BENTONVILLE -- Open the app. Now cough.
Chandra Suda, a Bentonville teen, has developed a phone app that can diagnose tuberculosis simply by the patient coughing into the phone.
Suda was named one of 100 Rise Global Scholars. The announcement came Oct. 4.
Suda wants to use artificial intelligence to make health care accessible for everyone, especially for patients in rural areas, a profile of Suda on the website of the Rise Challenge says. He also has applied his intellect to cancer and Alzheimer's disease.
The Rise Challenge each year recognizes talented teens, ages 15 to 17, working to solve the world's problems, the organization's website states. The program offers a lifetime of benefits, including scholarships, mentorship, access to career development opportunities and funding "as they work toward humanity's most pressing problems," the website states.
The challenge program was founded by Eric Schmidt and his wife, Wendy. Eric is former chief executive officer for Google. They back the program with a $1 billion pledge to "identify, develop and support global talent working in service of others," according to a 2021 article in Forbes magazine. Their philanthropic vehicle, Schmidt Futures, administers the contest.
The selection process for the Rise award lasted a year, Suda said. Students submit their applications via video. From those applications, 500 teens go on to live interviews, teamwork scenarios and review the projects of other applicants, Suda said.
"These teens speak more than 20 languages and come from 42 countries, including Mexico, Kenya and Afghanistan," the Forbes article states. "They're interested in everything from justice reform to biodiversity."
"I realized it was the perfect opportunity that supports teens wanting to make a meaningful, positive impact in our world," Suda said.
Suda, 16, is a senior at Bentonville High School.
Tuberculosis is bacterial disease that affects mainly the lungs, Suda wrote in an email Monday. It is the leading infectious cause of mortality worldwide, he said.
Suda noted current methods for diagnosis are slow and can be hard to access, especially in rural areas where tuberculosis is most prevalent.
He developed a fast, low-cost app that uses the sound of a patient's coughs through a smartphone's microphone to diagnose the disease.
Suda has been working to expand his research with Donald Catanzaro, a University of Arkansas researcher of tuberculosis diagnostics.
The team hopes to publish this research later this year and apply for funding for a clinical trial next year, Catanzaro said.
Suda also is a remote researcher of artificial intelligence and global medication for Harvard University. He was invited to present his research at the Global Health Leader Conference at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore.
Suda plans to attend college and major in computer science -- specifically artificial intelligence -- with an intersection in medicine and health.
"Chandra is one of the most academically accomplished students I teach and is one of most helpful students I know towards his classmates and the community as a whole," said Robert "Owen" Bell, who leads the technology aspect of Ignite, a career-technical program in the Bentonville School District.
"He has worked with researchers and professionals across his fields of interest and made extremely meaningful progress for himself and others," Bell said. "He puts effort into helping other students get involved in similar work and is just willing to help the people around him.
"Chandra is also my go-to student that will try almost any project we are offered. He can't participate in absolutely every opportunity for lack of time, but he is exceptional for always being curious and hearing every project out. He finds the time to do something for everything and excels in what he fully applies himself to," Bell said.
He is recognized for his research as a two-time international science and engineering finalist of the National Junior Science and Humanities Symposium, and three-time overall winner of the Northwest Arkansas Science Fair. In July and August, he attended the Beaver Works Summer Institute, an incubator for research and innovation at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Suda also leads science, technology, engineering and math education and humanitarian volunteer teams, notably at the Red Cross. He holds presidential and congressional award recognitions.