, she accepted her award. And she stood up there and that event, that audience, was made up of high level executives, government officials and honorable electeds.

And it’s an intimidating room. She, you, stood up there and you just delivered your speech with conviction and passion, and they were hanging on your every breath. So, that was my introduction to Krisha, and I am still quite in awe of her and what she’s accomplished at this age. 

Yolanda: Thank you so much, Katie.

And of course, initially, based on your awe, I found out, of course, about what Krisha had done with her sensor.

So, I’m going to ask you some questions you know, I know the answer to, but first, like, tell us a little bit about yourself and then. Tell us about your project that led to the Dream Makers Award. 

Krisha: Yeah, of course. First, thank you so much for having me. It’s such an honor to be here. So, like you said, I’m a junior in high school, and ever since sixth grade, I’ve always been really passionate about, like, feminism and equality, and I’m currently president of my school’s equity club, and I’m also president of another club, Moxie, which is a feminist club on campus that I founded.

I love cats. Fun fact about me. Yeah. And I’m also a massive Taylor Swift fan, not just because of her music, but because, I think that women are raised in this culture that gaslights them to think that their pain is just overly dramatic or that they’re unreasonable for asking for the bare minimum.

And I love the fact that like Taylor Swift tells women that like, no, you’re, you are justified in asking for like, To not be treated this way, or like, you don’t need to accept their pain. That’s just one of the things I just love about her. I also read a lot. Yay, Swifties! Yes! I also read a lot.

I read a lot about leadership, negotiation, etc. And, I’m, I love coding and technology, and I plan on pursuing a mix of computer engineering and, like, business in college. And, that interest is what sparked my project, Female. So basically, it’s an electronic way of measuring anemia without using needles.

So on a woman’s menstrual cycle, she can lose anywhere between two 20 to two 50 mg of iron per pint of bl per month on her period. So for a reference point, that’s about 4,167 spinach leaves. Wow. So it’s a massive loss of iron. Wow. And that can cause iron deficiency anemia, which can cause a variety of symptoms like depression, anxiety, physical fatigue among other serious symptoms.

And so I wanted to create a way to measure anemia. In teenage girls, it’s like a non invasive, easy to use, low cost manner. So my project had three parts. It was a physical device that uses bio optical sensors, and it goes around your finger, a mobile app, and a cloud server. 

Yolanda: Fantastic. So, basically, it sounds like starting from sixth grade, it laid the groundwork for your interest in basically, equity for women.

And that really led to you seizing the opportunity to take that philosophy and find something that uniquely affects women and come up with an idea for your project. Can you talk a little bit about why it is non-invasive?

Krisha: It started off with me –  just I absolutely hate needles.  I never liked getting them, you know drawn in it started off with that, because I found out that I had iron deficiency anemia, and so if it got worse, I’d have to go in, like, more than once a year.

I’d have to go in, like, once a month to get them, to get it checked out. And it was just, it started off as, like, a joke. Like, my engineering brain was like, Oh, well, what if I could make it without using needles or whatever? And then I started looking into, like, why I had iron deficiency anemia.

And I found out that it was a side effect of my menstrual cycle, and that’s where, like, the feminist side of my brain started turning. Because I realized that there were probably so many women who went through these symptoms of, like, depression and anxiety and physical fatigue and headaches and disease and things like that, and they didn’t know it was because of their menstrual cycle, because it’s just, like, A thing we don’t talk about, which made me really angry.

And then around the same time, this was about like a year and a half ago this kind of started. I learned that about 57 percent of women have reported being misdiagnosed because medical procedures tend to be designed around men. And I realized that, like, there was a very likely chance that a woman had gone to a doctor with these symptoms, not knowing it was iron deficiency anemia, and a doctor had written it off as her weight or as stress or something completely irrelevant.

And so all of that made me want to make a project that was to measure anemia in a non invasive, easy to use way, like kind of the thing that just, it’s on your bedside table. You can check it every day. You can check it every week. Just to create that, like, ease of life. 

