Aaron Prager: Massachusetts Delegate, Breakthrough T1D Children’s Congress

Breakthrough T1D Children’s Congress is held in Washington, D.C., where young people living with Type 1 diabetes meet their own Members of Congress and make the case for research funding in person. The 2025 class brought together roughly 170 delegates aged 4 to 17, drawn from every U.S. state and from Breakthrough T1D’s international affiliates in Australia, Canada, Denmark, Israel, and the United Kingdom.

Aaron was selected as one of the Massachusetts delegates. Over three days, the delegates held 237 meetings with Senators, Representatives, and their staff, pressing for renewal of the Special Diabetes Program and for robust NIH and FDA funding.

On July 9, the delegates headed to Capitol Hill for a U.S. Senate Appropriations Committee hearing. Aaron spoke about what living with Type 1 diabetes is actually like day to day, including with Senator Susan Collins, who chairs the committee.

This is the advocacy side of Aaron’s work rather than the engineering side, but it comes from the same place: he was diagnosed at 17 months old, and both the app and the advocacy are attempts to make life with Type 1 diabetes less difficult for the people who come after him.