Elder Guardian: The Rise of the Digital Caregiver

My mom is going on 90, experiencing cognitive decline, and scammers were taking thousands of dollars from her! I’m a technologist/security expert, so I did what I do best: I started building. What began as a mission to recover her money and cutoff the scammers evolved into Elder Guardian, an AI-powered arsenal that helped recover more than $27,000, shut down scam communications, and tame an inbox flooded with 1,500+ emails a week - letting through just 20–50 legitimate messages. There wasn’t an off-the-shelf product that could do what I needed, so I built one.

Turns out, I’m far from the only technologist who’s become their family’s unofficial security team, fraud investigator, and digital caregiver. In this talk, I’ll share the personal story behind Elder Guardian, the rabbit holes that shaped its evolution, and the practical tools, techniques, and AI workflows you can apply to your own projects. Meanwhile, people are already asking me to help protect their loved ones. I’m laser-focused on protecting my mom, but I’m starting to explore what it would take to make Elder Guardian available to other families. If you’ve ever wished you could build something like this - but don’t have months to spend doing it yourself - you are absolutely not alone.