When he was six years old, a family friend of Kenneth Shinozuka fell down in the bathroom. The friend was ok -- but the incident inspired him to design a motion detection system that could be embedded in bathroom tiles. He never actually made one in real life (remember, he was only six) ... but he was hooked on both the promise of invention and the potential of technology.

Since then, Shinozuka has designed smart devices for his grandfather, who has Alzheimer's disease. One invention that caught the eye of both the media and awards programs such as the Google Science Fair: a pair of smart socks, designed to send an alert to a caregiver if a patient gets out of bed. In 2014, he won the $50,000 Scientific American Science in Action Award, while he was also a 2014 Davidson Fellow.

TED Innovation, Creativity, Inventors,