Hi everyone! The AssureTech Team is thrilled to introduce our own blog into the collection of resources and support that we work to provide for people with food allergies. My name is Joey DiGangi--I’m AssureTech’s founder and will be writing a lot of our blog content.
We have our story in a few different places online so I won’t go into too much detail, but I wanted to kick off our blog with some information about who we are. I started this company because I wanted to make a difference for people with food allergies by designing creative solutions to common problems.
I had the idea to create a case for your EpiPen or Auvi-Q that keeps the medication insulated and syncs with a mobile app on your phone to remind you if you forget your device behind (something I struggle with). It will also help users find a hospital during an emergency and notify their emergency contacts.
As an undergraduate at Juniata College, we created prototypes of our app and device that are going through the next phase of development.
Now that I’m a fresh graduate, I’m also working for Kdan Mobile in Taiwan. From the moment I accepted this position, I knew that one of the biggest struggles ahead would be the language barrier with my food allergies.
Overall, it’s been a very positive experience. The best part is being surrounded by coworkers who look out for me and make sure to help me order food and find safe restaurants around Tainan City.
There were bad experiences too. Most of them were just close calls where I was almost given the wrong food, but the scariest experience was when I spent the day in the hospital following a bad reaction to a dish that was prepared in the same area as peanuts.
Moving abroad opened my eyes to a new set of problems that people with allergies face and I wanted to make a difference. My team and I designed our app to help people translate their allergy over a number of scenarios (ordering food; asking about pre-made food; and finding a hospital). It explains cross-contamination because, as I found out, “no peanuts” isn’t the same as “no peanuts, no traces of peanuts, and not prepared anywhere near peanuts” when communicating with people from different cultures where allergies are not as prevalent.
That’s enough for an introductory blog post, but in the future, we’ll be sharing exciting company updates, stories about living and traveling around Asia with an allergy, and other content that my team and I think is important so make sure to follow us on social media and download our application for free to stay up to date with us.