Imagine helplessly examining your daughter’s brain scans month after month and trying to make life-changing decisions based on guesswork.
That’s exactly the situation Siqi Chen was in.
He compared fuzzy images.
Squinted at screens.
And stressed over slight changes… did that shadow really get smaller?
Siqi did what any parent with coding skills would do.
He built something, better.
This is about more than one family’s story.
It’s about how personal pain plus modern AI tools equals solutions that actually work.
💡 It shows every small business owner something important: the best products come from real problems, not boardroom brainstorming.
You know my heart lies with builders, and today I’ve got a beautify AI-centered story we can all learn something from.
❤️ Love Builds the Best Tools
A dad needed a fast way to track his daughter’s brain tumor. In forty-eight hours, he wrote a browser-based MRI viewer, then gave the source code away.
Key Facts
- 🤝 Open Source: The code sits on GitHub for anyone to copy, fork, or improve.
- 🛠️ Weekend Build: The tool aligns MRI slices, adjusts settings, and runs entirely in the browser.
- 🔐 Privacy-First: Images never leave the device.
This is Mira. She has craniopharyngioma.
It’s a brain tumor that sits in the worst possible spot, right near the pituitary gland.
While technically benign, its location makes it dangerous.
It can affect vision, hormones, memory, and growth.
Surgery helps, but these tumors often come back.
After Mira’s tumor returned, her doctors tried something different. And for Mira, it’s working, but…
For her family, and many others, the journey of craniopharyngioma is extremely frustrating.
Every few months, you get new MRI scans.
Hundreds of images.
You’re trying to compare them to last time’s scans.
Was that bright spot there before?
Is it smaller now?
The images never line up quite right.
Siqi Chen looked at that situation and thought: “I can fix this.”
In one weekend, this dad created a free MRI viewer that does what million-dollar medical software often fails to do.
It shows you, clearly and simply, whether a tumor is growing or shrinking.
🤖 The Technology That Makes This Possible
1️⃣ It automates the hard parts.
It matches slices across different scan dates.
– aligns rotation, pan, and zoom.
– adjusts brightness and contrast.
– It even handles shear distortion.
All the technical stuff happens automatically.
2️⃣ Everything runs in your browser.
No uploads.
No servers.
Your family’s medical data never leaves your computer.
This matters deeply when you’re dealing with your child’s most sensitive health information.
3️⃣ It’s completely open-source.
Doctors, researchers, and other developers can inspect every line of code.
They can improve it and adapt it for other conditions.
The tool belongs to everyone who needs it.
This approach reflects a bigger movement in software development called “local-first” applications.
These apps give people complete control over their sensitive data.
Modern AI makes this kind of tool accessible to build.
Models are getting better at working with complex medical images like 3D CT and MRI volumes which means that developers can create tools that feel automatic without forcing users through years of radiology training.
I’ve been fascinated with merging AI and medicine now for some time.
In fact, I’m spending months working with my raw labs and highly trained AI models, understanding how they are processing my own blood chemistry. In a future newsletter, I’m going to share the entire process and show you how I’ve done it.
But when I see cases like this, my heart lies with a girldad who just wants to go faster and save his family a whole lot of heartache.
🧱 Building From Experience, Not Assumptions
This family didn’t stop at building software. They raised $1.4 million through a cryptocurrency token and donated it all to research.
They connected with top cancer centers and investigated every promising treatment option.
They approached their daughter’s illness like founders approach a startup.
Systematic.
Relentless.
Action-oriented.
They weren’t guessing at what users need. They were the users.
Every feature in that MRI viewer solves a problem they personally faced.
You don’t need focus groups when you’re living the problem every day.
💼 What This Means for Your Business
You might not be dealing with brain tumors, but the lessons apply everywhere.
→ Look for comparison problems in your industry. The same alignment and overlay techniques could save hours.
- Where are people squinting at two things, trying to spot differences?
- Sales reports across quarters?
- Website designs before and after updates?
- Quality control photos from different production runs?
→ Consider what you could build in a weekend that would genuinely help your customers.
- Not a fancy new feature. Something that removes friction from one specific, stressful task.
- Something focused and human.
→ Think about privacy differently. Every piece of customer data you collect is a responsibility. Trust grows when people feel safe.
- Could you deliver the same value while collecting less?
- Could processing happen on their devices instead of your servers?
→ Remember that open source isn’t just for developers.
When you share your tools and methods, you build credibility.
People trust what they can inspect.
The idea isn’t that you need to be a coder to make a difference. It’s how you can turn the problems you face into products that make a real impact.
✌️ Your Turn
Siqi acted because the stakes were personal.
No endless meetings, no procurement maze, just code, compassion, and a weekend.
That mindset sits at the heart of every breakthrough.
That’s the power of building from genuine need. When you solve your own problems well enough, you solve them for everyone else too.
This is why I run CTRL + ALT + BUILD.
A community where builders come together, and I’m in there too. In fact, tomorrow (Feb 4th) is my next Office Hours, if you join I’ll drop the invite on your calendar and will be there for the community at 12p PT / 3p ET just like I am every month.
See you there?
P.S. We filled all the lifetime spots for QuickSign & you can still try it totally for free
P.P.S. I’ve opened two VIP day spots for February
