Designing a healthier future
In this episode of Imagine A World, a podcast by Knight-Hennessy Scholars, Anson Zhou (2024 cohort) and Ashley Yeh (2024 cohort) speak with David Jiang (2022 cohort) and Longsha Liu (2022 cohort) about their journeys to Stanford and the close friendship they've formed. David and Longsha share the accomplishments and vision behind their KHeystone Project: the Stanford Healthcare Design Challenge, which seeks to bridge the gap between healthcare innovation and implementation.
Longsha discusses the motivation behind his interests in the intersections of healthcare with technology, research, and business. He also shares his elaborately planned and heartwarming proposal story (which David played a huge role in). David talks about the importance of community throughout his time as a Knight-Hennessy scholar and what creating community during COVID times looked like.
Resources
Guests
David H. Jiang (2022 cohort), from Rochester, Minnesota, by way of the Gobi Desert in China and Sapporo, Japan, is pursuing a JD at Stanford Law School. He graduated cum laude from Yale University, majoring in global affairs and political science. David seeks to make healthcare more accessible and affordable through reforming regulation, insurance, and care delivery.
David is a published health policy academic at Mayo Clinic, with interests ranging from long-COVID to medical AI device regulation, to the effect of insurance plans on patient behavior. His work has appeared in the Journal of the American College of Cardiologists, the Journal of General Internal Medicine, and the BMJ Open. David is an expert advisor for the Minnesota Department of Health and was appointed by Governor Tim Walz to serve on the Minnesota Board of Nursing. David also co-founded Oraculi, a nonprofit science education and mentorship program for underserved communities in Minnesota.
Longsha Liu (2022 cohort), from New Orleans, Louisiana, is pursuing an MD at Stanford School of Medicine. He graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Cornell University with a bachelor’s degree in neurobiology and a minor in business for the life sciences. Liu plans to become a physician innovator who enhances patient care through technology and research-driven approaches. At Cornell, he co-founded and led Cornell Biomedical Device, an engineering team designing solutions for medical challenges.
Since graduating, he has worked as a SENS Research Fellow at Harvard Medical School, focusing on novel glioblastoma therapeutic design via gut microbiome modulations. Moreover, he is co-founder and CEO of Vita Innovations, a MedTech startup advancing emergency medicine with patient monitoring solutions for early clinical deterioration detection and telemedicine applications. Liu is a Clinton Global Initiative Fellow, Cornell Hunter Rawlings Presidential Research Scholar, and recipient of Cornell’s 2021 Student Business of the Year and Verizon-CGIU Social Innovation Awards.
Imagine A World team
Imagine A World's theme music was composed and recorded by Taylor Goss (2021 cohort). The podcast was originally conceived and led by Briana Mullen (2020 cohort), Taylor Goss, and Willie Thompson (2022 cohort), along with Daniel Gajardo (2020 cohort) and Jordan Conger (2020 cohort).
Knight-Hennessy scholars represent a vast array of cultures, perspectives, and experiences. While we as an organization are committed to elevating their voices, the views expressed are those of the scholars, and not necessarily those of KHS.
Full transcript
Note: Transcripts are generated by machine and lightly edited by humans. They may contain errors.
Longsha Liu:
Fundamentally, there's already this misalignment of the people using and receiving the healthcare, and the people giving the healthcare aren't the ones setting the costs. At the same time, it's also a system that isn't regulated by government terms and caps, so things just keep on getting more and more expensive. Hospitals today are probably the most expensive hotel service. If we were to break down that billing line item, the room is board. That needs to fundamentally change.
David Jiang:
Hi. My name is David Jiang. I'm a member of the 2022 cohort and a JD student in the School of Law. I imagine a world where every person can find a community where they can always rely on each other for support and connection.
Longsha Liu:
I'm Longsha. I'm a member of the 2022 Cohort and a MD student in the School of Medicine. I imagine a world where every day is touched by the warmth of compassionate care.
Sydney Hunt:
Welcome to the Imagine A World podcast from Knight-Hennessy Scholars. We are here to give you a glimpse into the Knight-Hennessy Scholar community of graduate students spanning all seven Stanford schools, including business, education, engineering, humanities, law, medicine, and sustainability. In each episode, we talk with scholars about the world they imagine and what they are doing to bring it to life.
Anson Zhou:
Today we sit down with David Jiang and Longsha Liu, both members of the 2022 Knight-Hennessy Scholars cohort. The two are inspiring current and future leaders in healthcare and the various disciplines of law, business, and policy that make healthcare better and possible. David was born in the Gobi Desert in China and was raised in Rochester, Minnesota. He's pursuing a JD at the law school. Longsha was born in Hong Kong and raised in New Orleans, Louisiana. He's pursuing an MD at the School of Medicine.
This episode is about friendship, community, and the power of collaboration. Together, we explore their unlikely friendship, which began with a cold LinkedIn message, blossomed over family dinners, and evolved into co-leading the Stanford Healthcare Design Challenge, an ambitious initiative empowering students across the globe to build real solutions for healthcare's most pressing challenges. We'll talk about proposing in Shanghai with 200 LED candles, building tech for the emergency room, and why they think good policy and good food start with empathy. Let's jump in.
Hi, everybody. My name is Anson, and I'm a current MD student at the School of Medicine in the 2024 cohort. We have some very exciting guests with us today to talk about friendship in Knight-Hennessy, which I think is something we haven't touched on as much. I think it'd be really exciting to see how the cohort comes to build these types of friendships. We're joined by our amazing co-host, who you've heard before, Ashley. Ashley, do you want to say hi?
Ashley Yeh:
Hi, it's Ashley. As you guys know, I am a 2024 cohort member in Knight-Hennessy, and a neuroscience Ph.D. student in the School of Medicine. And yeah, super excited to be here.
Anson Zhou:
Yeah, so why don't we have our guests give a super quick hello, just so the viewers know who the voices are. David, do you want to say hi first?
David Jiang:
Yeah. Hi. I'm David Jiang, and I'm a JD student at the Law School. I'm about to graduate in nine weeks, which is incredibly horrific to me, but also exciting at the same time.
Ashley Yeh:
Exciting.
Longsha Liu:
Yeah, sounds pretty scary. I think we have many years to go, so can't relate yet.
Ashley Yeh:
Six more years here.
Anson Zhou:
Well, we'll visit you. We'll visit you. Yeah. And Longsha, you want to say hi?
Longsha Liu:
Yeah. Hi. I'm Longsha. I'm a MD student in the School of Medicine, nowhere close to graduating, so interesting dynamic there.
Ashley Yeh:
Cool. It was great hearing all your Imagine A World statements. Before we talk about the world you imagine, I just want to talk a little bit about the world you were born into and have experienced so far. We can start with you, Longsha. Where are you from and what was your journey here?
Longsha Liu:
Yeah, I was born in Hong Kong, and then raised by my grandparents for the first five years of my life. Both of them were physicians in China. A lot of my initial role models were people who were genuinely warm, compassionate, and truly wanted the best for all their patients, and they were my role models growing up. I wanted to be a physician quite early, like a lot of Asian-Americans, I suppose.
When I was five, my parents moved to New Orleans for research, and that's basically where I grew up for most of my life. Katrina hit, so we moved around a bit. I went to Kentucky, Georgia, Ohio, then moved back to New Orleans. I went to school in Cornell, and then shortly after, a research fellowship at Harvard before coming to Stanford. But a lot of my initial interests were always grounded in healthcare and the intersections of healthcare with technology, with research, with business.
Ashley Yeh:
Yeah, very cool. I'm just curious. Seems like you've moved around in a lot of different states. Is there a particular place or a particular state that feels like home to you or you have a special connection to?
Longsha Liu:
Yeah, I would say it's definitely Palo Alto.
Ashley Yeh:
Oh.
Longsha Liu:
New Orleans was heat and humidity for most of the year. Ithaca was snow and just cold winters for half the year.
David Jiang:
I feel like, as a Minnesotan, that's perfect weather for us, isn't it?
Longsha Liu:
Yeah, you're extremely biased-
Ashley Yeh:
Oh, gosh.
Longsha Liu:
... as a Minnesotan, and in-
Ashley Yeh:
Is it?
Longsha Liu:
... Boston, it was also rain and slush, so yeah.
Ashley Yeh:
Makes sense.
Anson Zhou:
So, Palo Alto is paradise.
Longsha Liu:
It is Paradise.
Ashley Yeh:
California.
