Shaan Baig is a 19-year-old student at Concordia University. He is an American-Canadian student researcher, entrepreneur and speaker.

 

He is the CEO/Founder of SB Innovations, a research and development company focused on creating novel solutions for the worlds most pressing issues. What simply started out as science fair projects, lead to Shaan selecting an urgent global issue each year to develop a low-cost, sustainable solution for. This includes his novel work on Alzheimer’s disease early detection and treatment, his innovations of the anti-concussion helmet, cancer sensor strip, alternative prostate cancer treatment and more. He has worked with top institutes such as McGill University, Harvard University, Montreal Neurological Institute, Bauer, McGill University Health Centre and more. Shaan was inducted into the New York Academy of Science as a junior member (2017) and named a SHAD Fellow (2016) for his work. Furthermore, he has been named a 2020 Global Teen Leader by WAFF.

 

Whether it was suffering from a concussion or having his grandfather be diagnosed with a neurodegenerative disease, science fairs inspired him to tackle problems which had no solutions. At 13 years old, he invented a novel design for a hockey helmet that could help prevent concussions better than the gold standard. At 14, he discovered an alternative treatment for prostate cancer that had not yet been tested and worked better than the standard chemotherapy drug. At 15, he invented a novel non-invasive diagnostic tool as a paper sensor strip that could detect cancers using a urine sample and costs 1 cent to produce. At 16, he discovered a part of the brain responsible for preserving cognitive function in patients with Alzheimer’s disease and tested how exercise could be used as a non-pharmacological treatment. At 18, he developed a cheap, minimally-invasive molecular probe for the early diagnosis and treatment of Alzheimer’s disease.

 

Shaan is also Founder/President of a non-profit, Young Scientists & Innovators (https://www.youngscientistsandinnovators.com), committed to inspiring, empowering and promoting STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math) to youth around the world. YSI is helping teenagers discover their untapped potential in STEM and provides the tools necessary to turn their ideas into reality. 

 

Additionally, he has been invited to give speeches at TEDx Talks and the United Nations. He has spoken at universities and conferences around the world including Harvard University, McGill University and Cooperathon. His internationally-recognized scientific research has been presented and awarded top honours at the Canada-Wide Science Fair, Sanofi Biogenius Canada, Expo-Sciences International in Abu Dhabi, Taiwan International Science Fair, Google Science Fair and the Intel International Science & Engineering Fair where he won 3rd place and the Patent and Trademark Office Society Award. Shaan was awarded the Young Scientist Award (best in fair) at the Taiwan International Science Fair.

 

Growing up, Shaan has been known to be multifaceted. While being in an accelerated math and science program in high school, Shaan represented his school on 5 varsity sports team, represented his city on competitive hockey and lacrosse teams, part of schools robotics team, performed high level scientific research and started an online e-commerce store.

 

Overwhelmingly, Shaan is your average teenager optimistic for the future, trying to balance it all and pursuing his passions.