Pete Schwamb heard a call to action when his then 6–year–old daughter Riley was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes (T1D) in May of 2013. With a background in software engineering and an entrepreneurial spirit, he set out to find a way to access his daughter’s insulin pump data, which resulted in him designing a small device called the RileyLink, that allows a mobile phone to talk to the pump and released the design for free as an open hardware project.
Another patient innovator, Nathan Racklyeft, incorporated the RileyLink into an automated insulin delivery app that he built, called Loop, which was also released as open source for others to use and customize as their needs determine. An entire community of other determined patients and caregivers has sprung up around these patient-led solutions, offering support to users and contributing directly to reducing the burden of T1D for themselves and others.
Pete currently serves as the primary maintainer of Loop and the RileyLink hardware design, in addition to his professional occupation of using software and sensors to gain insight into educational activities in Montessori classrooms as a partner at The Wildflower Foundation.
Prior to his role at Wildflower, Pete was a founder of a consulting company that developed mobile apps for companies in a variety of industries, including health, charity and media.