Mishaal’s Blog
I’m Mishaal, and my vision is a future where people don’t die from late diagnosis because of slow human processes and error.
I am super passionate about biotechnology and the intersection of AI with the medical systems we have in place. Let’s face it- even in developed countries, the healthcare systems are not so great. Millions of people die because they weren’t able to find out about an illness sooner or they were treated too late. In 2019, this shouldn’t be a problem, and it doesn’t have to be if we use the insane amount of data and computing power we have to leverage AI for decision making, diagnosis and treatment.
One of the many areas that can be exponentially improved is the diagnosis of skin cancer. Statistically, one in five people will get skin cancer, yet, diagnoses is still a visual process, which relies on the long-winded procedure of clinical screenings, followed by dermoscopic analysis, and then a biopsy and finally a histopathological examination. This process easily takes months and the need for many medical professionals but is only ~77% accurate.
It blew my mind that this whole process can be almost instantaneous and equally (if not more) effective if we use computer vision, a subsection of AI. And that’s what I replicated!
I got really excited about the idea of bettering human processes and reducing the need for lengthy and unnecessary techniques. I learned about the many, many ways AI can be used at The Knowledge Society (TKS). The best analogy to explain TKS is like an Olympic level training ground to learn about emerging areas of tech and science and also learn soft skills like creating content, presenting and networking. I took a deep dive into AI (and deep learning in specific), Virtual Reality and recently some very cool applications of 3D bioprinting and cyber agriculture by taking courses, reading research papers, writing articles, and building projects. I’ve spoken about my journey at many unique opportunities, most recently at the Microsoft Digigirlz conference and am looking towards interning at CIBC Digital this summer.
About Mishaal
Mishaal is a 16-year-old innovator from the Knowledge society in Toronto. She is passionate about using neural networks to make human processes more efficient. Mishaal has taken many courses and built various projects in the areas of AI and Virtual Reality. Her current focus lies in various areas of bio technology including 3d bioprinting, cyber agriculture and regenerative medicine. Last year, Mishaal spoke about her projects and research at Microsoft’s Toronto headquarters at their Digigirlz conference.
Check out the article about Mishaal’s project here : https://medium.com/@mishaallakhani/detecting-skin-cancer-using-deep-learning-82deba830328?source=friends_link&sk=6ecd9384fb064cacc72ada2007e5f102
