Featured Alumni
App Offers New Weapon In Battle With Addiction L iz Read hopes her Birmingham startup —born from needs in her own
introduction made by a fellow Auburn alum. “I would not be where I am today without the Harbert College of Business.” Alaina Cherry (’18, business administra- tion) recently graduated from Cumberland School of Law, and has gotten engaged to Meghan Hartline. Blanden Chisum (’15, MSIS) has been promoted to director of pre-sales engi- neering, southeast region at Dataiku, an AI platform based in Paris, France. Jessica Collins (’17, MBA) was “promoted from assistant professor of nursing to assis- tant director of nursing at Andrew College.” She is responsible for the associate degree of nursing program, which includes over- sight of curriculum design, faculty devel- opment, program budgeting, and student recruitment, retention and success. Her son “has completed his junior year of high school and received the Louis Armstrong award for his dedication to the jazz program and musical achievement. My daughter is completing her seventh-grade year and is looking forward to her last year in middle school. I began pursuit of my doctorate of nursing practice in July.”
a new app: “I was a non-tech, solo, female founder in the South. But I saw a population in desperate need.” She talked to everybody who would sit down with her, she said. She learned as she went. She often said, “I’m looking for a way forward that doesn’t exist.” “In the darkness that was COVID, there was a ray of sun- shine,” she said. Remote COVID testing, using saliva samples, was becoming commonplace. “Why not do saliva drug testing for somebody who wants to become empowered in their recovery?” Read said. The turning point came in December 2020 when she entered Alabama Launchpad, a pitch competition sponsored by the Economic Development Partnership of Alabama. She won $50,000 seed money. The timing was perfect, she said. “I promised God if I won, I’d pursue it,” she said. Within a few months, she had funding. She found a strategic lab partner supplying saliva tests and began building software for remote testing. Identity is proved with facial recognition software and, with AI assistance, from anywhere, any- time, results are broadcast within 20 minutes to treatment centers, the client, their support network and other designees. The company launches in fall 2022. The link for more informa- tion is clearmindnow.com.
family — makes a difference in many lives. In the summer of 2019, someone she loved deeply was battling drug addiction. She didn’t know what to do. “It doesn’t come with a manual,” she said. Read went to her phone and looked for an app that would help monitor drug tests. No such app existed. That was spring of 2020, when COVID hit. The business Read and her mother ran making handmade luxury jewelry was hit hard, but is recovering, she said. “My life was upside-down,” Read said. Post-treatment, mandatory drug testing for people in recovery is problematic. It can be cost-prohibitive. It’s all but impossible for people trying to go back to work to have to drop everything and fly to a designated lab in time to beat the deadline for a mandatory random drug test. Testing at home can turn con- frontational. A missed or failed test can be highly punitive, Read said, but accountability is out of balance. Post-treatment care from family and profes- sionals is needed, said Read, and drug addiction should be treated as a disease. Read saw the need for a new business.
Liz Read (’01, finance) CEO and Founder clearMINDnow Inc.
“I didn’t know anything about startups,” she said. She wasn’t your typical entrepreneur pitching
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