Longsha Liu:
I can play pickleball. It has fantastic weather. No complaints.
Ashley Yeh:
All year round.
Longsha Liu:
Yes.
Ashley Yeh:
Yeah, the worst weather we get is rain, so honestly can't complain.
Longsha Liu:
Exactly, yeah.
Ashley Yeh:
Is there anything from your childhood that really catalyzed this interest, like any personal experiences? Or is it also just the role models you had growing up that really kept you on this path?
Longsha Liu:
Yeah, I would say my motivation as a physician, it's also there were some deaths in the family that had me feel really helpless. I think, really early on, it was that feeling of I want to do something about this, that if any friends or families get sick, I want to have the knowledge to be able to help instead of just hope that they can get better.
As far as everything else goes, especially my interest in entrepreneurship, it stems more from understanding more about the healthcare system and how broken incentives are, and wanting to do something to fix that, as well. I think it's like, on a macro scale, I want to change how healthcare is delivered and how we can better approach a more equitable and higher quality healthcare system.
Ashley Yeh:
Is that how technology also figures into it?
Longsha Liu:
Yes. I think technology, especially since we're in this inflection point of technology being good enough, and this is already going to be the worst that it ever is at helping transform healthcare.
Ashley Yeh:
I'm just curious, with your... I mean, I'm in neuroscience, but I'm not in the medicine field. Within healthcare, what do you see as the biggest issues with healthcare delivery? I don't even really know what healthcare delivery, I guess, means, but yeah, maybe you can get a little bit into it. I know we're also going to get into it a little bit more later on, but yeah.
Longsha Liu:
Yeah. First of all, there's too many, but I think, fundamentally, especially if we look at the US healthcare, the health insurers are the ones paying the money and deciding how things are set in terms of prices. And it's not the physicians who prescribe the medications or do the treatments, it's not even the patients because, oftentimes, we have insurance, and we don't barter on the prices and whatnot or even select what services we're using. So, fundamentally, there's already this misalignment of the people using and receiving the healthcare and the people giving the healthcare aren't the ones setting the costs.
At the same time, it's also a system that isn't regulated by government in terms of caps, so things just keep on getting more and more expensive. Hospitals today are probably the most expensive hotel service. If we were to break down that billing line item, the room is board. That needs to fundamentally change because, what, US is like 18% GDP focused on healthcare, and yet we're not even in the top five for quality. That's really messed up.
Ashley Yeh:
To say the least.
Longsha Liu:
To say the least, yes.
Ashley Yeh:
Very messed up.
Anson Zhou:
I think, as you mentioned before, a lot of your interests are multidisciplinary, and to solve issues as big as the ones that you're describing requires that. I think a lot of scholars are drawn to Knight-Hennessy for that purpose. I'm curious. At what point did you start thinking about policy and business and entrepreneurship are critical parts of solving healthcare?
Longsha Liu:
Yeah, I mean I stumbled across it more than anything else because when I entered college I was very much a stereotypical pre-med. It just so happened that my roommate was an engineer, and then a lot of my close friend group were engineers. And Cornell had this phenomenal project team space where students can lead engineering groups and to solve hairy, gigantic problems. By stumbling into that ecosystem, I then began to realize the transformative impact that technology then has, in terms of any amplification of impact.
My first project was with Cornell iGEM. We built a autonomous boat that will constantly sample waters and detect algae blooms. And when we detect algae blooms, we then released a bacteria that we engineered to degrade those micro-resistance. I thought, back then, "Wow, that is super cool, but I want to apply it directly into healthcare."
I ended up forming a team of around 25 students called the Cornell Biomedical Device. We basically just built surgical devices for surgeons because surgeons had a lot of complaints but not a lot of time. That was when I began to really dive into the field, talk to physicians, shadow them, talk to policymakers, understand regulatory.
Even now, I think I'm probably at the point of the J-shape curve where I know enough to realize I know nothing at all. But at least that initial experience helped me realize how complex and complicated this entire ecosystem is, that to make change you really need to understand each stakeholder, each facet, and at a pretty intimate level.
Anson Zhou:
It's fascinating how much that resonates with me, personally, because also very interested in medicine and entrepreneurship, and the way I got into that is exactly through college, in a design program with other engineers. I think it's really cool how, once you're put in the same environment with people in different disciplines than you, these interests you never knew you had just spur up, and different opportunities come up. I think that's a really amazing thing.
Longsha Liu:
100%.
Anson Zhou:
Yeah. Why don't we jump over to David? We're going to hit you with the same question. Before we talk about the world you imagine, we can talk about the world that you were born into, have experienced thus far. Where are you from? And what was your journey here, David?
David Jiang:
Sure. So I was born in the Gobi Desert in northwestern parts of China. My family has a interesting history because I'm the 105th generation of my family. Then we have a book that keeps track of all of these things.
My family is originally from southern China, but then we got forcefully moved to Northwestern China by the Communist Party back in the '50s. And then from there, that's where I grew up. I spent the first seven years of my life there. And then my parents did their Ph.D. in Japan, so then we moved to Japan for three years, and then finally ending up in the great state of Minnesota where I've been since I was 10 years old.
So, growing up I've experienced a lot of different communities, a lot of different cultures. There's a couple of anecdotes. I think the major one is I remember watching the news and then I would be covering some story that happened in the world. But then my mom would be playing the Chinese version of the news, or I would look up the Japanese version of the news. It's completely different angles even though it's the same set of facts.
So, from a young age, I realized that there is a distinct perspective in how different cultures impact the way people think. And having grown up in a lot of these cultures, I think that fundamentally influenced who I am in trying to seek a community and build a community that really tries to understand what is it about somebody that makes them unique, makes them tick a little bit. So, looking back, I think the common parlance is it takes a village to raise a child, but I am so lucky to have had three villages in my life. And now I have the community here, which I think we'll talk about.
Anson Zhou:
Yeah, totally. You have had a fascinating upbringing, as you mentioned, just being all over the world, really, before the age of 10. Right?
David Jiang:
Yeah.
Anson Zhou:
And from all these perspectives, how does that tie into your career goals and what you want to do in the future? Because actually, funny enough, I guess all of us are in medicine and healthcare in a way. I know you're more on the law side of healthcare, and policy, but how does that drive your ambitions in what you want to see in the world?
David Jiang:
Yeah, so my path to law is fascinating because my parents are physicians, and they're also doctor, and they're MD Ph.D. researchers. It's hard to separate yourself from that world. I tried really, really, really hard to separate myself. I guess having experienced all of these cultures, I realized that international relations was a field that is possible, that's out there.
In college, I was a global affairs major, a political science major. I really wanted to be a foreign service officer in college. But then, timing-wise, I graduated in 2019, and I was not going to apply for the State Department, at least not at that time, and lost in trying to find out where exactly I want to do.
And then, regrettably, my father was really sick at the time, so then I went back home to Rochester, Minnesota. I think subconscious influence from my parents, I took a lot of electives in health law and health policy in college. So, I cold emailed the chair of the Health Policy Department at Mayo Clinic at the time, and he's like, "Yeah, come on down. You'll do some insurance analysis," which I know sounds really, really fun.
Ashley Yeh:
Ooh. Exciting.
David Jiang:
That was in December of 2019 that I got hired, and within three months we were in COVID research. From there, my interest immediately shifted to, "How do you deal with COVID from a community perspective? What are the resources that we need? How do we allocate ventilators or masks? Or how do we enforce? How do we communicate to the people that masking orders are good or vaccinations are good?" That's how it shifted.
And then I realized that I spent a lot of time trying to convince people, with law degrees, to do the right thing. We had the data to support our proposition, but it's hard when the person actually making the decision has no backhand knowledge of why we're doing this. So, I was like, "Okay, I know I need a JD now because then I can do the right thing in government or as a lawyer in the future."
So, that's my path, and I think that's also where my path crossed with Longsha's path. Because the reason that we met is, actually, when we were interviewing through Knight-Hennessy, he saw that one of my interests was health policy, and he was like, let me reach out to him. So, that's the beginning.
Ashley Yeh:
The makings of an amazing friendship.
Longsha Liu:
LinkedIn is a great connector.
David Jiang:
LinkedIn is a great connector.
Anson Zhou:
You're talking about this realization that in order to really communicate the researcher finding, you thought that a law degree was necessary. Is that because a lot of these findings you were trying to pass off to legislators, and they really weren't getting it? I'm curious. What was the logic behind having a JD at the end of your name, being able to get across to them? Or is it, "Oh, maybe I want to be a legislator myself, having this healthcare background?"
