Geek’s world

Meet four young developers who have created apps that are metamorphic.

October 15, 2019 02:58 pm | Updated 02:58 pm IST

WhatsApp, Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, Google Pay....are popular apps on our phones. ‘App’ is short for ‘application’ — which is another name for a computer program. While we download apps on a daily basis, Hirranya, Venkat Patnaik, Shaurya Sharma and Shrey Shah have developed apps.

Hirranyaa Rajani, II, Oberoi International School, Mumbai, Maharashtra

Sign Language

“In Junior KG, our teacher used to ask us not to talk in class. So we started communicating in our own sign language. Then, I saw two hearing impaired people communicating in sign language and I was intrigued by the hand gestures. This gave me the idea to create the app. I hope this will help others to learn the sign language and help them communicate with the hearing-impaired people,” says Hirranya.

The app: The user enters a word, and the app shows the sign language for each alphabet in the word. This app assists a differently-abled person with hearing impairment to see and understand the word. It can be used for training in sign language too.

Few years from now: Hirranya wants to help differently-abled children enjoy a life without difficulties. She has a differently-abled brother who is confined to a wheelchair and she hopes to invent something to help him.

Venkat Raman Patnaik, II, Home schooling, Balangir, Odisha

Rewards

“Our teacher used to give us smiley and star badges for performing well in class. The day I got stars, I felt motivated. Not getting them made me sad. My parents got me star and smiley stickers in various colours from the market. They would use it to motivate me and this made me super happy. That was the genesis of this app,” says Venkat.

The app: This is an app to shape a desired behaviour. It keeps a record of a ‘to-do’ list for each user along with reward points. The user can create a list of activities worthy of earning reward points and decide how many point each activity merits in discussion with a parent. Moreover, they can keep a record of activities and how many points are earned and redeemed. The app is based on behavioural management psychotherapy — a mechanism that is popular to train children to learn the right behaviour. It is known to impact positive habit formation.

Few years from now: I am planning to launch the app on the Play Store.

Shrey Shah, VI, Oberoi International School, Mumbai, Maharashtra

Slackio

“Children have homework and mostly have to work without any assistance. Slackio, inspired by Slack app, connects teachers and students according to standard and subjects,” says Shrey. “I have also created another app called School Test Calculator with the help of the teacher on WhiteHat Jr.’s platform. The app, launched in April 2019, helps calculate school test results and is available on the Play Store, with more than 1000 downloads till date.

The app: The students can clarify their doubts either with the teacher or can work on group assignments with the help of group discussions on the app, thus eliminating the need for personal tuition classes. Teachers can share homework/assignment link with the students who can then collaborate to work towards completing it.

Few years from now: I love coding and want to pursue this in the future as well. I have recently created a chat bot for my school and presented the idea to the principal and my school’s IT team for the app to be incorporated in the system.

Shaurya Sharma, VIII, Bombay International School, Mumbai, Maharashtra

Chatbot

“Our school has a website where parents communicate with teachers and discuss the child’s progress. However, the website sends updates to Gmail ids and it gets difficult to keep track of notifications on a real-time basis. That is when I thought about creating Bombay International School (BIS) Chatbot, to help the school community,” explains Shaurya. There were several ideas suggested floated and Shaurya took the initiative to work on BIS Chatbot idea as it really got him inspired to help the school community.

The app: The chatbot app will be accessible to thousands of parents and serve as an Artificial Intelligent Assistant like Siri or Alexa, where parents can ask questions to the bot. The bot, which utilises speech recognition feature, will be able to provide answers, and help ease various processes for the parents like admission details or update on a project deadline.

Few years from now: I want to be a meteorologist. I will use the the knowledge I gained here to create an app to track the weather.

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