Giving Compass' Take:

• Entrepreneurs are using technology to approach the issue of gun violence by making a 'smarter gun.'

• Will the implementation of creating a 'smarter gun' make gun violence less frequent?

• More research is being done to understand gun violence patterns and how other approaches for intervention and change.

While #MarchForOurLives participants hope that activism will make an impact on everything from legislation to sales policies to election results, there are also a handful of entrepreneurs around the country—some of them barely older than the high school students who inspired the march—who are working on technological solutions to the problem of unnecessary gun violence.

“Our generation is going to be the one that has to deal with a lot of big social problems, and I think gun violence is one of them,” says Kai Kloepfer, who turned 21 on March 22. Kloepfer has been taking that responsibility seriously since he was 15, when he developed his first prototype of a biometrically secured “smart gun” that could be fired only by its owner. That project won first prize in engineering at Intel’s international science and engineering fair, and has since grown into a company, Biofire Technologies, that is now working to bring the technology to American gun owners.

“The impact that personalized gun safety technologies will have will be primarily around youth suicides, accidental shootings, and disrupting the market for stolen guns,” says Margot Hirsch, a former technology sales executive who is now president of the Smart Tech Challenges Foundation.

The goal is for the smart gun to unlock in less than half a second, without requiring a special grip. Just pick up the gun and it works—if you’re the owner, or someone the owner has authorized.

Read the full article about entrepreneurs are trying to battle gun violence by Mark Wallace at Fast Company.