David Jiang:
I think it's a combination of both. I think, whatever my political ambitions may be, they're 20 years, 30 years down the line when people are apparently sufficiently ripe to be a politician. But I think the initial thought is, having a JD lets you really understand what are the different perspectives in the room. Because I think, looking at the last three years of law school, the key question is what does the other side think? It's not necessarily what your best argument is. It's what's your best argument contingent upon their best argument. Knowing what your counterarguments are makes arguing for your perspective a lot easier and a lot more convincing.
That also goes into a lot of aspects like health policy, because there's a lot of resistance. I'm sure when you talk to patients, for those of you who are in the med school, there is resistance there. But trying to put yourself in the patients' shoes, or, in my case, trying to put yourself in the other guy's shoes or the community's shoes really help consolidate what the idea of a good policy is.
Anson Zhou:
Yeah, yeah, and that makes a lot of sense. Thank you both for a little insight into your lives. I hope we can dig into it a little bit more later on in the discussion. But I think, David, you teased us with how the two of you initially met because, I guess, again, LinkedIn is an amazing tool to meet people.
So, actually walk us through, because all of us have been through Immersion Weekend or the Finalist Weekend, and I think Ashley and I remember, just a year ago, how hectic it was to meet everyone, remember their names, remember faces, hear about what they're passionate about. It's a super exciting experience. What was it like for you guys? And how did that first connection manifest into the friendship it is today?
David Jiang:
Y'all had your Immersion Weekend in person.
Anson Zhou:
Yeah.
David Jiang:
Oh, ours was online.
Ashley Yeh:
Oh.
Anson Zhou:
Oh.
Ashley Yeh:
I see.
David Jiang:
It was like a eight or 10 hour Zoom session. I don't-
Anson Zhou:
[inaudible 00:18:34].
Longsha Liu:
Session Saturday, yeah.
Ashley Yeh:
Took 10 hours?
David Jiang:
Yeah, it was insane. But before that, they released this list of finalists with all their interests, and then launched. My understanding is that Longsha... I have to make fun of him. My understanding is that he wanted to network, which considering the entrepreneur that he is...
Ashley Yeh:
It makes sense.
David Jiang:
Yeah, makes absolute sense. Before this, I don't think anybody has actually directly reached out to me on LinkedIn like this. He's like, "Hey, I'm also a finalist. I saw your name on the list. Let's chat." And I was like, "Wow, this is somebody who is incredibly eager and precocious."
Longsha Liu:
Oh, yeah.
David Jiang:
And I was like, "Okay, fantastic." We chatted for about, I think, 45 minutes or an hour or something, and then-
Anson Zhou:
This was before or after Finalist [inaudible 00:19:24]?
David Jiang:
This was before-
Anson Zhou:
Oh.
David Jiang:
... Immersion Weekend online.
Anson Zhou:
Oh, you're on top of it, Longsha.
Ashley Yeh:
[inaudible 00:19:26]. Yeah.
David Jiang:
Oh, he was really on top of things. So, he reached out, we had a great conversation, and then we were like, "Oh, hope you get in." I feel like that's the vibe of Immersion Weekend. It's like, "Ah, man, I really wish you would get in."
Longsha Liu:
Yeah. I mean, it's like, for my part, I just found people really cool, and I want to get to know them, and David seemed really cool on paper.
Anson Zhou:
And then you met him in person.
David Jiang:
Yeah, when you met me in person, it's a different conversation, obviously.
Longsha Liu:
Yeah, when I met him in person, I think there were three main takeaways. Firstly, I have never met anyone more passionate about Minnesota-
David Jiang:
Oh, God.
Anson Zhou:
Whoa.
Longsha Liu:
... than this guy. It's like this guy, just like die-hard Minnesotan, which I thought didn't really belong in the same sentence.
And then the second one is that this guy is a humongous health policy nerd, which I thought was really cool because I also geeked out about health policy, so we had a great conversation on that. And I think third was... This is like a 30-minute Zoom we had set up, and then it ended up going way beyond time because I think we had really good synergy. I found myself really liking this guy in terms of like, "Wow, I can really get to see myself being great friends with him." And thankfully that actually happened.
Anson Zhou:
After Finalist Weekend, both of you end up coming here. When was the first time you met up in person? Was it at the orientation for... Or do you guys keep talking in the interim?
David Jiang:
Initially, I don't know if I'm allowed to say this from a KH perspective, you could edit this out, but I got on the wait list. Not a lot of people know that there is a wait list. I don't think I'm supposed to say that there is a wait list, but you can cut this out. I was like [inaudible 00:21:02], I'm like, "Oh, my god. I didn't make it." And then he probably ignored me. I'm just kidding.
Longsha Liu:
I did not.
David Jiang:
No, he was really sad. And then once I did get in, we all had the same housing trouble. We couldn't find housing randomly. And then so we were working through on that, and we're texting each other, "What's the best strategy? Who to call? When to call?"
The first time we met each other in person was on day one. And for the listeners, day one is the first weekend right before school starts in September, where all the students, all the scholars come in to Denning House, really, for the first time, and then have a day filled with talks and lectures and getting a chance to bond with the community, in general. Really, it sets the tone for what the cohort is going to be like.
I immediately clicked, in person, with Longsha. For some reason, it was not just your smalltalk relationship. It immediately jumped, I think, skipped many, many steps to let's make fun of Longsha for a living.
Longsha Liu:
And David.
David Jiang:
Yeah, so that's the vibe. And yeah, so I've been really, really happy to meet him in person and stay friends for all these years.
Ashley Yeh:
Yeah, that sounds amazing. I'm curious because, I mean, you guys came in a little bit during some of the COVID times. I know, for my first year so far, there's been a lot of KH events for us to all get to know each other, and I see my peers around all the time. I was just wondering, for your year, how was getting to know people and also you guys getting closer over the course of the year?
Longsha Liu:
Yeah, I feel like we were lucky. We had even more events because we also had Rodrigo. I think it was-
Ashley Yeh:
Wait.
Longsha Liu:
... the Rodrigo effect.
Ashley Yeh:
What is...
Anson Zhou:
Do tell.
Ashley Yeh:
Please.
Longsha Liu:
Rodrigo was the life and unofficial social chair of our cohort.
Ashley Yeh:
Okay.
Longsha Liu:
He had events literally all the time. I think the first time I got to know a lot of the cohort is like, he organized this very detailed baseball trip, so literally had-
Ashley Yeh:
Baseball?
Longsha Liu:
... all the logistics in a very organized PDF. That's like week one-
Ashley Yeh:
I love that.
Longsha Liu:
... of getting to know people. And then anytime he sees you, he'll yell, "Pana." It's so wholesome, my friend in Spanish.
Ashley Yeh:
Oh.
Longsha Liu:
He was so wholesome. Oh, and then he still is so wholesome. It's like we had all these fire pit evening sessions.
David Jiang:
A lot of outdoor activities.
Longsha Liu:
A lot of outdoor activities.
Anson Zhou:
Were you allowed to be in Denning? Or-
Longsha Liu:
We were allowed to be in Denning, yeah.
Anson Zhou:
Okay. Yeah, okay.
Longsha Liu:
And then that was also the first year Denning offered lunch.
Anson Zhou:
Ooh.
Ashley Yeh:
Oh, wow.
Longsha Liu:
I think it's the entire philosophy was like, "Bonds are made through breaking bread." So, they're going to provide the bread, so we can make the bonds.
David Jiang:
I think part of that too is, as people are still masked up at the time, it's really hard to get to know somebody through then. It's totally understandable why we had to have a masking policy. So, what we did then, at least what I tried to do is reach out more through hosting dinners at my apartment, I mean a really, really small setting. We would get two or three people because my apartment is a studio, and we only fit four people, including myself, at a time. So, I started to invite different people for dinner. And Longsha and his fiancée, soon to be wife, were frequent-
Ashley Yeh:
Congrats. Wow.
David Jiang:
... guests at my apartment. I think that's also how we bonded. The lack of... maybe not the lack, but the pressure of not having a lot of events at Denning during that time really then gave us room to create other events in the community. That's what we did to compensate a little bit.
Longsha Liu:
David didn't do his cooking justice. If you look beyond the nerdiness and a Minnesotan pride thing, he is actually probably the most well-rounded person I've met in terms of so many different talents.
