Alumni Spotlight: Jason Kang ’12

By Tina Huang, Chieko Imamura and Krish Patel

Based in New York City, Jason Kang ‘12 has been adjusting to life in a COVID-19 hotspot. As the Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder of Kinnos, a medical company focused on infection-prevention, Kang and his team are innovating ways to address the pandemic while upholding safety precautions.

Before starting his own company, Jason always had an entrepreneurial spirit. “Jason is certainly a very motivated and focused individual, and I think his passion for the company and the desire to impact certainly carries through a conversation that he has, whether it be internal or external,” former classmate and current Chief of Staff at Kinnos Elizabeth Stockton said.

Even though Stockton now works closely with Jason at Kinnos, that was not always the case. “I certainly wouldn't say we were close at Exeter but I was living in D.C. and he came down for an award that he won after he graduated from Columbia and we just kind of reconnected and stayed in touch.” Little did Stockton know that through her Exeter alumni network, she would gain the opportunity to work at Kinnos. 

“After I finished up my work with the Elizabeth Warren campaign in March, it was actually through Tom Guthrie, who was a year above Jason and me, who flagged that Jason was hiring for a Chief of Staff role. So Jason and I talked more and I ultimately joined the team,” Stockton recounted. 

Kang founded Kinnos in 2014, when the Ebola outbreak was at its peak in West Africa. In response to the situation, Columbia University held a competition for students to explore potential solutions. Although Kang was drawn to medicine at the time, he thought that he and his classmates, Catherine Jin and Kevin Tyan, would only “slap it on our resumes as a project like any other hackathon,” he said. 

However, after Columbia invited medical experts to speak about the Ebola pandemic, the future co-founders came up with their project. “Columbia brought in experts from the field to talk about problems they were facing and mentioned that human error during surface decontamination was leading to transmission of the virus,” Kang said. “That’s what gave us the idea to create colorized disinfection.”

“We created Highlight, a patented color additive combined with existing disinfectants, to enable anyone to disinfect surfaces correctly every single time,” Kang said. According to Kang, the Highlight disinfectants fade in real-time from “colored to colorless to approximate when decontamination is done.”

Soon after healthcare workers tested their Highlight prototype, Kang and his co-founders realized the importance of their work. “It became clearer to us that it would be a waste if our technology stayed as an idea instead of being commercialized and providing value to society,” Kang said. “Sometimes the best opportunities present themselves when you’re not looking for one.”

Although Kinnos initially focused on epidemic response, the company has expanded to address the issue of “healthcare-associated infections in hospitals.” Kang noted the prominence of the problem: “Even before COVID-19, about one out of every 25 people that stay in a hospital get an infection from the hospital.”

As Kinnos works to aid patients and medical professionals during the pandemic, Kang hopes that Highlight will make a real difference. “Not only does Highlight instill confidence in staff that they’re disinfecting surfaces correctly and being protected, but it also provides peace of mind to the general public when they can see disinfection happening. It’s one of those things where you don’t even realize how poorly of a job you’ve been doing until you can see the results in real-time,” Kang said.

Kinnos currently works with local health organizations, federal agencies and international distributors to have a greater impact as the pandemic rages across the globe. “One of the lessons we learned from the Ebola outbreak which remains true for COVID-19 is that it’s extremely difficult to implement anything new in the middle of the crisis,” Kang said. As a result, Kinnos works on manufacturing alcohol-based hand sanitizers to donate to hospitals and local community organizations.

The health crisis has also made Kang reevaluate his consumer audience. “COVID-19 has definitely made us rethink the applicability of our technology. We’ve traditionally focused on healthcare and medicine, but we’ve gotten a lot of inbounds from commercial real estate, sports stadiums, hospitality, everyday consumers, and so on,” Kang said. 

In these difficult times, Kinnos is working to enhance their products to help the general populous, while ensuring the safety of their staff. While most employees are working from home, “For those on the team that are doing essential lab work, we’ve helped them cover/find Airbnbs and other housing accommodations so that they can walk to work instead of taking public transport,” Kang said. 

For Kang, the pandemic has helped him “remember what’s important in life.” He also acknowledged the toll of the situation on students. “For some of you, I can only imagine how frustrating or scary it might be not to be in school as it relates to your education and careers,” Kang said, “but I can promise you that everyone in the real world is going to be very understanding of the circumstances, so prioritize your safety first.”