Over the past couple months, the Taco Bell Foundation has awarded $4.6 million in Live Más Scholarships to 531 students and employees across the country, and one of them was Shawn Patel from Cypress, CA. He was chosen out of 13,000 total applicants and received $10,000. He is currently an intern at Taco Bell HQ and plans to use the money to pursue his passion of engineering and continue developing healthcare programs to help patients.
About Shawn:
Two years ago, Shawn lost his father to skin cancer. Inspired to help patients like his father, Shawn combined his skills in computer science and engineering to develop UV Safe, an app that helps users protect themselves from the harmful effects of the sun and detects the presence of skin cancer. Shawn is now in the process of developing Cosmo, a virtual assistant for patients aimed to take workload off hospital staff. Shawn’s programs have already reached more than 5,000 downloads combined. He has even presented his work to Congressman Alan Lowenthal and Apple CEO Tim Cook.
A recent graduate from Oxford Academy in Cypress, CA, and current Kitchen Innovation Intern at Taco Bell headquarters, Shawn hopes to pursue a degree in Computer Science at Stanford University followed by a master’s and an MBA. In his words, the Live Más Scholarship has helped him further his entrepreneurial spirit and bring his drive to innovate to a global audience so he can help people lead healthier lives.
Watch Shawn’s Application Video