Anson Zhou:
And he plays in the KH band, as well.
Ashley Yeh:
Oh, wow.
David Jiang:
Oh, yeah.
Anson Zhou:
Yeah.
Longsha Liu:
So, he's a phenomenal cellist, I mean, huge classical music nerd. He would just be like, if you see him at Denning, he's just closing his eyes, conducting in the air while-
Ashley Yeh:
Oh, my gosh.
Longsha Liu:
... while wearing his headphones. He's now a seasonal ticket holder of the Minnesota Orchestra or something.
Anson Zhou:
Wow.
Longsha Liu:
Humongous nerd. But in addition to that, he sings opera, and he sings it well. He is also a phenomenal chef. His fancy dinners that he does, I'm getting one tonight actually, he creates a menu for it.
Ashley Yeh:
Wow.
Longsha Liu:
There's going to be an appetizer. It is all gourmet, all nicely and creatively plated, and then a really, really fantastic entree.
David Jiang:
Yeah, we have a symbiotic relationship where he comes to dinners, and then mostly Kristen, his fiancée, makes dessert, and he doesn't do anything. He just shows up and eats.
Longsha Liu:
I'm supposed-
David Jiang:
A taste tester.
Longsha Liu:
Yeah, yeah, there you go.
Anson Zhou:
Ah.
David Jiang:
That's probably the most important job. So I think looking at the community and sort of the other community that I belong to on campus, which is the law school, I think Knight-Hennessy serves mostly as an escape of some kind in the sense that I think... I'm not sure how it is in the med school, but law students are... I'm trying to think of a good word, but law students, sometimes, are really competitive on certain things, and then especially in the first year, the first quarter.
Those of you who are trying to get into law school, I think you should be prepared for this, which is that you're taking the same set of classes at the same time with the same 30 people in your section every day, for at least the first quarter, and then two or three more classes in the winter quarter and the spring quarter. What that creates is this weird high school vibe where you're taking the same classes. You're surrounded by the same people-
Ashley Yeh:
All day every day.
David Jiang:
... all day. News travel instantly throughout the group. You know what people are gunning for. Like, you know that somebody is going for a job that you also want, or you know like, oh, somebody might have a better grade than you. So, there is a little bit of that stress. I think it's a lot better here than some of my other friends in other law schools, but that still puts this pressure on you just solely at the law school.
What I really appreciate about Knight-Hennessy and people like Longsha is when I'm here at Denning House, I don't talk about law school unless we have a debate with some people about the generalities of some law or policy or we talk about class. But we don't really talk about, like, "Oh, what job are you applying for?" or like, "Hey, let's talk about clerkships." It's a place where you could be yourself, fully, in a community that's in a public place.
I really appreciated that aspect of Knight-Hennessy. And through there, I just want to give back to this community a lot more. Right?
Speaker X:
Yeah.
David Jiang:
So, we're hosting different events. I think that's a lot of our motivation. And there's a music night that's coming up in May that y'all should all attend. So, that's where I come from on that.
Longsha Liu:
Yeah. No, hey, I definitely agree because med school is the same way. And you mentioned day one being September for KH. Med school already started a month before. So, it was a month of hearing about Anki cards, and staff, and the clerkships, and specialties. And being able to just hear him geek out about health policy is actually a breath of fresh air.
And I'm not going to let this go. Going back to the previous topic, because I just made this man a hinge.
David Jiang:
Yeah, don't do that. Don't do that to me.
Ashley Yeh:
Wonderful.
Longsha Liu:
Wait.
David Jiang:
Do not do that to me.
Longsha Liu:
You're here to advertise, For those listening-
Ashley Yeh:
I love this.
Longsha Liu:
... this man can serenade, can cook gourmet meals-
Ashley Yeh:
Oh, my god.
Longsha Liu:
... can play cello, can also do calligraphy. Although, I don't know if that's a plus, necessarily.
Ashley Yeh:
That is a plus.
Anson Zhou:
It is a plus. I've seen it.
Ashley Yeh:
That is a plus, 100%.
Anson Zhou:
We've seen it at the Chinese New Year event. It was awesome.
Longsha Liu:
Yeah, and you can banter with this man all day long.
David Jiang:
Oh, my god.
Longsha Liu:
And he's also pretty decent at pickleball, too.
David Jiang:
God.
Anson Zhou:
Ooh.
Ashley Yeh:
Yeah-
David Jiang:
Okay.
Ashley Yeh:
... checking off all the boxes.
Anson Zhou:
Yeah, yeah.
David Jiang:
Okay, so you just unleashed a nuclear-
Longsha Liu:
Oh, no.
David Jiang:
I have a lot. I'll get there, but yeah, we'll come back to-
Anson Zhou:
I think that's more marshmallow.
Longsha Liu:
Ah.
Ashley Yeh:
Yeah, I love that for you. I love that you have this relationship, but also now that you've opened a can of worms, and now I'm curious how... So, you have a fiancée.
Longsha Liu:
Oh, yes.
Ashley Yeh:
And you have a wedding coming up?
Longsha Liu:
Yes.
Ashley Yeh:
How has that been? Have you also been helping him with certain things like he's been helping you with Hinge?
Longsha Liu:
David has been the most instrumental. The proposal wouldn't have happened without him, and I can get to that story soon. He's also the officiant and co-best man for the wedding.
Anson Zhou:
Wow.
Ashley Yeh:
Wow.
Longsha Liu:
He's also going to be helping with some of the creative elements during the planning itself. But yeah, I guess, with proposal, do we want the short version or long version?
Anson Zhou:
Take your time. I want all the details.
Ashley Yeh:
The long version.
Anson Zhou:
Yeah.
David Jiang:
Oh, no.
Ashley Yeh:
I want all the details.
Anson Zhou:
The viewers want the details.
Ashley Yeh:
Yes.
Anson Zhou:
We got permission from Kristen for this.
Longsha Liu:
I was going to say, let the record show I already got permission.
Anson Zhou:
Yeah, may the record reflect.
Longsha Liu:
Ah.
Ashley Yeh:
Let's hear this. I'm so excited.
Longsha Liu:
Yeah, so my fiancée, Kristen, is a woman of many different demands.
David Jiang:
Oh, my gosh.
Longsha Liu:
Of which our proposal-
David Jiang:
She's a really nice person.
Longsha Liu:
She's a really nice person. She's great.
David Jiang:
She's a really nice lovable person.
Ashley Yeh:
Great way to start.
David Jiang:
Yes. Yes.
Longsha Liu:
But she has a few criteria, so when it comes to a good proposal. Number one, it has to be a surprise. It's not just a surprise like you wake up the day of or even it's as you walk up to the site of the proposal. She wants it to be instantaneous, not like you're walking up, you already see it, and it's like you already were surprised, and now it's like, at the moment of, you have to be more surprised.
Ashley Yeh:
Okay.
Longsha Liu:
And then the second thing, it's like, of course hair and nails have to be done nicely, and it has to be-
David Jiang:
You make her sound like such a vain person. No, she's just-
Longsha Liu:
No, no, no, it'll be nice.
Ashley Yeh:
No, all of this is making sense to me, so far.
Longsha Liu:
And then, it's also like it has to be very creative. The hard part of that is that she loves Instagram. So, all the creative proposals, she's sending me, and now that's, now, the new bar.
With those three things in mind, it becomes quite constraining in terms of what I can do. So, basically, I set up a nine-month plan. This is in collaboration with David. With David, to keep it a surprise, we created an encrypted group chat. Basically, it auto-deletes messages within 15 minutes.
Ashley Yeh:
Encrypted?
Anson Zhou:
Okay.
Longsha Liu:
Right.
Ashley Yeh:
Is that a thing you can do on-
Longsha Liu:
On Facebook Messenger, yeah, there's-
Ashley Yeh:
Oh.
Longsha Liu:
... a function for it. Right.
Ashley Yeh:
Okay.
Longsha Liu:
Basically, the instant we see the message, it deletes within 15 minutes.
Ashley Yeh:
Beautiful.
Longsha Liu:
And then with one of her friends, I was sending her friend ideas about the setup and the ring designs through a PowerPoint.
Ashley Yeh:
Oh.
Longsha Liu:
Basically, the first few slides, if you look at it on preview, are research figures because Kristen believes I'm doing a research collaboration with that friend. And then, literally, in the notes section, we're messaging each other.
