There’s Always Something to Do in Brownsville

“There’s nothing to do in Brownsville.” It was a constant refrain when Eva Garcia was growing up in the midsize Texas city, situated just across the border from Mexico. After college, most of her friends moved away to Austin or other cities perceived as more dynamic and interesting. But Garcia stayed, got a job in city government, and is now part of an initiative to transform her community and neighboring cities. “I want to make Brownsville a place where people want to stay,” she says.
As an employee of the city’s department of planning and development, Garcia is taking an active role in doing just that, helping to organize programs and funding for a network of 17 miles of new multiuse trails in and around Brownsville. She’s also been lobbying to attract new businesses to open alongside these new biking, hiking and paddling trails. She recently attended the Kauffman Foundation’s inaugural ESHIP Summit to connect with other people working to build thriving small business communities and get new ideas for how to improve her own.
The goals of Brownsville’s recent outdoorsy development are nothing less than ambitious: Boost the local economy, improve health outcomes, rescue precious natural resources and encourage the growth of a robust entrepreneurial ecosystem. Those are big problems to solve, and Brownsville is trying to tackle them all at once. But the city is aiming to prove that all at once is the best way to take on big issues.
“There’s never enough money to do what you want,” Garcia says. “We’re leveraging resources to attack multiple problems.” For Garcia, the ESHIP Summit was a chance to better understand and imagine the end goal of the development happening in Brownsville. “What I’ve learned is the characteristics of highly functioning systems,” she says, “and how collaboration is essential.”
Turning around an entire community’s idea of itself isn’t exactly easy. Brownsville is behind the curve in developing as a tourist destination, Garcia says. “Right now the challenge seems to be changing the perception of what’s successful, or what could be successful.” Some people believe that in a relatively poor community, building nature trails is a waste of taxpayer money that could be better spent improving public transportation or other services.
But Garcia sees the potential to make her community much stronger — and healthier too. The progress happening today is a steep departure from her experience growing up in Brownsville, which as recently as 2012 was the poorest city in America, with a median income of less than $30,000 a year. The majority of residents are Hispanic, and a CDC study found that the rates of obesity and diabetes were among the highest in the country. Almost 40 percent of residents lack health insurance, according to the most recent census data available. Growing up, Garcia says she had no idea that the health disparities and poverty levels were so severe.
After graduating from the University of Texas at Brownsville (now the University of Texas Rio Grande) with a degree in environmental science, Garcia got an internship with the city and started to learn more about her own community. “I felt like my eyes were opened,” she says. “I started becoming aware of what the issues really were here, and why there were challenges to development.” The city had already started to work on some initiatives to reduce poverty and improve health outcomes, and Garcia decided she wanted to be involved.
Today, Garcia’s department is partnering with Rails to Trails Conservancy to connect 10 local communities with new pathways. The UT School of Public Health in Brownsville has provided grant funding to help promote the new trails and healthy living in general. And the city is taking advantage of a local utility program to dredge and restore tributaries of the Rio Grande that have filled with sediment, organizing new trails around these resacas. The university’s architecture program is designing birding blinds (small shelters that help observers watch birds without startling them) to line the new trails. “Everyone has a role to play,” Garcia says.
That includes entrepreneurs, who are key to making the “active tourism” initiative a success. The city is looking for ways to incentivize small businesses to take advantage of the new walking and biking pathways. “You cannot be active without the [proper] gear,” Garcia says. “Even to go fishing, you need poles and lines, and people to take you out on boats to show you where things are.”
More businesses are needed, she says, to showcase the city’s assets — new companies like outdoor tour operators or kayak and paddleboard rental shops will help market the community as a fun, dynamic place.
“There are constantly things to do now,” Garcia says.

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This content was produced in partnership with the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, which works in entrepreneurship and education to create opportunities and connect people to the tools they need to achieve success, change their futures and give back to their communities. In June 2017, the foundation hosted its inaugural ESHIP Sumit, convening 435 leaders fighting to help break down barriers for entrepreneurs across the country.
 

How a Few Legendary Rappers and 1 Cool Doctor are Creating Better Health Outcomes for Inner City Kids

Dr. Olajide Williams is a neurologist and a hip hop fan. Doug E. Fresh is an critically-acclaimed rapper and an avid health nut. When the two paired up to produce, “Stroke Ain’t No Joke,” a song aimed at educating young people about the warning signs of a stroke, in 2005, it was a match made in heaven. “I would be working all day here, then head to Doug’s studio and work all night until we came up with the song,” says Williams. “It’s still my favorite song to this day.”
The song’s release led to the founding of Hip Hop Public Health, a campaign that uses animation, songs and live performances to educate low-income children and families about healthy living. Since 2008, the group has performed in more than 150 schools, teaching an estimated 44,000 kids about strokes, obesity, diabetes and Alzheimer’s disease.
Hip Hop Public Health recently launched an ambassador program, placing their materials online and encouraging educators and artists from around the world to use its model.