Yolanda: Excellent. So it’s – that’s amazing that, that really, I, and I want to dwell on this just a little bit because I think when it comes to science, engineering and business there’s this idea, especially that, that innovation happens in some objective way, and what we’ve learned on this podcast, just like in talking to you, is that innovation has a very personal story for everyone, men and women that, that is part of what inspires us.

And I love that – you wanting to not have to give blood. 

Nobody likes that. 

Katie: First words are what if I could, 

Yolanda: What if I could, yeah. What if I didn’t have to do it?

Katie: What if I could do it a different way? 

Yolanda: And I think that what a thing is so important and it is personal. And I, just love that you’re highlighting that and also that feeling that connectedness to your anger and like, “Hey” –  like, we’ve had people, other founders, investors on the podcast focused on women’s health who have said exactly the same thing about women. Women’s health issues get swept under the rug in institutional ways in terms of the way clinical trials have been done, but also in cultural ways.

And I think I love that, that, that spark, the two sparks came together to inspire your project and and the personals become something quite technical now.

Building on that,  I know Katie and I had talked about one of the things  that fascinates us. And we’d love, I think, to hear how pervasive this is among maybe your peer group.

I won’t make Katie say her age, but I’m 53. 

Katie: I’m 49. I’m proud to say I’m 49. 

Yolanda: When I was 16, I wouldn’t have even asked my dad to buy tampons, much less created a project that was public around my period and talked about it with my peers and my teachers and maybe strangers. And, it really struck me that your entire project was, and Katie, too, was focused around menstruation. And, I’m very curious about how bold that is now?  It’s been a long time since either of us were 16.

Do 16 year olds normally talk about their periods? Is this something that’s okay to talk about? 

Krisha: I think we have progressed in the ideas of talking about it. I think we have reached a thing where it’s a little bit more normalized, like more women are comfortable talking about it. But I still think there is a major aspect of shame around it, and it’s one that I’ve always hated, like, when you, like, when a girl comes up to you and asks for, like, a period or a tampon, and she, like, hides it in her sleeve to go to the bathroom, like, I’ve always hated that and so, while there were a lot of people who were very supportive of the fact, especially my female friends, like, loved that I was talking about this, a lot of people did tell me that to be a little softer, like, I was supposed to water down, my project and our mutual pain just so they weren’t uncomfortable, And so, because of that, like, I was very open when using the word, like, I used the word menstruation, I shoved it in people’s faces, like, I wanted to create that reality where this is what my project’s about, stop being so, like, “It’s nothing to be ashamed of.”

It’s totally normal. And that’s one of my dreams with this project is that you go to CVS and rather than it being in a whole separate aisle, it’s like you’ve got the Fitbits and the glucose monitors and females just right next to it on the shelf. It’s not like in a corner, like hidden away from the rest of the world.

That was the dream around it. 

Yolanda: That’s amazing. 

Katie: It’s interesting that you shared the hiding in the sleeve. I shared that with Yolanda the other day, that was something that I experienced recently with my daughter when she was a little younger. Asked for a tampon and I gave it to her discreetly and had my hand all fisted around it to give it to her and she opened it, her palm open and got it from me with an open palm and said, “Mom, you don’t need to hide this. And I thought, okay Progress”   

But, I do see a shift and I just think it’s incredible when you have the courage to stand up in front of a group of influencers like that and talk about it with conviction and without shame.

And I think that really opened some ears and the more we have young accomplished people talking about it, it’s going to make all of your peers more comfortable and we can start to really erase the stigma. 

Yolanda: I’m also hearing how courageous you’ve been, and it is courageous to potentially alienate a peer group or a group that’s evaluating you like teachers.

I’m curious to what you attribute that, like, how did you develop, what do you think has supported you in developing the strength to say, “I know this is gonna be provocative. I will get some support and I will also get detractors” and especially now with social media, which is something, for your peer group and all of us now is a much bigger deal than it was when Katie and I would have been doing something like this, where maybe someone in our high school would know, but nobody else would unless it was on the news or something.