Ashley Yeh:
That is so funny. Yeah.
Longsha Liu:
And then there's lists. So, that last few slides are the actual designs.
And then I got Kristen's mom's blessing ahead of time. But basically her mom was so excited, she was texting me ideas every so often, and each text, like 10 different texts. So, basically, I changed her mom's name on my phone, so actually that Kristen doesn't get suspicious as to why her mom is texting me all the time.
Ashley Yeh:
Yeah. Good.
Longsha Liu:
Those were the initial steps-
Ashley Yeh:
Wow.
Longsha Liu:
... on just trying to keep it a secret, right.
Ashley Yeh:
Mm-hmm.
Longsha Liu:
The vision was David and I were planning a Asia trip where we're going to hit Japan, Korea, and China, and three cities each, in each of those countries. I was thinking, when in Korea, Kristen will do what Koreans do, which is hair and nails and everything, right.
Ashley Yeh:
Of course, yeah, as one does.
Longsha Liu:
So, it's the perfect natural setting to then be able to propose, either then or afterwards. That was number one.
And then number two was it happened that January 1st, 2024, we would be in Shanghai. And January 1st, 2024 is very fortuitous on the Chinese calendar because it's like... I mean, the vain thing is January 1st, like one, one, on a Monday, another one. It's also the first day of the year, so that's great too. And then 2024 adds up to eight, which is fortuitous in terms of as far as numbers go.
The vision was then David had gifted us like the presidential suite of the Shangri La Hotel in Shanghai.
Anson Zhou:
Wow.
Ashley Yeh:
Wow.
Anson Zhou:
David.
Longsha Liu:
That hotel-
Ashley Yeh:
What a gift, oh, my gosh.
Longsha Liu:
... on one side-
Anson Zhou:
Can I go to Asia with you?
Longsha Liu:
Yeah. On the left side of that hotel, you see the entire Shanghai night view. On the right side is the river view. So, it was like the perfect-
Ashley Yeh:
That sounds incredible.
Longsha Liu:
... setting to set up basically the vision of, you open a door, is a line of candles and roses and petals that leads up to a I-love-you sign, "Will you marry me?" There will be glittering lights and sparkles on the window, and then basically a lot of balloons.
To create the setup for this, we did a few things. David had booked a standard room because across all of Asia, it's just him sleeping on one bed and me and Kristen in another in the same hotel. And basically, we had booked a normal room in that Shangri La hotel, so Kristen was under impression that we were all just staying there.
And then the setup, so we had contacted the hotel managers. They were fully in the know six months in advance.
Anson Zhou:
Wow.
Ashley Yeh:
Wow.
Longsha Liu:
And basically they knew whatever packages we order, to send it to the presidential suite, not the normal room. And then we need time to set up, right.
Ashley Yeh:
Uh-huh.
Longsha Liu:
So, I booked me and Kristen a couple of spa in that hotel and told the spa managers to just keep her there as long as possible, giving her the illusion that I'm in a room next door. And the whole time is basically David setting up, and then basically I would leave that spa place to go also set up.
David Jiang:
Let it be known that he did not book me a massage at that place.
Anson Zhou:
Wow.
David Jiang:
So, then the entire time, I'm out shopping at the mall-
Ashley Yeh:
Wow.
David Jiang:
... and I'm trying to assemble the M in the marry me sign. It's just like, what is happening? And I had a moment of like, "Is this where my friendship has taken me to? To...
Ashley Yeh:
No spa?
Longsha Liu:
Where you're saying symbiotic relationship before.
David Jiang:
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Ashley Yeh:
Mm-hmm, he's cooked for you.
David Jiang:
Yeah, and what have you done for me so far?
Anson Zhou:
What? So that's-
Longsha Liu:
I booked him a MICHELIN-star restaurant.
Anson Zhou:
Ah.
David Jiang:
Yeah, [inaudible 00:34:54].
Anson Zhou:
Ah.
Ashley Yeh:
Oh, okay.
Longsha Liu:
In Shanghai because-
Ashley Yeh:
Okay.
Longsha Liu:
... then basically-
Anson Zhou:
Wow.
Longsha Liu:
... right after the spa is like, she's not dressed, though, the part because you're just dressed in comfortable clothes. So then we were like, "How do we then get her to dress up for the proposal?" So I found a MICHELIN-star restaurant, took them there, and basically on the way back, it was like, "How do we get her to not be suspicious when we go to the other room?"
Ashley Yeh:
Yes.
Longsha Liu:
We came up with a lot of different ideas. The first one was there's a water leak. I literally copied the hotel manager's signature. David changed the info from my email to that hotel's information.
David Jiang:
And we wrote it in Chinese, too, so then-
Longsha Liu:
And we wrote it in Chinese.
David Jiang:
Yeah.
Longsha Liu:
Oh.
Ashley Yeh:
Wow.
Longsha Liu:
And schedule sent it for 8:08 PM, which would be around the time that we're on the Uber, back to the hotel-
Anson Zhou:
Oh, my-
Longsha Liu:
... and being like from the hotel manager, "We're so sorry. A water leak happened. We already moved your stuff. This is your new room. It's a free upgrade."
That was option one that we already had in motion, but then I was like, does this story actually sound that plausible? It's a really great hotel. Would they really be having this issue?
So, then we utilize David's extra-ness. David's known to be very extra with his gestures and everything. We were like, "David, why don't you just do this as a surprise for us, as it's Christmastime or a late Christmas gift." So, basically David then told Kristen, "I have a surprise for you. Wait here." Basically, that whole time, David is actually going upstairs to the president suite-
David Jiang:
So, basically, there's...
Longsha Liu:
... turning on each of the candles.
David Jiang:
Yeah, yeah. No.
Longsha Liu:
Yeah.
David Jiang:
So, what happened was-
Anson Zhou:
Tell us your perspective.
David Jiang:
Yeah, so what happened was this man had a wild idea of buying 200 individual electric candles.
Ashley Yeh:
Oh, beautiful, as it should be.
Longsha Liu:
Yes.
David Jiang:
It looked amazing. I'll show you pictures of it later. It looked absolutely amazing, but the problem is the battery doesn't last for that long.
Longsha Liu:
And we weren't sure how long it would last.
David Jiang:
Exactly.
Longsha Liu:
Yeah.
David Jiang:
So, then if we turned on the candles before dinner, we were afraid that it was going to die. So, I was like, "Okay, I have a surprise for you." I went upstairs. I'm in my suit, by the way, at this point, and I'm crawling on my knees, turning on every single candle.
And then Longsha is texting me, like, "Are you done, bro?" In the meantime, I'm, again, laboring, turning on every single candle. I'm just like, "Dear God, again, what have I gotten myself into?" Finally, everything is turned on. Everything is set, and then I went downstairs to get them.
Longsha Liu:
Oh, and David also played an instrumental part in terms of carrying the ring, because even the ring itself, I found a time when Kristen was driving to her work in southern San Francisco. And I biked to the ring store to pick it up, so that way she wouldn't be suspicious. And then I handed the ring to David so he would bring it in his camera box.
David Jiang:
I almost forgot that camera box, by the way.
Longsha Liu:
Yeah, you almost forgot that camera box.
Ashley Yeh:
Wow.
Longsha Liu:
That would be [inaudible 00:37:39].
David Jiang:
Yes.
Anson Zhou:
Before leaving for Asia?
Longsha Liu:
Yeah.
David Jiang:
Yeah.
Anson Zhou:
Oh, my god.
Ashley Yeh:
I'm glad you remembered it. I'm so glad.
David Jiang:
Exactly, exactly.
Longsha Liu:
And there are also a few more complications too. Chinese Customs directed all the Amazon orders I sent to the hotel, because it exceeded the $500 limit, and basically it got flagged and returned. And this is like, we were already in Japan at that time.
David Jiang:
Had to emergency come up with some way to get more supplies there. So, it was a whole thing.
Longsha Liu:
It was [inaudible 00:38:06].
Ashley Yeh:
Wow.
David Jiang:
But yeah, so he now is about to get married, and since he embarrassed me publicly, I will embarrass him.
Longsha Liu:
Oh, no.
David Jiang:
Which is to say I have the honor of being his best man, slash co-best man, excuse me, slash officiant. I have to give a speech. So if you, listener, out there know Longsha and know him from his past life, please email me with your anecdotes about him in the past and then I will gladly put it into the speech. So-
Anson Zhou:
Give the audience your email to reach out to advice.
