From "Non-Technical" to MVP

At the opening ceremony of Edge Esmeralda, we did an exercise where we wrote down a way of being that currently describes us, and, on the other side, one we wanted to experiment with during our time at Edge. On one side of my rock, I wrote: structured and planned. On the other: surrendered.

​This was, admittedly, a pretty ambitious experiment for someone who has optimized most of her life around knowing exactly what comes next. For years, my path had felt relatively straightforward: work extremely hard, get into medical school, become a doctor, and eventually use that training to make some meaningful impact. I had always wanted to be more than just a doctor, but “more” remained a little abstract—and often positioned somewhere in the future. First, I would finish the training. Then, once I had the credentials, time, network, knowledge, and whatever other prerequisites I had decided were necessary, I could begin building.

​Edge completely disrupted that sequence.

​I am still going to medical school. I am still deeply excited to become a physician. But I left Healdsburg with so much more fire under my wings to create, explore, build, and contribute throughout my medical training—not after the fact. I think that shift might be one of the most important things Edge gave me.

From “non-technical” to…wait, I built something?

​My main fellowship project became SocratiCare, a patient-owned tool designed to help people make sense of their health stories and prepare for better conversations with their doctors. The idea came from a problem I have seen repeatedly through clinical research, community work, and my own experiences: medical appointments are short, people are stressed, health information is fragmented, and patients often do not know how to translate everything they are feeling into the language or questions that might actually help them receive better care. A patient might have years of symptoms, test results, half-remembered medical terminology, screenshots, notes-app entries, and things they found online but then get fifteen minutes to explain and talk through all of it, often stumbling over the tornado of discomfort, anxiety, and oh-wait-don’t-forget-to-mention-that-one-detail in their head. On the other end of this storm stands a physician (specifically a family doctor in Canada) who is overworked, with many patients to see in a day, and not enough time or resources to do it all. This combination, though not directly the fault of either party involved, is the perfect recipe for severely imperfect healthcare, wherein physicians don’t get the full and effective story and patients leave feeling dismissed or with anti-perspirant to treat their knee wound (inside joke from Edge, requires a premium subscription to understand).

​SocratiCare would help transform that storm of information into something usable: a clearer health story, relevant questions, language to use in an appointment, possible next steps to discuss, and ways to track what happens afterward. Not a replacement for a doctor.Not a diagnostic machine. A tool that helps patients participate more confidently and effectively in their own care.

​When I arrived at Edge, I had, as the Americans call it, merely concepts of a plan. I did not have a technical background. I had never built a product. I had never taken something living in my head and turned it into a functioning demo. But Edge is a place where you can mention an idea over breakfast and somehow find yourself in a three-hour brainstorming session with someone who knows exactly how to help you move it forward.

​Then you talk to another person. Then another.

​Someone challenges your framing. Someone shows you a tool. Someone tells you the idea is too broad. Someone else helps you understand what the smallest testable version could look like. You go away, build something slightly questionable, bring it back, and discover that nobody is horrified by the slightly questionable version. Instead, they are excited that it exists. Somewhere along the way, I went from calling myself “non-technical” to demoing something that was beginning to resemble an MVP.

​That felt… wild?!?

​I also practiced pitching SocratiCare—and, by extension, pitching myself and my vision—over and over again. This was invaluable. In a way, this practice was incredibly introspective and even meditative, to learn to understand myself and my passion better and so clearly that I could share that idea with others. I spoke with investors, health-tech founders, physicians, product people, community-builders, and people who seemed to have designed their lives around asking unusually good questions. Every conversation gave me a new perspective on what the project could become, whom it needed to serve, what I was assuming, and why I was the person who wanted to build it.

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The sciencey side quests

​Alongside SocratiCare, I had the chance to work on an Enveda metabolomics study with members of the Edge community. There was something incredibly cool about doing research in a field that is still very much on the come-up (quite literally at the developing edge of science), with a community so willing to participate, explore, and trust one another. The science itself was fascinating, but the experience also made the future feel very bright. There is something powerful about a group of people being willing to say: We do not fully know where this will lead yet, but we believe it is worth exploring.

​I also helped onboard folks into a wearables study using Alethios, a decentralized clinical-research platform. Coming from a fairly clinical-research-heavy background, this felt a little like home base, but with a new infrastructure around it. I spent a lot of time talking to participants, troubleshooting, explaining the study, coordinating devices, and trying to make the research process feel human. It reminded me that even the most technologically advanced research still depends on trust, communication, and someone being willing to answer the slightly panicked message about whether the wearable is recording properly.

​Then, as a very fun last-minute side mission, I helped organize a flash mob for the closing ceremony. So my title became something like: Scientist. Future doctor. Health-tech builder. Flashmob logistics. Very cute, fun, silly vibes. No notes.

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What did my days actually look like?

​This is difficult to answer because almost every day looked completely different, which was the entire point of my “surrendered” experiment.

​I would try my absolute best to make it to breakfast before it closed at 9 a.m. Sometimes I succeeded, and we don’t talk about the other times. I would go for a walk around the Hotel Trio area or to Big John’s. Then I would get on my very cool e-bike, which became a genuinely major pillar of my Edge life, and head to the plaza.

