The Rhode Island Monthly Tech10 Awards recognizes extraordinary individuals in the Southern New England for their passion, success, and thoughtful IT innovations proven to enhance work and life. This year, Julie Blackburn, of Blackburn Labs, a Software Development company located in Rhode Island, is among the list of honored winners!
Peer nominations recognize Julie for her hard work in the tech community, her willingness to educate the public about data literacy, and the creation of Spoonie Day – a free app that has been hugely popular within the chronic illness community.
As the co-owner and Chief Data Science Officer at Blackburn Labs (and Harvard alumnus), Julie is a natural leader who consistently pushes boundaries with the latest trends. She has a way of transforming lifeless data into visually compelling stories that provide all the data-driven insights clients love.
You see, when chronically ill, planning each day is an effective measure to mitigate severe fatigue, guilt, depression, or whatever might creep up. Julie knows this all too well since being diagnosed with Primary Progressive Multiple Sclerosis (PPMS). This is why she created the free app, to empower others to live their best life.
The appeal of Spoonie Day is not only that it is free, but that it was intentionally designed with a super simple UX. In addition, users benefit from the way Julie applies machine learning that displays personalized trends for users' moods and energy. Through trend analysis, individuals can make predictions that help them learn and adjust. For an even better experience, at the request of users, spoons can be replenished to suit needs and activities can be copied to save time.
Thanks to the assistance of her husband and software architect, Rob Blackburn, she has an accessible and user-friendly app. And all of this has earned her a place among the Rhode Island Monthly Tech10 Award Winners.Â
Congrats, Julie! We can't wait to see what you do next.
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