David Jiang:
You could find me at D-A-J-I-A-N-G at stanford.edu.
Anson Zhou:
Wonderful. Yes.
Ashley Yeh:
Yeah, someone needs to record the speech, so I can see it afterwards. I'm so curious. But also, question, how was the MICHELIN-star restaurant?
David Jiang:
Oh, it was really [inaudible 00:38:53].
Anson Zhou:
[inaudible 00:38:53], so 20 questions.
Longsha Liu:
It was fantastic.
David Jiang:
Is so good.
Longsha Liu:
It was. It was fantastic.
Anson Zhou:
What kind of cuisine was it?
David Jiang:
It was Southern Chinese, right?
Longsha Liu:
Southern Chinese and Cantonese.
David Jiang:
Yeah, yeah.
Anson Zhou:
Oh, Cantonese.
David Jiang:
Yeah.
Longsha Liu:
[inaudible 00:39:00] Cantonese.
Anson Zhou:
We'll hit you up on that sometime.
David Jiang:
Yeah.
Longsha Liu:
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
David Jiang:
But I think hopefully this conversation give you a dynamic of what our relationship is like. Well, he wants me to mention this, which is after we became friends, one of the things that we realized is none of us really like cooking on the day-to-day basis. And part of the community aspect, I think, is that we really wanted a ways to just hang out on a more casual setting.
So then Longsha, Kristen and I, we would do family dinners, which is to say on Mondays, I'll cook, Tuesdays, Kristen will, and then Wednesdays, Longsha will. And then we'll just rotate. So, for every dinner, we'll just go to somebody's place, right.
Ashley Yeh:
Yeah.
David Jiang:
Not only did that reduce the workload burden on the day-to-day grind, it really prevented me from feeling really lonely. And we got a chance to bond a little bit more, to meet more people because we would invite different friends to come in for family dinners. So, yeah.
Anson Zhou:
Yeah, that's beautiful. I'm very jealous, but-
Ashley Yeh:
That's so wholesome. I love that.
Anson Zhou:
I think, after this episode, I'm going to ask you guys to show some pictures of all of these different family dinners.
Ashley Yeh:
Sounds good.
Anson Zhou:
But thank you for sharing that and I'm very excited for Longsha getting married, and you to officiate.
Ashley Yeh:
Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Anson Zhou:
But-
Ashley Yeh:
That was an... Sorry.
Anson Zhou:
No, no, no, go.
Ashley Yeh:
That was an amazing story, and you put so much effort in, and amazing job. I hope Kristen loved it. I know she did.
Longsha Liu:
Yeah, she ended up crying during it. Then I cried, and David was crying.
Ashley Yeh:
Yes.
Longsha Liu:
It's just like three of us were all crying.
Ashley Yeh:
The marker of a good proposal-
Longsha Liu:
Yes.
Ashley Yeh:
... is everyone is crying.
Longsha Liu:
Yeah, exactly.
Ashley Yeh:
That's how you know you did it right?
Longsha Liu:
Exactly.
Anson Zhou:
Longsha, I remember you saying that, for the proposal, one of the requirements is that she had to be surprised.
Longsha Liu:
Yes.
Anson Zhou:
Was she surprised?
Longsha Liu:
She was very surprised because I had set up a lot of red herrings in the nine months leading up to it. I had found the most popular places in the Bay to propose, and I took her there each time to desensitize. Each time is like we dressed up for it, I packed a picnic or ordered food to set up there. And each time it didn't happen. It was just getting her acclimated to that.
And then the other thing that I told her is I would only propose to her after I get both of her parents' blessings. And when I was at her place before the proposal, I had got her dad's blessing, but her mom was ill at that time, so didn't get her blessing in person. But what she didn't know was I got her blessing through FaceTime. So, she was convinced that it would happen probably next time I go to her place, like after Chinese New Year.
Anson Zhou:
Sure.
Longsha Liu:
This would be all after the actual proposal date, and it's also anytime she says, like, "Will, you propose in Asia," and I was like, "There's no way. How am I going to set that up? Too many logistics," blah blah blah.
Anson Zhou:
Yeah.
Longsha Liu:
Yeah.
Anson Zhou:
That's awesome. I just know that every time you were doing one of these red herrings, she was probably blowing up her friend group chat, boy.
Longsha Liu:
Oh, most likely.
Anson Zhou:
Yeah.
Longsha Liu:
Yeah, yeah.
Anson Zhou:
Awesome. Again, thank you so much for sharing that. I found a lot of fun listening to that, but let's jump over to how your friendship has come together to work on some of the projects that come out of Knight-Hennessy.
For the viewers who don't know, one of the big parts of the programming here is the KHeystone Projects, where scholars across different disciplines can come together to work on issues. And incredibly enough, the two of you have worked on one together, a really successful one, and it has had some really interesting events that have been put on. So, could you guys talk a bit about what it is and how it came to be?
Longsha Liu:
Yeah, I think, fundamentally, for us, we wanted... There was a gap that we saw between the ideation of an idea that has legs to its implementation. What I mean by that is that far too often...
I'll take attention out here to say that, at Stanford, we're quite privileged. There's all these programs that can help incubate your ideas, support you on the very fundamentals such that you can translate it. There's the Biodesign Process, the Lean LaunchPad, and Startup Garage. They all have different concepts that, at the end of the day, more or less are the same ideas in terms of iterating, getting customer discovery, testing all of those out, and then building that business model canvas and product market fit.
But that's not the case for a lot of other students out there who don't have the school resources or the ecosystem to help support their ideas. What we wanted to do with Stanford Healthcare Design Challenge is create that ecosystem for them such that, no matter where they are, where they are in their journey, at which university, where they are in the world, they can have the resources through our network and our ecosystem to build out those ideas.
What we wanted to do is then create a model that transcends hackathons or case competitions because, realistically, those competitions rely on predisposed knowledge. You come in having those experiences, and then over a weekend or two weeks, you hack it out. What we want to do is you come in with your own passions and your motivation, more so than anything else, and we'll help you build out your idea, and we'll help you go to market.
The structure for our last year launch was we sourced a theme that we thought was nationally applicable. That theme was there's a lot of patients living out there, was social determinants to health issues, and they don't have the best engagement with healthcare due to a lot of those stressors. Fundamentally, how do you create incentives or solutions to help increase their engagement in healthcare and subsequently their outcomes? We created a lot of tracks. You could do this from a data education point of view. It could be a health policy idea. It could be a technology that you introduce.
From that, we created a whole month that we call the Open Learning Series. We brought in speakers twice a week to just talk about this issue, and then it's open to the whole public. You don't have to be a contestant to participate. And we just talk about, why does this still exist within health systems, our health payers, our health government? What are the gaps that you still see? What have solutions done so far? And why haven't they worked? And then there's always time at the end for students to, then, ask them questions.
And then we had a two-week that was focused on our contestants themselves. We brought in a lot more, around 60 mentors where they could meet with and learn from, including health system CEOs. The whole goal is to help them iterate and test their ideas and assumptions. That ultimately accumulated in a pitch day where we had the former head of the FDA for digital health. We had C-suites of health systems. We had C-suites of nonprofits. The whole ecosystem was there to support and evaluate. And for the two teams that we, then, supported afterwards, it's around three months of follow-up support.
Ashley Yeh:
Nice.
Longsha Liu:
Yeah, and that went quite well, and we can talk about that, too.
Anson Zhou:
Yeah. Where are they now? Yeah.
David Jiang:
Yeah, so before we get to where they are now, I just want to say how influential I think the Knight-Hennessy community has been in this process because there's not a lot of places in the world where you could have such, I think, high caliber of talents gathering into one place to try to solve a problem. And I think part of the KHeystone nature is to get as much cross-discipline talents together to solve a common problem.
So, through this project, I got to work with Longsha, who's a med student. I'm a law student. We have people in bioengineering, we have people in business sort of all collaborating together on a single project. I think that is, from a more academic or professional standpoint, what Knight-Hennessy brings to the table is this idea that you can find out a common language between the different programs, because I feel like, otherwise, it's very siloed.
Some of the best conversations I've had in this house is not... I mean, they are the joking around daily conversations, but I've learned a lot from my friends who are theoretical physicists. They would explain to me what gravitational waves are. There's topics out there that I don't fully understand, and having people explain that to me in a really friendly way is fantastic and then, again, working with different people through KHeystone.
