Indian Mountain School ninth grader Lili Zyszkowski will present her PillMinderTM prototype to President Obama at the White House Science Fair on March 23, 2015. She was one of 100 students selected from a pool of more than 15,000 to showcase their inventions.

The White House hosts a series of science fairs to encourage interest in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) in students and to showcase young scientists, and, in this case, young inventors and entrepreneurs. Lili got her start with the Connecticut Invention Convention, the oldest kid invention curriculum and competition in the United States. According to Helen Charov, executive director of the CIC, “These young inventors, being recognized by the White House, are a testament to the value and importance of creating inventions as the application of scientific inquiry.”

Lili has invented a series of products focused on alerting users to critical situations. Her latest invention, PillMinder, is a pill cap, inspired by an incident in which her grandfather was hospitalized due to scheduling errors with his pills. Lili is working with an existing company to take her award winning PillMinder invention from prototype to product. “I am working with SaferLockRX to design and productize an electronic version of their locking pill cap that is paired with a PillMinder app on the patient’s iPhone,” she says.

“My main motivation is that I like inventing things to help people,” said Lili. The new product will help patients and caregivers actively manage pill-taking to ensure that patients get the best results from their prescriptions and avoid devastating side effects of skipping or overdosing. “When researching the problem, I found out pill compliance is one of the leading reasons for hospitalizations and nursing home admittance.”

“The CIC process gives kids the opportunity to pick a real problem and fix it,” said Lili. “The competition encourages kids to apply everything they know, experiment, and discover innovative solutions to everyday problems. As a CIC Next Step Inventor, I am learning how to patent and market my inventions.”

The event will be streamed live from the White House at noon on March 23.