Have you ever wondered who are creating all those cool and useful mobile applications you have been using for daily purposes? Professional coders having high degrees - would be your answer I guess. Not quite. There are so many minds out there as young as 8 years old who are developing mobile applications in their quest to do their bit to change the world for good.
WhiteHat Jr is such a platform teaching coding to students between the age between 6 and 18 and shaping young coders who try to bring about change on their own. Here we are introducing such champs selected by the company in a contest. Let's have a look at their wonderful applications.
Neil Malhotra, creator of Clean Quest app
Neil is a student of class 8 in a school in Arizona, United States. He has created the Clean Quest application, which aims at empowering students to report problems of various types of pollution to the authorities concerned for speedy resolution.
"Clean Quest enables people to report pollution problems to local authorities at a single click. It covers the whole US. A user can click a photo of any pollution site in their neighborhood and send it to the listed local authorities. The app sends the authorities with the exact location along with the photo," Neil said in online interaction with entrepreneur Amit Patel.
The 13-year-old Indian-American got the idea of creating the app when he was visiting a friend in Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh. "There was a huge garbage pile near his house. My friend told me that people in the neighbourhood were falling sick because of the pollution and they have no idea where to report it," says Neil, who has been coding since the age of 6 years.
Clean Quest helps authorities to focus on priority areas and manage their resources accordingly, he says, adding that there are cases wherein local authorities are not aware of the ground situation. "Clean Quest aims to empower common folks to make a dent and make mother Earth a cleaner place. I aim to cover the whole world one day," he says.
Manya Singhal, creator of Pickaboo
A student of grade 4 in Gurugram, Haryana, 8-year-old Manya's solution focuses on addressing the curiosity of toddlers. The meaning of Pickaboo (Pick - picture and aboo - answer) says it also about the functioning of the application which is available in five languages including Hindi, English, French and Spanish.
To know about any object, a user needs to click a photo and upload it. "The app will tell the name of the object and more about it vocally in text. Users can repeat the answer which helps them to pronounce the name of the object properly," Manya says.
She decided to come up with a solution to address the curiosity of her 2 and a half years old sisters. "My parents are working professionals and do not have enough time to answer the ever-curious questioning mind of my sister," she says.
Freya Rajput, Recycler app
A grade 5 student, Freya, 9, came up with the idea of creating the application of helping people recycle their waste products. Recycler mobile application helps people identify the nearest recycler at a minimum rate.
"People often burn waste to get rid of it which harms the environment. So my app helps them to find a recycler for recycling the waste, which provides them money and saves the environment also," she says.
Sagnik Ghoria, creator of eHelp
12-year-old Ghoria's story of being a coder will touch your heart. His mother died while giving birth to him in Kolkata because, as he says, his family members were not aware of how to contact an ambulance to get the necessary medical aid.
"I realised that so many people are dying because they are unaware and unable to access basic and critical facilities and I decided to do something about it," the class 6 student says.
Ghoria's eHelp mobile application, which he says works in metro cities, provides citizens with options to contact authorities for basic needs like garbage redressal, police assistance, medical services among others.
"Users can directly contact local government departments concerned, discuss a problem with other users on the forum and get help from the chatbot," he submits.
Abhimanyu Singh, creator of Pr(e)p Talk
Abhimanyu, 12, was worried about people with special needs, and especially their misery when it comes to preparing for and writing examinations.
"Once, I went to write an examination as an assistant of my cousin who is specially-abled and realised that such people face a huge challenge in preparing for exams and getting assistant for writing the exams," he says.
Pre(e)p Talk helps people in special need to convert the images into voice and voice into text for preparation for examinations. It also provides a marketplace for people who can write in exams on their behalf and those seeking them.
Advay Sujrit, Hospital Bed Tracker
A resident of Patna, Bihar, Sujrit has created Hospital Bed Tractor application to help people find the availability of bed in hospitals in their city.
"I saw in news how people were not dying because they could not get bed in hospitals during coronavirus pandemic and so created this application," he says.
Ivana O'Dea, creator of Angel Investor Kid$
9-year-old Ivana, a US citizen, has created Angel Investor Kid$, an Angel investment platform for providing a platform for genius kids who are looking for funding for turning their creative ideas into businesses.
The application developers can register themselves on the platform where they can interact with the investors. If any person shows interest in any idea, they can directly contact the developer.
Arush Nath, creator of Parent.ely
An avid coder, Arush who is a class 7 student developed a mobile application that fills the gap of parents for children.
"The app addresses the problem of loneliness of children whose parents are in military or other government services and stay away from them. It mimicks a parent through artificial intelligence and works as a virtual parent," the 12-year-old developer says.
Giving tips to the genius developers to turn into ideas into businesses, Owl Ventures Managing Director and entrepreneur Amit Patel said that passion is the driving force behind any successful new venture.
"You must identify how your solution is going to be different than the others in competition, how innovation it is and you should make sure that you are passionate about whatever problem you are going to solve? Because the journey of entrepreneurs is exciting but it is also challenging," Patel said during the interaction.
He also revealed that new ventures should focus on starting with a minimum viable plan (MVP) by analyzing customer data and making pivot so that the plan can be changed accordingly.