So I’m curious how you’ve, to what do you attribute that kind of strength?

Krisha:  I think it’s a variety of things. I think I was always raised with like feminist literature and I was raised watching Emma Watson speeches and stuff growing up. And I think that was just what raised my feminist self.

As that went on, it just naturally went into talking about these issues. But then I also think just in my household, it was never like a thing that we hid. Like my mom or my dad, they never talked about it. Like I was totally comfortable asking my dad to go to the store for menstruation products for me.

Like it wasn’t a thing that we ever hid. And so when I, it was more like when I went out there, like, and people started talking about it quietly, like our friends started talking about it. I was like, why are you guys so shy about this? Like me, there was just nothing abnormal about it. And then I went out there and everyone’s just like.

It’s a taboo subject. No one talks about it. It’s like, and so I think that, growing up in that household where I just was just such a normal topic, just talking about, like, Women’s issues and things like that. It was just a normal topic that was talked about. I think that was really what contributed to making a project like this.

And, I did sometimes feel like, okay, maybe, like, there were times where I would feel a little hesitant. I was like, should I water this down? And then I would come back and be like, no, like, this is not going to fix anything. Watering it down is just going to make the problem worse. If I really want to get rid of the stigma, I’m going to have to shove it into people’s faces.

And I think that doing that did create a more comfortable environment. I think when people talk to me, At first they were like, didn’t want to talk about it, the shy thing. But then once I kept using that word and I kept bringing it up and it kept happening, eventually they got more comfortable talking about it as well.

Yolanda: That’s great. So leading by example and that example was actually an example you learned from your home environment is what I’m hearing. 

I know one of the things we’re curious about, because we are the Startup Tri-Valley Podcast, and we’re focused on innovation in the Tri-Valley. Is there anything about being in the Tri-Valley, or what in the Tri-Valley do you think helped you, either get to the point of coming to this idea or supported you throughout crafting your project?

I think there’s just something in the air. There’s something that’s inspirational and creative and beautiful just in the air. Like, there’s just so many opportunities here for any sort of project that you might want to pursue. And I think that there are also so many systems set up to help a person succeed in starting and raising a business.

I think like, like it’s a subset of Silicon Valley, like you can call it something like that. Like it’s just the place to be if you want to start a company like that. There’s just so many different things, there’s so many different types of support that you’ll find. It’s a culture of innovation.

Katie: We like to say that we’re trying to nurture a culture of innovation here. And I’m just wondering, the public school systems are award winning and stellar. I know that’s a part of it. Sounds like you have a great culture of innovation and exploration and curiosity in your home. We have organizations like Bay Area LEEDS up in Contra Costa County and Quest Science Center over here in Alameda County that augment the public school programs.

And I’m just wondering, is there anything that you’ve tapped into in the region that has particularly inspired you or you think is unique to our region that nurtures that culture of innovation. 

Krisha: I think it is just so many different opportunities. I think because it’s not just focused towards, okay, one science project or one sort of tech project, like you can bring, like, like, and like, I’ve heard about barrier leads and things like that. Like, you can bring anything into that sort of thing. You can bring in a psychology project, you can bring a behavioral project, you can bring an animal project, you can bring anything. anything that you are interested in and that you want to study we talked about like the, what if I could do this thing like that culture very much exists in this area because it’s okay.

What if it worked this way? What if I could do this? How does this work? Like you can explore pretty much any project around here. And I think that’s what makes it so wonderful is such a diverse amount of like projects and support. And it’s like, you could pretty much do anything here that you wanted to try out.

Katie: And do you feel supported by your community in that way? Do you feel that You’ve brought things up in school and with your teachers and they’ve let you just run with it?