​There were sessions, workshops, spontaneous conversations, and deep-work stretches in the Hub. During breaks, I would visit the God Orb, as one does. I biked with friends, often down to the river to swim, or, on one occasion, to collect rocks for an opening-ceremony activity (hey, that’s a callback to the intro! Nice). I went to events like the Joy Safari, which was INCREDIBLE. There were dinners at residency houses, home-cooked meals (shoutout Ayo for the Zee-Prime residency Gochujang Chicken), community dinners in the park (shoutout Iggy’s burgers!), long tables, and conversations that somehow kept extending the night. At 10 p.m., we would gather in the Hotel Trio lobby for the fellowship debrief. Then the official fellow-only debrief would end, and the unofficial anyone-in-Trio-lobby debrief would begin.

​Those late-night lobby conversations cultivated some of the warmest and closest friendships from the entire experience. Sometimes we talked about what we were building. Sometimes we talked about our lives. Sometimes we unpacked a session or disagreement. Sometimes we were simply exhausted and laughing. There was also, naturally, a party here and there—at the Loft, at a house, or created out of the walk back from an event itself.

​Speaking of which, I really did walk and bike a ton. I ate with other people. I swam. I danced. I worked. I talked. I was active and healthy at baseline without having to schedule “wellness” as a separate obligation. I genuinely do not remember the last time I felt so good in my body.

​There were moments at Edge when I thought: Life would be so amazing if this were simply the baseline. To live and work in a community-centered, collaborative environment. To be surrounded by people with similar ambition but radically different methods, disciplines, experiences, and perspectives. To focus not only on career, but also on movement, friendship, health, creativity, adventure, and the quality of everyday life. My growth felt accelerated because every part of me was being fed at once.

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Hotel-lobby philosophy and the bioengineering of dragons

​Some of my best conversations happened over breakfast in the Hotel Trio lobby.

​One morning, I found myself discussing the future of AI governance, taxation, and governance more broadly with people who actually worked in those fields.

​In another conversation, a few of us began sincerely investigating how one might bioengineer dragons. Not metaphorical dragons. Actual dragons.

​Could they breathe fire by storing fuel or highly concentrated oxygen in a specialized pocket near their mouths? Would acid-spitting be more biologically plausible using some adaptation of stomach acid? If, say, dragons were successfully created, would they inevitably be weaponized? How would we protect their freedom and treat them as animals worthy of dignity rather than technology owned by humans?

​These were real questions and boy, were we locked in! That range—from AI governance to ethically sustaining hypothetical dragons—captures something about Edge better than almost anything: A liberating permission to be curious without immediately having to prove why the curiosity was useful.

​Edge was also a place where I did not always agree with everyone, which I turned out to love.  People were generally so willing to keep talking, questioning, and refining their positions that disagreement felt productive rather than threatening. I left many conversations thinking differently, not necessarily because my opinion had completely changed, but rather I understood the assumptions underneath it more clearly.

​One tension I kept returning to was the gap between the kinds of people concentrated at Edge and the wider communities many technologies are eventually meant to serve. Edge brings together an unusually tech-savvy, ambitious, and willing group. That is reflected in what people build, and it is part of what makes the environment so energizing. But when we talk about health technology or technology “for community,” it can be difficult to see beyond that bubble.

​For example:

• Would the average person know how to use this?
• Would they trust it?
• Does it require a level of technical literacy, money, time, stability, or confidence that many people simply do not have?
• What does it look like for someone from a marginalized community? Someone who institutions have repeatedly failed? Someone who is not already excited by technology—or who has good reasons not to be?

As someone who has spent years in nonprofit and community-focused spaces, and who is now becoming a doctor, I found that gap especially interesting. I hope to build some project or initiative around it during medical school: something that helps connect high-agency builders and emerging technology with the realities, knowledge, and needs of the communities they hope to serve — you’ll have to stay tuned, I guess #plugforthefuture :)

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To the next fellow

​TLDR: Man, I loved it here.

​I felt so alive, in the fullest sense of the word. Not only alive in my career or in what I was building, but in friendship, movement, nutrition, adventure, community, curiosity, play, and the basic experience of being a person.

​Whether you have over-planned your entire life and need a reset—as I did—or you are full of uncertainty, or you fall somewhere in the middle, there is so much to receive from this fellowship. You can make almost anything happen here. You can arrive with a concrete project and watch it transform. You can arrive with only a question. You can collaborate, wander, swim, build, rethink your life, create something unserious, create something deeply serious, or—most likely—do all of these at once. You will get out of Edge what you are willing to put into it, but Edge also has a way of giving you things you did not know to ask for.

​I say this with deep gratitude, a tinge of manifestation, and an abundance of passion and excitement: I truly believe my experience at Edge will be a springboard for the impact I have on this world. It will shape how I move through medical school, what I build, how I collaborate, what I ask for, and the kind of life I believe is possible.

​Let this reflection be a sign for you to take the chance. And let it also be a marker for future me to return to in the glorious future :)

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