In a small town in Tennessee’s Tri-Cities region, high school junior Graham Mefford is doing something extraordinary. He’s building not one, but two breakthrough medical devices aimed at transforming the way we think about foot health, blood flow, and daily movement. It’s no wonder he recently won the 2024 Congressional App Challenge for Tennessee’s First District and received over $18,500 in national funding competitions—this teen is the real deal.
Stridease: Foot Support, Tailored to You
Inspired by a fascination with shoes and the biomechanics of walking, Stridease began as a smart insole invention that evolved into a gait analysis platform. The goal? To deliver customized arch support based on your unique walking pattern.
What sets Stridease apart is its simplicity and sophistication: using force-sensitive resistors embedded in the sole, the device captures real-time pressure data from the foot. This information helps identify poor walking mechanics or pressure points that can lead to injury and fatigue. Eventually, Graham aims to integrate motion sensors to detect falls—making the product not just about comfort, but safety too.
“When I realized how many people around me had experienced cardiovascular events or chronic foot pain, I knew I wanted to work on something that could actually help,” Graham said during our interview. “I want people to feel like they’re walking on clouds—literally.”
The Stridease app was developed as part of his winning Congressional App Challenge submission. It’s still in early development, but Graham is already exploring smart material integrations to allow dynamic, real-time arch support adjustments.
Flexify: A Smart Shirt to Combat Heart Disease
Flexify tackles another critical health issue: sedentary lifestyles and their contribution to cardiovascular disease. Graham, after discovering Tennessee ranks among the top states for cardiovascular-related deaths, wanted to go beyond awareness. He wanted a solution.
Flexify is a compression shirt that actively adjusts its tightness based on your activity level. Using pulse sensors and smart thread technologies, the shirt increases venous return to the heart when you're seated for too long, and decompresses when you're active. Think of it as a wearable assistant for your circulatory system—like compression socks, but smarter and for your whole upper body.
Still in the conceptual stage, Flexify has already made waves: Graham earned $4,000 in seed funding from East Tennessee State University, is actively pursuing a provisional patent, and has developed a compelling pitch deck and product video for national competitions like Samsung Solve for Tomorrow.
“Technology should be an ally to our well-being,” he told me. “Flexify is about building healthier habits without people needing to think about it—it adapts to them.”
The Future of Youth Innovation
Graham’s story is a perfect example of how personal passion, community insight, and technical curiosity can fuel real-world impact. With both Stridease and Flexify, he’s not just building cool devices—he’s addressing the root causes of health inequities in underserved areas.
He’s also doing it while dual-enrolled in college classes, competing in national pitch competitions, and self-learning about everything from PCBs to regulatory frameworks. His next steps include user testing, customer discovery through local running clubs and community surveys, and continued prototyping with Arduino boards.
At Medibound, we believe that diagnostics is the gateway to better treatment—and we’re proud to support inventors like Graham. We’ll be working with him to explore how our drag-and-drop backend platform can accelerate testing and get these ideas into real-world pilots faster.
For now, he’s not slowing down.
“I just want to keep building,” Graham said, smiling. “It’s a grind—but one worth doing.”
