Story by Jodi Duckett
Courtesy Photos
Canaan Kimball ’26 is helping kids with eating challenges.
Canaan Kimball ’26 never wastes a second. Even on summer vacation with his family, the Integrated Business and Engineering program student was making calls, holding meetings and keeping the momentum going on businesses he has started at Lehigh.
His top priority is Screenwise Eating and the YumEats mobile app. Kimball used his talents for entrepreneurship, engineering and problem solving to design a system that helps families navigate the challenges of mealtime for children with eating difficulties.
The app guides children through meals by giving a reward for each bite. A bite gets a child started on his favorite movie or puzzle or story or game. The app also tracks the child’s eating habits—number of bites, duration of the meal and more.
Kimball came to Lehigh from northern Florida on a Lehigh Trustees scholarship. He was filled with drive to play football and to become an entrepreneur.
“I always thought I wanted to be an engineer, but I also loved the business side of things,” he says. “Lehigh was one of the only schools that gave me the opportunities to do both.”
Kimball formed Screenwise Eating as a freshman, inspired by a conversation in the weight training room with his strength coach Eric Markovcy. Markovcy told Kimball about the eating difficulties of his two sons, one autistic and one born prematurely. Markovcy said he was working with eating therapists and had developed a system of rewards to help his children. He thought Kimball might be able to build the idea into a mobile app.
So, Kimball taught himself to code and created YumEats.
“We started going to the Baker Institute for Entrepreneurship and pitching at the Eureka! events to stack up some capital for development costs. With this money, we hired a Lehigh student, Evan Mazor ’27, a brilliant software developer, as a contractor,” says Kimball.
Kimball and Mazor created a platform to connect therapists with the mobile app. Therapists can offer the program to their clients and receive data about its effectiveness directly. Various therapists have become part of the development team.
Kimball says being a football player with a “champion” mindset has boosted his entrepreneurial drive.
“Being a student athlete provides structure in your overall college life,” he says. “When I have so much going on with sports, academics and extracurriculars, it makes me more efficient in managing my time.”
Being a member of the Lehigh Business community has been invaluable, says Kimball, who has office space in the Lehigh Ventures Lab.
“Everyone at Lehigh is willing to help, even alumni. My ventures would not be where they are today if I didn’t have access to the Lehigh alumni network.”
Kimball recently launched another business—an on-court Pickleball card game called Deal and Dink. He built a prototype, contracted with a manufacturer in China and has sold $10,000 in games through a web site and social media. He is working on a plan to expand into retail.
“I definitely do a ton, but I love working and living that way,” he says. “I think it’s my way of breaking the mold. I’m so passionate about building these ventures that it doesn’t feel like work.”