Meet Adam Russek-Sobol: Empathetic Entrepreneur and Camp Invention Alumnus

For nearly 35 years, Camp Invention^® has provided an environment for curious kids to grow into creators, innovators and entrepreneurs. This K-6 STEM experience is often a child’s introduction to a world of creativity and innovation, learning skills and building a mindset of persistence and empathy that will go on to serve them for the rest of their lives. We recently had the privilege of sitting down with Adam Russek-Sobol, once a Camp Invention camper and now a successful business owner of two companies employing unmatched solutions in their respective fields. In many ways, he attributes his experience at camp to kickstarting his profound passion for helping people.

A Compassionate Problem Solver With a Strong Spirit of Enterprise

If you asked Russek-Sobol what has influenced much of his journey to this point in his life, he surely would tell you about how he’s spent years combining his enthusiasm for emerging technologies, his love of tackling complex challenges and his desire to help people. “For a long time, I’ve always liked to help people solve their problems, and use technology in a meaningful way to do it,” he shared. Born in Dayton, Ohio, he was surrounded by innovation. Living just blocks away from the Wright Brothers House and growing up with exposure to the former National Cash Register (now NCR Corp.), he found himself in a community full of inventors, business leaders and entrepreneurs. “Being born into that environment, I caught the bug early on,” he said.

Russek-Sobol attended Indiana University, where he learned that he could earn money to make a living helping people solve their problems. His first company, called UniversityTix, was a student-to-student ticket marketplace. With a renowned basketball program, Indiana University was the perfect place to launch a safe and secure digital platform for students to purchase and sell basketball tickets. The company garnered a few thousand student users, and through running this ticket exchange and resell company, he learned quite a bit about business, marketing and working with others.

Using New Technologies to Change Lives

After gaining some enterprise experience, he began to tap into his interest in new technologies to discover what his next venture could look like. In 2014, he was excited by the emerging idea of Internet of Things (IoT), which is the connectivity of various devices to each other and to the internet. From cellphones to smartwatches to home gadgets like speakers, security cameras and robotic vacuums, the idea of smart devices and their interconnectivity was becoming more prevalent. Drawn to these technologies, he began to notice an unmet need in this space. “There was a gap in the market of things that existed in the world that needed to access the internet, but send very small amounts of data very infrequently,” he said. “I became very interested in this idea, and I was talking to different people, including my dad, a geriatrician who works with people living with dementia and Alzheimer's disease.” After these discussions, he began to realize that he kept hearing the same concerns – family members and loved ones of people living with Alzheimer's and dementia were frequently concerned about them wandering off with no way to locate where they had gone. “This story kept coming out over and over again, so I knew there was a valid problem,” he remarked.

Merging technology with this issue, he created location-based health and safety wearable technology that could accurately keep track of people living with Alzheimer’s and dementia. After entering into startup competitions, he received the funding he needed to start CareBand, a leading-edge company that provides not only location monitoring but activity and health tracking for the people living with dementia and their caregivers who need it most. Impressively, he has earned over 10 patents for the inventions and technologies associated with the company.

Not long after CareBand was up and running, he began to consider other select individuals he could help with technology. Through more conversations with friends, this time with teachers, principals and those who work in education, he learned there was a need for a more efficient way for principals to provide formal feedback to teachers when observing them in the classroom. While the “pencil and paper” method had proven to be an unproductive, outdated way to share their observations, he developed an app to streamline the process. Education Walkthrough is now a powerful app and website that allows for quick documentation of classroom instruction and the immediate sharing of this information to teachers, providing an effective method of distributing feedback, ultimately leading to instructional improvement. “Today, we serve about 500 districts across the U.S., and our goal is to help 1 million teachers improve just 1%,” he shared.

Early Inspiration at Camp Invention

For as long as Russek-Sobol can remember, he was eager to create unique solutions with hands-on problem solving. As he recalled moments in his life that have gotten him to where he is today, he credits Camp Invention with sparking inspiration and providing him with an introduction to concepts like innovation and persistence. Reminiscing on the atmosphere Camp Invention provides, he said, “I think invention and creativity are muscles that you can build. And I think the exposure early on is super valuable. I think kids should have that exposure and be able to try things out, watching them fail and seeing them succeed, and being encouraged to continue to do it again.”

The perseverance, confidence and critical thinking that he has employed his entire life were once new concepts being taught through engaging and memorable experiences at camp. “[Camp Invention] teaches your brain how to think about things, how to invent things, how to be creative, how to come up with new ideas, and then how to prototype them, how to do them and how to move forward,” he shared. “I think that whole process is extremely valuable and embedded something in my head early on that allowed me to do what I do now.”

A Future of Continuing to Enhance Lives

At the core of Russek-Sobol’s work, there’s a desire to make the world a better place. Once an inquisitive adolescent Camp Invention camper, he is now a successful business owner multiple times over, still seeking ways to help others, using innovative solutions to solve problems. “Just start playing with things. Don’t worry about where they’re going to go and just have fun,” he said as advice for young creators, innovators and entrepreneurs.

Share Your Camp Invention Story

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