Longsha Liu:
Yeah. Yeah, I feel that every day. I think it's a very comfortable environment to ask questions because-
Anson Zhou:
Sure.
Longsha Liu:
... I think inherently we know that we all are interested and are knowledgeable in our own spaces, and don't necessarily expect other people to know that. And we're open to answering questions about it and vice versa. I think that really creates the environment for things like Stanford Healthcare Design Challenge to exist is because of this openness and the ease of asking questions that you can start thinking of questions together, right-
Anson Zhou:
Yep. Yeah.
Longsha Liu:
... and how to solve them. And-
Anson Zhou:
Yeah, I think you want to talk about-
Longsha Liu:
Sure.
Anson Zhou:
What the teams are doing now. I'm very excited to hear.
David Jiang:
Yeah, so one of our winners is team ELA. I think they were motivated by personal experiences. They identified, I think, a really crucial gap, which is health literacy. I know you two are physicians, but doctors speak a different language, I think, than most people, and a lot of health policy documents or insurance documents are written not necessarily for the common person. This team identified that critical gap, and they made an intuitive app that provides real-time education and assistance to help empower patients to understand what are these terminologies and how to understand either their benefits or their treatments or whatnot.
From a health policy perspective, that is critical. It's not just about finding the right cure. It's about having people understand and having people the ability to take control of their healthcare needs. That's super important. I think a lot of people feel helpless in the face of the healthcare system, but I think the way to resolve that helplessness is with education. So, increasing health literacy was such a fundamental idea, and I love their solution.
Longsha Liu:
And I think even more heartwarming... So, this team actually won our grand prize. The most heartwarming thing for me, though, is that this team is three undergrads.
David Jiang:
Freshmen.
Longsha Liu:
And not even undergrads, they're freshmen.
David Jiang:
Yeah, freshmen. Right.
Longsha Liu:
They came in with a really fresh perspective because they saw their families struggle with this, and they wanted to do something fundamentally to help everyone. They are now part of a top European accelerator for pushing their idea along.
Anson Zhou:
Wow.
Longsha Liu:
They're probably one of the best examples that we could ever give. And this is completely unintentional because judging was purely based off a very objective panel. But these are the type of people that we want to support, those who are bright-eyed, passionate, young, have ideas but don't know how to develop that idea to next step, that we could really help support them in their journey.
And the other team, another example that we could give, they were runner-up in our challenge last year. They identified food insecurity. They integrate with the electronic health record identifying people at risk of food insecurity, and then try to help bridge that gap by identifying services that they can roll those patients into.
Because I think one of the frustrations that we have in the healthcare system, and this also relates to the work I do in my startup, is that there is no place that's truly a right for healthcare outside of the ER. What that has then turned into is that when people need food or even housing and electricity, they go to the ER because the ER becomes a safety net. I think this is a humongous issue that really needs to be addressed. And especially with rising unemployment rates, this is going to become more pressing than ever. And this team, they're a group of master students that had experience in healthcare before, but no idea of how to take it on the business side, so we are really helping support them on the business elements of their idea.
Anson Zhou:
No, it's incredible how the program sounds like it is able to identify areas of strength for each of the teams. For the first team, you mentioned very bright eye, really fresh perspective, but you need to give them the mentorship and the opportunity to take it forward. And then for this team, thinking about more of the business aspect-
Longsha Liu:
Yes.
Anson Zhou:
... and being able to facilitate that, as well. I think last point on this KHeystone Project, I'm curious about your personal experience that drove you to understand the need to bridge these ideas and problems to actual solutions. Maybe we could talk a little bit about your startup and how that influenced the development of this project and collaborating with David on it.
Longsha Liu:
Yeah. My startup is called Vita Innovations. We're a digital health platform to really help offer data solutions for emergency rooms that are overworked, overcrowded, and very understaffed. We weren't even digital health starting out. The initial idea came out in 2022 when my friends and I went to a hackathon in New York City. That was the first hackathon I ever attended. I was like, "There's free swag," when I was busing us over, like, "Let me do it." It was a really, really fun experience.
The idea we introduced at that time is... I was just seeing ERs get overcrowded or just starting to realize that emergency rooms are quite overcrowded. The whole concern there is that when patients are waiting a long time for care, the vitals that we captured when they first entered is only a snapshot that they could deteriorate quite rapidly and no one would notice. And there's far too many news articles out there today of people just quietly dying in that corner because the ER is too overworked and overwhelmed to have seen that need.
So, what we want to do is, since mask mandates were just beginning to be a thing, could we create a smart mask that any patient, when they first walk into the ER, could wear, and we would track their heart rate, respiration, O2, and body temperature. And then we created a software that then, basically, algorithmically, depending on the situation of that patient, then flags it to your nurse to see.
This idea ended up winning the grand prize at the hackathon. And the judges there were like, "Hey, we want to see this as a product." So, after a month of really debating and pondering career-life decisions, my team and I decided to do it. That's how Vita Innovations was initially born, from a hackathon, with a hardware idea that was to help patients in the ER.
David Jiang:
Do you want to talk about who your co-founder is?
Longsha Liu:
And my co-founder is my fiancée. Yeah. So, we won the hackathon, then started dating, and then company was born after that, all within the span of two months, basically.
We had a lot of traction. It's like we were winning competitions left and right. We had a lot of ER directors emailing us, saying, "When can you have this ready?" And we just built too slowly. Each PCB iteration that we did took a month or two because of supply shortages, but also our own inexperience in the field.
So, by the time we had the clinical trial data on it, we were entering a receding market because mask mandates were receding. No one really wanted to wear masks anymore. They were all fatigued about it. And the whole concept of having a nose bridge that we could clip onto a surgical mask wasn't as attractive anymore. So, in 2023, we made the whole pivot into a whole digital health platform to help not just a point solution in the ER, but the whole spectrum.
And just really quickly, as a stat, it's like, in California, over the last decade, we've seen the fall and decrease of the total number of ERs, around a 19% nursing shortage. The consequence of that is for any patient now looking for emergency room care, there's fewer ERs you can choose from and there's fewer nurses that you can actually interface with. Consequently, that means there's more time you spend waiting and more data gaps, then, occur from it.
Specifically, there's three major gaps we saw. The first one is triage. When you first come into the ER today, a nurse sees you for, on average, 90 seconds. They take your name, age, sex, chief complaint, your vitals, and then maybe one or two subjective questions. And then they give you a score from one to five that determines how severe this condition is and, ultimately, how long you'll be waiting. That score is wrong one in every three because we don't have enough information to base their condition off of, so we want to do something about that.
And then the second thing is there's always new policies coming out. For the most part, nurses are getting their job descriptions expanded above any other profession. In California, they now have to do mental health screenings. They're doing social determinants to health screenings like with geriatric evaluations. All of these screenings take up time that's manual and repetitive, that doesn't require a nurse to truly do, so we want to take that off their shoulders.
And the third aspect is really that social determinants to health. Because the ER is utilized as primary care for some patients, it's utilized as a source of food and housing. There has to be a better way because that's not how our healthcare system should be operating. A lot of it is how can we reduce that readmission rate by connecting patients to more sustainable resources to address their food, housing, and transportation needs.
So, we're building out a matching platform that basically, while the patient is then waiting for care, we can find resources near them and begin connecting and registering them for it. Our whole platform, now, is if a patient comes in, we do their whole triage assessment in five minutes or less. We send that information directly into the health record such that when a nurse then sees them, they have more information.
With that better information, they can have a better triage accuracy and better decisions afterwards. And then while that patient is, then, waiting for care those one or two hours, we're doing all their assessments upfront as opposed to later on in the journey. That way, we can find that information up ahead of time and then begin coordinating all those services.
Anson Zhou:
Gotcha. Wow, that sounds like you're targeting a lot of really big issues in healthcare, very much needed. And then I can see how the journey through that really inspired you to think about, "Okay, there's other innovators out there, and there's so many problems that I experience."
Longsha Liu:
Yes.
Anson Zhou:
"Maybe there's just different..."
David Jiang:
Pain points that come with this.
Longsha Liu:
Yeah, and even if we go back to that hackathon itself, I really loved the ideas that the second and third place finalists had, but after the hackathon, there's nothing. If we look at the stat over time, it's like less than 7% of hackathon projects live beyond the hackathon itself.
Speaker X:
True.
Longsha Liu:
We then see the tragic loss of a lot of promising ideas that just die in utero.