If Pharmacies are Closed, This App Helps Diabetics Locate Much-Needed Medication

It seems that almost every second, someone is saying “yeah, there’s an app for that.” And while most of these apps no longer generate surprise, once in awhile, there’s one that does.
One such app is called HelpAround. Originally meant to be a resource forum for everyone to acquire the things they needed, HelpAround users would post questions to their community forum and get advice about the best handyman or find a person with ibuprofen.
However, that idea didn’t take off, so the group took a different approach and focused solely on the diabetic community. Since then, it’s been connecting and uniting diabetics across the country — offering them the much-needed support that they couldn’t get from generic online medical forums. And with 29.1 million Americans suffering from the disease, according to the American Diabetes Association, the app has the potential to help countless people.
There’s two layers to it: a local, social one and the professional layer. Using the local layer, participants can find others in their proximity and ask each other for advice or supplies. For instance, if a person forgets insulin strips while out, he or she can contact a neighbor from the group and ask to borrow some. It’s also a way to help those with diabetes cope and live with the disease. Participants can ask each other candid questions and receive open, truthful answers which they may not receive from a doctor.
The professional portion of the app connects users with a 24/7 medical call center. Nurses are available to receive phone calls, and users receive three free calls per month.
Many users are even using this as an alternative to an insurance policy, which is something that co-founder and CEO Yishai Knobel never fathomed. “A lot of people on our system don’t have insurance, and they come here as alternative. We’re finding a really interesting market inefficiency,” Knobel told Fast Company.
Rachel Gillet is a writer for Fast Company, as well as a type 1 diabetic. According to her, this app is a great resource for diabetics, but it needs to be used with discretion so that people don’t rely solely on the generosity of others.
“I can’t begin to tell you the amount of times a pharmacy has been closed or out of supplies or my prescription has run out and it’s the weekend, so [there’s] no doc[tor] around to call in a refill.  Or how many times I’ve been on a road trip and realized I forgot something and I’m not due a refill on yet, so I can’t even stop into a Walgreens and pick something up (technically, I could, but insurance wouldn’t cover it and I would be out about $600 for one box of insulin),” she says.
Helping the diabetes community is just the beginning for the app. HelpAround hopes to not only expand its diabetic community even further, but to eventually introduce the app to those with other chronic conditions as well.
MORE: This App Helps Reduce Food Waste

Meet the Kid Who Turned a Health Scare Into Inspiration (Again, and Again)

A type 1 diabetes diagnosis didn’t stop 11-year-old Anja Busse of Antigo, Wis. It inspired her.
Rocked by the diagnosis six months ago, Busse knew what would make her feel better: an American Girl doll going through the same experience.
But there wasn’t one.
So Busse created an online petition urging the company to create accessories that a type 1 diabetic like herself might use. So far, Busse has garnered over 3,000 signatures.
“I feel so different now and my whole life has been turned around,” she writes. “I just want everyone to feel good about themselves no matter if they have something ‘wrong with them’.”
Among her wants: a glucose meter, an insulin pump, and “pick-me-ups”— snacks that diabetics keep on hand to control their blood sugar.
“There are thousands of girls with diabetes and it’s really hard for some of them getting diagnosed,” she told Lisa Haefs of the Antigo Daily Journal. “It’s easier with a doll that looks just like you. You have someone to take care of.”
According to the American Diabetes Association, about 1 in 400 people under the age of 20 in America have type 1 diabetes.
Busse isn’t the first child to ask American Girl Doll for more diversity.
Last year, Melissa Shang, 10, who suffers from a form of muscular dystrophy, started a petition to feature a disabled girl as a “Girl of the Year” doll. She’s gained over 142,000 signatures.
Mattel, which manufactures American Girl Dolls, responded with a letter that read in part, “We receive hundreds of passionate requests to create a variety of dolls and books based on a wide range of circumstances, and we are always considering new ways to enhance our product lines.”
The uber-popular American Girl line already offers such accessories as glasses, hearing aids, wheelchairs, and an allergy-free lunch — so Busse’s request isn’t too far-fetched.
And it’s not the pint-sized activist’s only project. Busse and her parents started the nonprofit Boxed for Joy, sending care packages to kids newly diagnosed with diabetes. And the pre-teen is recruiting for the local Juvenile Diabetes Research Fund’s Walk to Cure Diabetes. She has a national sponsor, Shwings, a company that manufactures little wings to lace onto sneakers.
It’s an apt metaphor for a kid with potentially debilitating disease who keeps finding more ways to help others.
MORE: All This ‘American Girl’ Wanted Was A Doll With A Story Like Hers

