US: Teenager invents smart gun to save lives

An idea that started in his parents basement, 19-year-old Kai Kloepfer from Boulder, Colorado created a gun that works like a smartphone. If the gun is picked up by an authorized user, a sensor recognizes the fingerprint and it will fire.  “I think this could be huge, I think this could be the future of firearms,” Kloepfer said. 

This fingerprint sensor utilizes technologies from biometric security measures, which might be the solution to solving the United States' gun violence problem (and not only in US).

While this prototype cannot shoot, it can demonstrate the fingerprint sensor allowing authorized users to operate the smart gun. When a new user is added to the list of authorized users, their fingerprint is converted into a mathematical hash which represents that image.

Kloepfer, recently named to the list of Forbes 30 Under 30 rising business stars, is now surrounded by a team of top lawyers, angel investors and Silicon Valley advisors. And he was recently featured in a front-page Wall Street Journal article. “It has been awesome,” notes Kloepfer.

When Kai Kloepfer was 15, an event changed the course of his life. Then a student at Fairview High School in Boulder, Colorado, Kloepfer lived near a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado where, on July 20, 2012, a mass shooting during a midnight screening in Aurora of the film The Dark Knight Rises, killed 12 people and injured 70. Kloepfer, a science fair enthusiast, suddenly felt moved toward a new engineering mission and the past three years, he has been dedicating his time to develop his smart gun concept.   

On 2015, Kloepfer received an email from the Smart Tech Challenges Foundation, which funds people who are creating new firearm safety technology for the American marketplace. “The president of Smart Tech Challenges sent me this message that said I had the grant and to please send them my work plan and budget within three days.”

And with that, Kloepfer began building the foundation for his company, Biofire Technologies. With the $50,000 grant, he was thrust into entrepreneurship, and his science fair passion transitioned from a project to a business startup. “I ended up raising the initial money in grants and donations, about $175,000, which I used to further develop the technology and build a prototype,” says Kloepfer.

Even with the backlash Kloepfer is looking for funding and will continue to work on his product. “I’m now to the point now where I can raise money and build a team where I'm not just a kid in his parents garage creating a startup,” Kloepfer said.

Stephen Sanetti, president of the National Shooting Sports Foundation, spoke with CBS about Kloepfer’s smartgun. Sanetti said he is skeptical about any gun that operates on battery power like Kloepfer’s.

In addition to a reduction in accidental deaths from guns, if it became widely used Kloepfer’s smartgun could also technically lead to fewer suicides. Many are committed with guns that do not belong to the person who dies.