SugarSafe began in August 2025 as an entrepreneurship project, sparked by a simple goal: to identify a real problem and build something meaningful to solve it. At the time, we knew we weren’t aligned with the traditional community pharmacy path—but we still deeply wanted to use our education, clinical training, and medication knowledge to help people in a different way.

What started as a campus entrepreneurship club idea quickly grew into something much bigger than we expected.

We didn’t come to this through personal experience with type 1 diabetes. Instead, we came to it by listening—really listening—to parents, caregivers, and families. Through those conversations, we heard stories of diagnosis shock, overwhelming daily management, and the constant stress of trying to keep children safe in environments like schools and playgrounds. One gap became especially clear: while CGMs provide powerful data, that information isn’t always visible or usable by the people supporting a child in real time.

That insight shaped everything. We saw the “playground problem”—kids without receivers, teachers unsure how to respond, and moments where fast understanding matters most. The challenge wasn’t just data; it was awareness, accessibility, and confidence in action.

To bring the idea to life, we partnered with an all female team of biomedical engineering students to develop our first proof of concept. One of our engineers actually was diagnosed with T1D as a child. A year of late nights and iteration, we built a working system with a wireless Bluetooth connection between the CGM and a wearable bracelet, along with a color-based display system designed to mirror glucose status in real time with tested accuracy.

Along the way, the idea grew beyond a prototype. SugarSafe won first place in a campus entrepreneurship competition, earning $8,000 in funding, and placed 4th out of 65 teams in a university-wide innovation competition.

But the most meaningful validation hasn’t been the awards—it’s been the feedback from parents and educators who told us this could help children understand their condition earlier, even before they can interpret numbers on their own. A simple visual signal can build confidence, independence, and safety at the same time.

At its core, SugarSafe is about closing a gap—not just in technology, but in understanding. We want parents to feel that this is a team they can trust to help them make diabetes management more visible, more approachable, and less overwhelming for their child and everyone around them.

And we’re just getting started.