Image: Courtesy subject. Illustration: Chloe Krammel When Ran Ma told her parents she was dropping out of her master's program in business administration to work on a sock prototype for diabetic patients, their reaction wasn't exactly encouraging. "My dad said, 'We're not going to talk until you figure out your life,' " says Ma. "I don't think my parents understood what I was doing." Ma, who had left a biotech master's program to pursue her business degree, had avoided a career in medicine despite coming from three generations of physicians. While working as an engineer at Northwestern University, she focused on a project involving a biomask that aimed to heal the burns of wounded veterans, which led her to create her own device to solve a specific medical problem. She had always been bothered that most wearable devices from Silicon Valley were predominantly fitness-related and aimed at the young and healthy, rather than the elderly and chronically ill.