Krisha: Yeah, absolutely they’re just they’re very supportive. They love to see the fact that you’re doing something big for your community and they love to see the fact that you’re succeeding and especially with my teachers like they’ve been so supportive of this project when they heard about it.  They were, you know, they were just, “Go for it,” sort of thing. They very much have that vibe like, “Can we help you in some way?”

And I think that’s just one of the things that’s very wonderful about the Tri-Valley area is just everyone here is almost in a way here to support you and if they can do anything to help you or anything that can help you succeed with your project like they’re going to do everything possible.

Yolanda: I love that. Love to hear that. So you said you got a lot of encouragement from your teachers for your project and was this a project you came up with completely on your own or was it in response to something that the school was hosting or requiring or part of a class? 

Krisha: No, it just, it came up, like, solely on my own.

It was just something I’ve always been into, but then, like, I went to, like, I talked to, like, teachers who are involved in, like, equity clubs, or, like, in, feminist groups, or teachers who are involved in, like, like those teachers who are very big on, like, teaching about equity and whatever, like, I told them about it, and they were very supportive of it, because they’re just, they really love like, the feminist aspect of it, like, the kind of talking about this sort of, It’s a taboo subject that no one really talks about.

They loved that. So I didn’t really create it as part of a project, as part of a school project or whatever, but I think I got so much support from them, it just made it so much better. 

Yolanda: That is amazing. So, it sounds like you just had the idea, decided to pursue it and You had supportive teachers who were part of supporting your equity work at school and who themselves are big proponents of equity.

That’s amazing. What, who supported you? Or what resources did you tap into for the technical side of your project? 

Krisha: I’ve been coding since I was in second grade. It’s just like, it’s just something I’ve been doing for a very long time. I’ve always really liked doing it. So for the technical side of it, it was very much like.

Okay, I have my knowledge, my skills, let me do it. And then, of course, Google. Ridiculously helpful. Whenever you’re stuck on a project. There were some sensors I was using that are a bit newer. Like, I haven’t used these before. Like, I haven’t used them for this purpose before. And so, I was like, okay, Googling it up.

Okay, let’s see, how does this work? And then, my parents and my brother were just super supportive as well. They were just like, is there anything we can do to help? And then, like, maybe, why don’t you try this? Or why don’t you try that? Or, my mom brought me so much coffee. That’s a good mom. And, my dad didn’t get mad at me when my soldering iron burned to the counter a couple times. 

Katie:That’s a good dad. 

Krisha: It was just like, how can we support you? They’ve always been so supportive, no matter how far fetched my dreams are. And it was just like, maybe we can try this, maybe we can try that.

It was And then it was just my own skill I had already learned since like second grade. And then Google, that combination of things is what made the technical side like. Achievable. 

Yolanda: So curiosity, Google, and a lot of patience from your family. How long did it take you from when you had that first spark of the idea and to when you (and we’ll include this video in the show notes) to when you actually published your video of the project? 

I think it’s been a while, I think from the initial spark, maybe about a year and a half ago.

It’s give or take, because it started off with The Spark, but for a while it was, okay, like, it was a lot of research, it was a lot of, okay, what already exists, how do labs do it, how can I do it, what projects are similar there, like, it was a lot of research in that, and high school’s never a quick and easy time, there was a lot going on in high school too, but it was just like, this was my, like, passion project, my fun project, and so I think actually making it maybe was like wasn’t like the full, maybe like, Seven, eight months, like, something around there, if you, like, count, like, making it from the beginning to, like, today, but from, like, initially starting all the research and the spark and, like, the, okay, what can I do thing, maybe, like, a year and a half. 

Yolanda: Great. And when did you work on it? After school, a lot, after school on the weekends over like spring break, winter break, that sort of thing.

It was very much like my fun project, my passion project, my, okay, let’s try this and see if that works. Let’s try that and see if that works. It was very much that for me. So it was always, getting whatever opportunities I could to work on it without, staying up till 3 a.m. 

Yolanda: Right. Balance is important, especially sleep when you’re a teen. 

