Alumni Honored on Forbes 30 Under 30

Three Exeter alumni, Jason Kang ’12, Daniel Yu ’11 and Raymond Braun ’08 were appointed to this year’s prestigious Forbes 30 Under 30 list for their innovative work in healthcare, technology and LGBTQ activism. The list features the “brightest entrepreneurs, breakout talents and change agents in 20 different sectors,” according to the Forbes website.The social entrepreneurs category featured Yu, the CEO and founder of Reliefwatch. After a trip to a small town in Egypt to study Arabic, Yu was shocked to realize that many of the town’s medicines were expired and in dire need of replacement. He realized that developing countries lack the infrastructure to effectively manage their medicine inventory. After returning to the University of Chicago, he developed Reliefwatch, “a cloud-based system to track data in real-time, analyzed and available anywhere in the world,” according to the Reliefwatch website.Primarily functioning in Africa, Central & South America and Southeast Asia, Reliefwatch can allow employees with flip phones to track dwindling supplies of medication. Kang, a senior and Egleston Scholar at Columbia University, was featured in the healthcare category along with Kevin Tyan and Katherine Jin, his fellow cofounders of their company, Kinnos. Together, the trio invented a colored disinfectant to cover medical surfaces. Once the germs have been killed, the coloring of the chemical fades. They first created the idea at Columbia’s Ebola Design Challenge in October 2014 which summoned innovators around the world to help healthcare workers in West Africa during the height of the Ebola crisis.Kang explained the medical gap in the Ebola epidemic his team tackled. “Thousands of healthcare workers were infected,” Kang said. “One of the main problems was ineffective decontamination.”To combat the problem of ineffective decontamination, Kinnos developed “Highlight,” an additive mixed into disinfectants that colorizes the solution, allows it to fully cover and stick to surfaces and fades when decontamination is complete.Columbia’s media coverage of the Design Challenge featured Kang and his team in an assortment of articles. After the Chief Medical Officer of the New York City Fire Department (FDNY), Dr. David Prezant, read about Kinnos, he invited the team to demo its product to the department.“Not only did the first responders give us rare reviews for how helpful Highlight was,” Kang said. “But once the FDNY incorporated Highlight into their decontamination protocol, we realized that Highlight wasn’t just a project but also a viable product.”After a trip to Liberia to field-test Highlight with healthcare workers in West Africa, Kang was further inspired by the courage of the field workers there. “They’ve sacrificed everything to take care of their country,” Kang said. “The stigma of Ebola caused them to lose many of their relationships and distanced them from friends and family.”Kang and his team hoped to ameliorate the conditions of healthcare workers with Highlight by protecting workers from infection and giving them confidence in their safety.“It’s definitely a huge honor for our team,” Kang said. “But, at the end of the day, we prefer to let our work speak for itself, and I view success in terms of the number of lives we’ve been able to impact.”For Kang, Exeter’s Harkness method of teaching helped encourage active exploration and the collaboration of ideas. “At Exeter, you’re learning to think critically and respond to conflicting points of view,” Kang said. “When you develop a product, you’re doing the same thing: working with others and getting feedback.”Even as a hardworking student at the Academy and Columbia, Kang stressed the importance of staying confident in individual power. “At places like Exeter, we tend to sell ourselves short or feel imposter’s syndrome,” said Kang. “But we each have the ability to make tangible differences in other people’s lives.”Braun was featured as a 30 Under 30 All-Star in Marketing and Advertising. Although Forbes had featured him in 2014, his continued effort and work in his field has continued to warrant him great influence.Braun created a platform on YouTube that allows the LGBTQ community to come together and gain support, love and knowledge, borning the #ProudToLove campaign. “With that spirit in mind, we worked on a celebratory video that reflects the broad spectrum of LGBTQ experiences and voices on YouTube.” Braun said.This past summer when the Supreme Court decided to hear Obergefell v. Hodges, potentially legalizing gay marriage across the country, Braun took a leave of absence from his You Tube campaign to play a larger role in the movement. He now runs a consulting company entirely focused on integrating LGBTQ communities with major corporations.In retrospect, Braun credits part of his immense success to Exeter. “Exeter was the place where I grew into myself,” Braun said. “It helped me find the courage and the affirmation in the community to come out.”Having come from a conservative, small town in Ohio, Braun said he faked interest in females, lowered his voice and stayed “deep in the closet” when he first came to the Academy. At Exeter, however, he opened up after finding a web of support in publicly gay faculty members who supported and mentored him.“It was these experiences that helped me find my interest for advocating for the LGBTQ community,” Braun said. For him, following his passion has been wildly successful. He discouraged against working for a title, award, accolade or coveted brand name.“Let your passion be your compass and let your genuine interest be the guiding factor for you,” Braun said. “I know that’s the most repeated advice you’ll ever hear, but it’s repeated for a reason.”Academic Support Counselor Pamela Parri, who acted as a mentor for Braun, remarked that Braun, even as a student, was bright and motivated.“He’s a person with great initiative and many, many talents,” she said. “He was really such a golden person who seemed to be doing everything right and capable of everything. As [former principal Thomas] Hassan said [when introducing Braun at assembly, he was] ‘amazing even by Exeter standards.’”Students reacted in many different ways after hearing about the alumni on Forbes’ list.Lower Wendi Yan said that in light of influxes of alumni success stories, she is reminded of the pressure of achievement for Exeter students.“Sometimes it feels like it’s my responsibility to be successful,” Yan said.  “The truth is, I don’t know yet what I’m going to do with my life.”However, other students viewed that pressure as constructive. Upper Jessica Zhao said that notable alumni inspire her to take the opportunities Exeter offers.“You see how alumni turn out to be successful, and you feel how much the school has the potential to raise you to that higher standard or to the success you want,” she said.Lower Bridgette Han also said that the examples of notable alumni inspired her to overcome Exeter’s difficulties.“Obviously, you’re going to face some tribulations and it’s going to be hard,” Han said. “But in the long run, I think that Exeter is probably what shaped them to be able to achieve what they did and get on the Forbes list.”For Kang and Braun, following their passions led them to their great successes. “You never know where it might lead you,” said Kang. “And although sometimes it won’t go that far, it will always be infinitely farther than if you hadn’t tried at all.”