What This Children’s Hospital Is Doing With Google Glass Will Make You Smile

Say what you want about the wearable technology trend, but sometimes Google Glass can really be used for good. Using the nifty specs, the young patients at the Children’s Memorial Hermann Hospital can now see the meerkats, jaguars, giraffes and all the other animals at the Houston Zoo without leaving their bed.
In the video from the Houston-based hospital above, you can just see how the kids’ faces light up as they virtually experience the zoo right from their hospital rooms. Take 6-year-old Jayden, who’s been diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes and would always try to spot animals at the nearby zoo from the window of his hospital room. Using the Google Hangout feature on the glasses, linked-up zoo staffers were able to take Jayden on a personal tour of the zoo and even brought him backstage to see the sea lions.
Additionally, the children’s hospital touted a study on their YouTube page that Google Glass can being a sense of calm to patients during surgery. The study found that the glasses are also a welcome distraction to the young patients in hospital rooms. “It gave my son a chance to feel like he was a normal kid,” Jayden’s mom said. “He was able to see the zoo [from] a hospital bed—what’s a greater thing than that?” We couldn’t agree more.
MORE: These Hearing Aids Are Like Google Glass for Your Ears
 

How ‘Robotic Pills’ Could Revolutionize U.S. Health Care

Imagine a future where people with chronic diseases like diabetes and rheumatoid arthritis no longer needed to rely on injections to stay healthy. It’s much closer than you might realize. Inventor Mir Imran, Indian-born founder of Silicon Valley research and business incubator InCube Labs, has created a “robotic” pill that contains an ingestible polymer and tiny, hollow needles made of sugar, which safely deliver insulin into the patient’s small intestines. Currently in pre-clinical studies, this pill — which is backed by Google’s venture-capital unit — could disrupt the multibillion-dollar market for injectable drugs, while also making life much easier for patients who use it. “This investment is not exactly in our wheelhouse, but we’re open to people who can change our minds,” Blake Byers, Google Ventures general partner, told The Wall Street Journal. “This one really stood out as a huge clinical need; $110 billion is spent in the U.S. every year on biologics, all of them injectable.”
MORE: These Pharmacists Are Making Affordable Medication for All a Reality
The pill works on what Imran called an “autonomic robotic delivery system,” which allows it to stay intact long enough to deliver the drug in the small intestines. This pill was designed to work with the body’s digestive system. As it reaches the intestines, the acidity dissolves the pill’s outer layer, exposing a valve with two chemicals: citric acid and sodium bicarbonate. These chemicals then mix together to create carbon dioxide, which acts as an energy source, inflating a “balloon-like structure” that contains needles made of sugar and preloaded with drugs. The needles push into the intestinal wall, where they detach and slowly dissolve. The rest of the device passes naturally from the body. Pre-clinical trials have shown that Imran’s robotic pill has just as much potential for drug absorption as injections, if not more. “He is getting results that I have not seen before,” said Elliott Sigal, a retired pharmaceutical drug developer. “It hasn’t been tried in human patients yet, and things do sometimes fail at that level. But if the [trials] data continues, there will be a great deal of pharma interest.”
ALSO: Making House Calls to People Without Homes
Imran’s invention, made by InCube’s Rani Therapeutics, is the latest in a stream of high-tech, robotic pills. Earlier this month, the FDA approved Given Imaging’s PillCam, a revolutionary device that is exactly what it sounds: a camera in pill form. This tool can be used to screen for and diagnose diseases in the digestive track and colon without the use of endoscopies or colonoscopies. And in 2012, the FDA approved Proteus Digital Health’s Feedback System, an “ingestible sensor” that connects with Bluetooth to track how patients take their pills. While Imran and Rani Therapeutics still have a long way to go before their robotic pill seeks FDA approval — it will be a year, at least, until the process is started — it has the potential to help millions of people.
MORE: Better Health Through … Texting?

How Finding Diabetes Treatment Can Be as Easy as Online Dating

For many patients suffering from a chronic illness, clinical trials can help advance treatment options. For a prevalent disease, such as Type 2 Diabetes, over 350,000 participants are needed for clinical trials every year in the United States alone. Corengi is a website that helps people seeking treatment for a variety of diseases discover and access clinical trials throughout the country, using a simple online form, similar to dating sites. Co-founder Ryan Luce recently stated in Forbes, “I recognized clinical trials couldn’t get enough participants and there weren’t great tools available for patients to learn about diseases either. I thought, ‘How do we create free tools for patients to learn about the problem?'” The site operates as a for-profit, purpose-driven business that hopes to impact as many lives as possible. If you’d like to help advance diabetes research, take a look at the programs available in your zip code.