JOIN US Five girls from the city have done the country proud at the Technovation Challenge 2016 held in San Francisco on July 14. They secured the runners-up position in the middle school category by developing an app to eradicate illiteracy among the underprivileged.
The girls belong to the New Horizon Public School, Indira Nagar. The team comprises Nidhi Nair, Aanchal Agarwal, Suchrithaa Rajkumar, Vidhi Kothari and Anushka P Nair, who are all in class 9.
They also bagged the People’s Choice Award across all categories at the event.
The mobile app developed by the students has been named as ChangEd. It was chosen as one of the four top-notch technology innovation finalists, from over 400 teams across the world.
Motivated by the drive to minimise illiteracy in India, the students began brainstorming on the mobile app while they were in class 8. They began the process of developing the app in January this year.
In the last six months, the girls fine-tuned their skills in business planning, marketing, communication, technology research and leadership. They submitted their app idea pitch in April.
The Technovation Challenge is one of the world’s largest and longest technology competitions in the world. It is organised by a number of tech giants along with UNESCO.