Katie:Absolutely. 

Yolanda: So, you gave a very high level description of the technology. Do you mind just going into a little more detail about how your detector works? 

Krisha: Of course. Yeah. So basically it’s a device that goes around your finger.

It’s about the size of a mint tin and it goes around your finger. And it measures your hemoglobin level. So, how many healthy red blood cells you have, essentially. And it measures that, and using the values they’ll use in a lab, it’ll calculate, like, how anemic you are. Moderately anemic, severe anemic, etc.

Because there’s like a certain amount of hemoglobin level you have to be in order to be anemic, or healthy, or severely anemic, or, whatever. It’ll calculate that value, it’ll display it on a little screen on the device, and what it’ll do is it’ll send that to your phone with Bluetooth so you can read the data that it’s given out to you, just in a cleaner way, just like a bigger screen as well.

The thing about the mobile app is you can Sorry, you can update it to a cloud server so you can just have like your data from the last six months, last eight months, you can just see like, okay, maybe like, it’s like after your period, you’re very anemic, but like, maybe a couple days later, you’re fine or things like that.

You can just see maybe it’s like a certain time of year. There are a variety of things that trend that data and then it also will show you like on a graph. So just so you have like the historical purposes and for the trend purposes. 

Yolanda: And what will you be doing next with this?

Krisha: I want to further this project. I want to continue doing testing. I want to continue doing research on it, continue testing, maybe work with a lab to get it fully tested. And then I want to get it on shelves in the next couple of years, while simultaneously making other projects geared towards women.

Yolanda: Have you gotten any support from the business community or the medical community? And if so, what kind? 

Krisha; I’ve gotten, like, quite, I’ve gotten a little bit of support here and there. Like, I’ve gone to the Red Cross, for example, about, like, maybe testing and working with them on this project and, like, refining it more.

And then in the business community, like, I’ve looked into a couple different options that I could do. I’m trying, like, I’m just wanna, like, make, like, I wanna make it a little bit, like, more refined and then bring it to, like, like a venture capitalist or like a doctor or something like that.

But I really do want to get it on shelves in the next like five to 10 years max. 

Yolanda: That’s amazing. Yeah. And that’s actually, that’s an accurate time frame for most diagnostics. That’s completely doable. So, besides the aspirations for this product, what aspirations do you have for yourself?

Krisha: I’ve never really liked the idea of, like, picking one career for life and just being in that box. I want to be Barbie with our 250 plus careers. 

Yolanda and Katie: Yeah, right. 

Krisha: And so, I want to start a company geared towards women that makes products for women, both tech and non tech products.

But then I also want to work to end period poverty, which is when women don’t have access to clean men’s store products. And, I want to. Like, have a nonprofit branch, and I want to have a branch that lobbies for political change, for things like abortion and maternity leave, and for making period products cheaper.

And I want to have, like, a branch that works to support young women and encourage them, and to follow their dreams, and society tells them that they can’t do that. I kinda wanna do everything. 

Katie: Do you see yourself as a serial entrepreneur? 

Krisha; Yes. Yeah. 

Katie: Do you have another project you’re working on?

Krisha: I’ve got some others. Yeah, I’ve got quite a few other different ideas lined up, both tech and non tech. 

Yolanda: Okay. Wow. That’s great. 

Katie: So. Can you take on menopause next? 

Yolanda: Yeah. As long as the personal can become professional, menopause. 

Krisha: I’ll see what I can do. 

Katie: We have an entire population of women at the peak of their careers right now, right? Yeah. Who are all dealing with this health crisis that is not a crisis at all. It’s just as unfunded. 

Yolanda: It is completely normal and sucks at the same time. It’s completely normal and feels terrible. 

Krisha: I’ll get on it. Yeah. Thank you. I’ll get on it. 

Katie: Thank you. If we could just put some research and some funding towards helping women at the peak of their careers be able to function properly, that would be awesome, Krisha.

