WILMINGTON – One of the main startups presenting at last week’s Wilmington’s Cucalorus Connect conference, opiAID, wants to apply the power of data science and cloud computing to one of today’s most pressing problems – the opioid epidemic.

“It’s the gorilla in the room,”  David Reeser, one of the startup’s founders, says.

By coordinating the efforts of those he calls “Partners” – groups combating the epidemic as well as concerned family members – and “Neighbors” – those struggling with the disease of addiction – through a unified, cloud-based platform, opiAID hopes to save lives, reduce the stigma of addiction and dramatically improve the fight against substance abuse.

The goal of opiAID, founded in September by Reeser and partner Stan Trofimchuk (who also goes by Stan Martin), is the development of the world’s first technology assisted therapy (TAT) that addresses opioid abuse.

The wearable bio-metric device, according to the young company’s website, will use advanced data technology and real-time cloud-based communication to “detect cravings and alert a family member or counselor in the event of an emergency.” When the device detects an overdose, it will have the capability to deliver Naloxone to reverse the opioid’s effects while contacting nearby medical emergency services.

The idea for opiAID grew out of Wilmington’s Monthly AI Meetup, an informal group started in February by IBM veteran Mike Orr and sponsored by the UNCW Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (CIE).

“We were looking for a project that would have local impact and asked ourselves ‘what’s the biggest problem facing our community?’ We have a huge opioid problem so we looked at what help AI could bring to bear,” Reeser says.

Reeser and his team found two main factors contributing to the problem. “First, there’s not a lot of coordination between the different organizations – hospitals, rehab clinics, police and social services departments, civic and faith based groups – combating the disease. We found there’s almost zero data sharing among them. As a result, people are dying and relapsing who don’t need to.”

Secondly, he said, there’s not much understanding of the problem. “Addiction to opioids is 100 percent a disease, but people hide it, struggle with it, and their lives spin out of control. We hope to abolish that.”

Working In The Cloud

The opiAID model is made possible by the advances of Reeser and Trofimchuk’s other company, IT Works, founded a couple of years ago. The company, which partners with Google Cloud Platform and Microsoft, offers cloud-based virtual workspaces to companies of all sizes.

“We are very good at the cloud,” Reeser says. “We’ve built a cloud infrastructure that is super fast and hyper secure. I’m not bragging when I say that we have perfected the personal virtual workspace.”

IT Works promises to make clients’ devises work 10 times faster and offers secure connections via any web-enabled devise, creating a truly mobile workspace with superior cloud services and data security. Reeser and Trofimchuk back up their customer service with a 30-day, money-back guarantee.

“People Before Profits”

Another Reeser and Trofimchuk project, AI Bridge, LLC, is the direct progenitor of opiAID. In keeping with the team’s motto, “people before profits,” AI Bridge is focused on helping entrepreneurs take their ideas “from the back of a napkin to fulfillment, without losing control of their company or incurring overwhelming debt,” according to Reeser.

Made up of a team that includes PhD’s, founders of international companies, sales and marketing executives, CEO’s, and many talented technology experts, the organization, where Stan Trofimchuk serves as managing partner and CTO, assists entrepreneurs in commercializing their product or idea within today’s data driven environment.

To qualify companies must meet AI Bridge’s criteria to “Do well by doing good,” Reeser says. “Every company we help must aim at helping humanity in some way, not just at making profits.”

AI Bridge got organized back in September of this year. “We have two companies in our incubator so far,” Reeser says. “One of them is opiAID.”

Resser and his team at Cucalorus Connect’s 10×10 Challenge: (l. to r.) C.P. “Hoop” Morgan III, founder of the Forte Institute and a major opiAID supporter, Josh Carpenito, David Reeser, and Stan Trofimchuk. Photo by Renee Wright. copyright Capitol Broadcasting A.R.R.

Reeser presented the opiAID startup at Cucalorus Connect in both the Rocket Pitch and 10X10 Challenge, which paired filmmakers and entrepreneurs to make a 4-minute promo video in four days. It was a great – and fun – experience he says, especially when he found himself meeting one-on-one with potential investors.

Purple: Part of the Solution

Colleagues describe David Reeser and Stan “The Man” as the dynamic duo, with David handling the business side of things and Stan contributing his more than 20 years of experience in IT. “Stan makes sure things are built and work correctly on the tech side,” Reeser says. The two have assembled a core group of 30 team members, including 3 PhD’s and an MD, to work on the opiAID project.

“We are extremely passionate; we are extremely talented,” Reeser says. “This is for our town, our Cape Fear region. We can knock this out.”

He says that the company will not try to monetize opiAID in Wilmington. “This is a great test market. We’re building locally, but eventually will market globally.”

The opiAID team, (r. to l.) Camden Weis, Stan Trofimchuk, David Reeser, Cody Scott Milewski, Dylan Bradshaw and Josh Carpenito. Not pictured: Carl Masi, Jr. Photo by Renee Wright. copyright Capitol Broadcasting A.R.R.

Once development is complete, Reeser plans to roll out the opiAID SaaS first to North and South Carolina, then will head up to Philadelphia and work his way down the East Coast.

He envisions the wearable opiAID device as much like a watch worn on the wrist, and he’d like the color to be purple. “Both Partners and Neighbors would wear the purple wristbands, you wouldn’t be able to tell the difference. It could be like wearing pink to support breast cancer research. If you care, wear purple… it could help take away the stigma of addiction.”

One of the major hurdles in developing opiAID, he says, is collecting enough data. “We need to aggregate all the local data from partners, put it in the cloud and let ML reveal patterns. That way we can isolate algorithms to yield better outcomes.

“We have the core group we need for this project. What we need now is lots and lots of accurate data.”

Info graphic illustrates the opioid crisis. credit: painwise.org: https://painwise.org/resources/opioid-epidemic-infographic/