Vedant Tapiavala

High School Graduation Year: 2022
Year First Awarded the Carson Scholarship, School: 2021, School for the Talented and Gifted
Sponsored by: Costco Wholesale Corporation

Vedant uses his love for and knowledge of technology to work on large-scale humanitarian projects to make a difference for people.  As a freshman in high school, Vedant, along with a friend, created AlzBuddy, an app to help early-stage Alzheimer’s patients.  His app won the TX-30 Congressional App Challenge and he was invited to present to the US House of Representatives.  The app has four modules designed to help users reminisce, utilize brain activity through games and hear words of affirmation and positivity.  Today, AlzBuddy has over 10,000 downloads across 37 countries and Vedant’s work has been featured in several media outlets including the Forbes Communications Council.  Vedant also serves as a director of Future Forward, a nonprofit organization combating food waste and food insecurity.  He helped develop an app for the organization called FoodNex, which helps food banks and pantries manage donations from businesses and individual donors.  To date, FoodNex has coordinated donations of over 390,000 pounds of food worth over $421,000.

Vedant, a 2-time Carson Scholar, started college at age 16 and is currently pursuing a bachelor’s degree in neuroscience on the pre-med track at Dartmouth College.  In high school, he conducted research as part of the NIH Summer Internship Program in the neurological disorders and stroke labs.  He has developed algorithms for research at Dartmouth that help consolidate literature reviews and other currently unpublished algorithms – work that earned him the title of a Neukom Scholar.  At Dartmouth, he leads Dartmouth Generations, one of the school’s biggest clubs, which visits local nursing homes to talk to seniors and invites speakers to the school to discuss caring for dementia patients.   He is also on the Executive Committee of the Dartmouth Coalition for Global Health, which creates and explores global health case studies.