Yolanda: That would be amazing. I feel like that would change the world. Definitely for the better. 

Katie: Well, I know we’re all going to be working for Krisha someday. I can say that for sure. 

Yolanda: Speaking of pipeline of ideas and people. I know, right now you’re still in the thick of it as a student, but looking at your younger peers, the 12 year olds coming through, what can and even for your current peers, what do you see that, the Tri-Valley could be doing better, differently to support this kind of entrepreneurial spirit?

Krisha: I think maybe more, like, opportunities, but also more mentors would be a really great thing. Like, I think that, like I mentioned, we already have so many opportunities. And, but, like, I think even more of those, especially a lot of mentors, would make it really great. Because, I think that we do have a big portion of people with a really creative spirit.

They’re like, okay, I have this idea, like, like the what if thing. Like, I have this idea, what if I could do this? But then they’re like, okay, I made the project, now what? Like, they don’t understand, like, okay, how do I get it off the ground? Like, so, like, a mentor or, like, some sort of, like young entrepreneurs group, I don’t know, support group, something along those lines where you’re, you can bring your project and you’re like, okay, I have this now, how do I get funding for it?

How do I get more testing done for it? How do I refine it? Things like that, right? 

Katie: I think a young entrepreneurs support group sounds like a nice project for Startup Tri-Valley, doesn’t it? 

Yolanda: It does. And just, again, coming back to the young entrepreneur, either a peer or even someone younger than you.Actually, even someone older than you. Like, what encouraging words or advice would you give? 

Krisha: I think there are two pieces of advice. I think the first one is you’re not going to know unless you try, and I know that’s such a cliche, but it’s just so true to my life. Like, go out and enter that contest.Go talk to that person. Go apply for that internship. Like, just try it. Like, what’s the worst that could happen? 

And I think the other thing would be just to, like, know who to listen to and who’s Like, who not to listen to. Like, I think there are going to be people who want to give you genuine advice and people who want to give you, like, unconstructive criticism, and I think just knowing, okay, who am I genuinely going to listen to and who is just background noise just makes it so much easier to get, like, honest and genuine feedback and support.

Yolanda: So, perfect. It sounds like your advice is to just do it. And failure is fine. Like the worst thing that can happen is a no or that’s not gonna work. And then trying to develop a good filter. So you understand the difference between constructive criticism, which is very necessary for innovation versus just criticism, which is soul-sucking. 

That’s amazing. Is there anything, Katie, you want to ask that we haven’t asked? 

Katie: I have a fun question, and that is, what’s your favorite thing to do in Danville? 

Krisha: Oh, I work so much, dude. I’m kidding. But no, I’m kidding. I go shopping with my friends a lot, and there’s something about it that’s like, when I’m stuck on a wall, I’m just like, oh my god, this is not working, why is it not working?

Like, I’ll go shopping with my friends or like with my mom, and it’s just, there’s something about it that’s just like, okay. Now let me try again. I don’t know. It’s coming. I love going shopping. We have great shopping. 

Katie: Yes, we have great shopping. 

Krisha; Yes, we do. We have great shopping and great libraries. Those are the two places I spend a lot of time, yeah.

Yolanda: Yes. Oh, that’s awesome. Yeah. I also love libraries as a refuge. 

Krisha: Oh, yeah, absolutely. 

Katie: I come from a family of librarians, so I loved hearing you say that. 

Yolanda: That’s great. Shopping’s cool, too.

Katie:  Shopping’s cool, too. Libraries are one of the last refuges, I hope we can preserve them. 

Yolanda: So, and Krisha, for you, is there anything we didn’t ask that you think we should have or that you’d just like to talk about?

Katie: I don’t think so. You guys covered everything. 

Yolanda: Excellent. Well, once again, thank you, Katie, for being the co-hostess with the mostest and Krisha, thank you so much for being on the pod. 

Krisha: Thank you so much for having me. Thank you both.