Coláiste Mhuire students Dylan Healy, from Mullingar, and Donnacha Doyle Walshestown, were visited by the Minister for Social Protection, Deputy Dara Calleary, who heard about the boys’ DiaCare+ project, an app aimed at helping people with diabetes manage their condition. Minister Calleary, meanwhile, revealed to Dylan and Donnacha that he had lived in Mullingar for a spell in the past, while working with the ACC.

All-in-one app for diabetes care

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Donnacha Doyle from Walshestown tries not to let his Type 1 Diabetes affect him; nonetheless, just keeping ahead of it required him to have as many as five or six apps on his phone.

That was what prompted him and his friend Dylan Hanly to come up with a more streamlined solution – which they call DiaCare+.

“It’s an advanced all-in-one app for diabetes management,” says Dylan.

Although only in first year at the time, the two actually brought their initial iteration to last year’s Young Scientist competition and won two awards. This year, they have been highly commended in the Junior Health and Wellbeing category.

“This year we’ve improved it and added more features than we thought we’d ever have in the app,” Dylan says.

Donnacha explains that these improvements include a PostgreSQL backend with authentication to save data on the cloud.

“We also are using a large language model as an AI to help with diabetes and just teaching people about diabetes.”

As well as the app that the boys have built, there is a website that complements their app.

The two have beta testing going on – and their dream would be to get it out to the full market, because of the benefits it would bring to others living with and managing diabetes.

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