Anson Zhou:
Yeah. Yeah. No, that makes a lot of sense. We're running up on time, but before we wrap up this topic, what's next for the Stanford Healthcare Design Challenge? Do you want to give a quick, quick look into-
David Jiang:
I think we're going global, right?
Anson Zhou:
Oh.
David Jiang:
That's a goal. Last year was our test year where we're trying to do a proof of concept. This year, we are trying to expand to global universities and make a more global outreach. So, if you are interested in the Stanford Healthcare Design Challenge, come visit us on our website. Do you know the link? Do you have the link?
Longsha Liu:
Just search Stanford Healthcare Design.
David Jiang:
Yeah, yeah, so you could just Google that. We're working with currently developing new topics and new prompts for teams to solve, but I think it is unique in the case design slash case competition world where we don't just give you money for it at the end or announce you as the winner. We will support you in the back end. As Longsha said, a lot of ideas die in darkness, but we're really trying to throw a light and cast a light to say, "Here are all the resources that we have for you to take your idea to completion."
I think, as a law student, that's something that we do as a profession. My profession, as an attorney, is to help people guide them through a complex world and help them formulate a solution. I think that's why the challenge is very personal to me.
Longsha Liu:
Yeah, I like to say that the Design Challenge has a product iteration of a hackathon, the length of a case competition, and then the longitudinal tail of an accelerator. Fundamentally, it's also we have already sourced the problem from all the different stakeholders, that this is something they genuinely, deeply care about. That way it's like contestants are coming in already with that in mind. And yeah, it's like, as David was saying, we're going global, so this is literally any student, any university, from anywhere, and you can be an undergrad or graduate student. As long as you're a student, we would love to support you.
Anson Zhou:
Yeah, that's awesome. Well, listeners out there, you know where to look up, where to Google. We're at the end, and we like to end up with a couple rapid fire questions, just very short answers. Feel free to refuse if you don't want to, but one of the traditions we like to do is ask about the improbable facts.
For those of you who don't know, if you apply to Knight-Hennessy, one of the application questions, I think almost since inception, is, "Give us eight improbable facts about yourselves." I think scholars have a lot of fun sharing what those are that they put on their application. So, think of one juicy one. We'll start with Longsha.
Longsha Liu:
Oh.
Anson Zhou:
If you want to share one of your improbable facts.
David Jiang:
We could probably share one about each other-
Anson Zhou:
Oh.
David Jiang:
... at this point. I will share-
Longsha Liu:
Okay, let's do it.
David Jiang:
... for Longsha, I suppose. But Longsha's improbable fact is that he is a gifted chess player and could play multiple games blindfolded at the same time.
Anson Zhou:
Wow. How many have you played simultaneously?
Longsha Liu:
I've only done two, and it's gotten worse over time. Yeah.
David Jiang:
Yeah, considering I don't even know how the knight moves.
Anson Zhou:
Oh, same.
David Jiang:
Yeah, so I mean, that's quite a step.
Longsha Liu:
Right, I talked about that.
David Jiang:
Do you want to drop your Elo score really quick?
Longsha Liu:
No, no, no, no, I'll pass on that, but I really got into four-player chess. So, chess.com-
Anson Zhou:
Wow.
Longsha Liu:
... now has this four-player chess mode. It's like, you play three other players at the same time.
Anson Zhou:
Wow, cool.
Longsha Liu:
It's like a massive chess board.
David Jiang:
Earlier on, he called me the nerd. I'm just putting the-
Longsha Liu:
You so are a nerd.
David Jiang:
... putting the...
Anson Zhou:
You're sending the fire back.
Longsha Liu:
Yeah, exactly.
David Jiang:
Yeah, exactly.
Longsha Liu:
David is planning to do healthcare litigation law. If you ever see his hand, on the right side, there's actually a massive scar. It's because med students messed up the suturing on that scar.
Anson Zhou:
Oh, no.
David Jiang:
im looking at you, med students.
Longsha Liu:
Oh, god.
David Jiang:
Be careful. There's cost to your messing-
Longsha Liu:
Yeah, yeah. He's coming for us, basically. He likes to joke that after I get my office, he'll just stand outside my door and hand out his business card to my patients. Hopefully he'll be representing me.
Anson Zhou:
[inaudible 01:01:25] strategy.
Longsha Liu:
But yeah.
Anson Zhou:
Well, that's the first time we've had people give facts about each other, so that's a very refreshing thing. And I think speaks to how close you guys are with each other, which I think is very cute, but...
Okay, last question. What advice would you have for other people who are applying to Stanford. And Knight-Hennessy, not super sure when this episode's coming up, but we just actually had Finalist Weekend. I think the new Scholar cohort is going to be announced very soon, probably right around when this episode comes out. So, for those people who are interested in applying to the next cohort, what advice do you have from your own personal experience?
David Jiang:
I just have to say, I think, talking with a lot of scholars in this community, the common theme has been they want to make an impact in whatever shape that is. And I think, hopefully throughout the series of podcasts that we've been doing, the listener, you're able to tell the individual passions that we all have for various topics. I would just say pursue those passions in whatever shape it takes and whatever community it takes.
One of the criteria, I think, that Knight-Hennessy has is civic-mindedness, civic-mindedness. A lot of people think, "Oh, I need to be in leadership positions," or, "I need to..." work in government, be a lawyer, or a lot of those lines. But I think the most down to earth advice that I could give about that is civic-mindedness happens in the everyday life. It happens not just at the global leadership level, but it happens in the everyday conversations that you have. What kind of personality? Do you have a warm personality?
I think this is where this community here has such a profound impact on me because I've met the gold standard for, what does it mean to be a kind person? What does it mean to be a warm person, somebody who really knows and will emphasize with you about your daily life, but also function at such a high level? I think that's also the perfect description for Longsha, from time to time.
That's the advice that I have. And, also, please do apply. Don't rule yourself out because if you don't apply, there's 0% chance of getting in, but if you do apply and put in a good faith effort into your application, you can join us here. And we welcome to see you.
Anson Zhou:
Yeah, I think that's so important. I think always thought to myself, you have to apply like you know you're going to win it, or else it's very hard. So, definitely do try to apply, and then put all your faith into it.
Longsha Liu:
I think too, to add on to that, when I applied, I had already wrote like 92 pages of medical school essays, right.
Longsha Liu:
And then applying was like getting a lottery ticket because it had the same probability, probably. And is like, I had no confidence I got in, but it would be such a nice what-if, that rainbow of like, "What if I got in?" I didn't even check when they gave the semifinalists because I was like, "There's no way." And then, literally, I checked the next day because it's just time to see the rejection. So, yeah, definitely do apply because you never know.
I would also highly encourage you, the listeners out there, if you're looking to apply, look beyond the scholarship. Look beyond the leadership programs. Look into the community because I really do want to double down and echo David's point. The strongest value that Knight-Hennessy has ever given me is the people I've met here, the memories I've made, and the laughter that came along the way. That's something that if I could do ever again, didn't have to be... It could literally just be applying for that community, and I would do it 100%.
David Jiang:
There's a old saying in Chinese. It says, [foreign language 01:05:07]. It means, when you walk with three people from different aspects of life, you are bound to find a teacher within that group of three people. Here we have over 100 scholars per year, and you're bound to learn something. You're bound to discover something new about the world, about yourself, and I would highly encourage that. And if you have questions about application, both, I think, Longsha and I are happy to answer via email.
Anson Zhou:
Thank you for the beautiful advice. Thank you for the wonderful stories. David, congratulations on almost graduating. Longsha, you have a while to go, but-
Longsha Liu:
Yeah.
Anson Zhou:
... congratulations on getting married soon. But either way, this was an awesome podcast episode, and I'm sure the viewers will love it very much, and I guess we're out. Thank you.
Longsha Liu:
Thank you.
David Jiang:
Thank you.
Sydney Hunt:
Thank you for joining us for this episode of Imagine the World where we hear from inspiring members of the KHS community who are making significant contributions in their respective fields, challenging the status quo, and pushing the boundaries of what is possible as they imagine the world they want to see.
Willie Thompson:
This podcast is sponsored by Knight-Hennessy Scholars at Stanford University, a multidisciplinary, multicultural graduate fellowship program, providing scholars with financial support to pursue graduate studies at Stanford while helping equip them to be visionary, courageous, and collaborative leaders who address complex challenges facing the world. Follow us on social media at Knight-Hennessy, and visit our website at kh.stanford.edu to learn more about the program and our community.
