Five girls developed a mobile app connecting children at orphanages with senior citizens in nursing homes. This innovation fetched them a bronze medal at global tech competition in the US.
The app, called Maitri, is aimed at bringing together individuals suffering from loneliness and depression and those lacking the nurturing love of elderly role models, said the all-girl team “Tech Witches”.
The developers include Ananya Grover, Vanshika Yadav, Vasudha Sudhinder, Anushka Sharma and Arefa, all Class 12 students of Amity International School in Noida, who said they “wish to change the stereotype of technology being a male-dominant space”.
“We want to break the stereotype that girls don’t belong in the fields of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and technology. They can pursue careers in technology which is not gender-specific,” Ananya Grover said.
The girls went to San Francisco, the US this month to participate in the Technovation Challenge, the world’s most significant technology and entrepreneurship programme for girls, where they won a bronze medal for their innovative app.
“‘Maitri’ allows nursing homes and orphanages to sign up and organise meetings, thus facilitating children and senior citizens to spend time together. The app has seen over 1,000 downloads to date and has 13 nursing homes and seven orphanages connected through it,” said Ananya.
“During our initial phase, we are focussing on Delhi-NCR area only, but plan to take this app pan-India by getting more and more orphanages and nursing homes registered on it. Maitri allows only validated facilities to register and provides contact details and map locations for assistance,” she added.
The students claimed that their idea originated from their shared passion for social welfare and also the increasing cases of older people and children getting abandoned.
‘Maitri’ developers are now on a lookout for crowdfunding USD 40,000, the investment needed for the first year of their operations. “Donations received through Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) funding will also help the team recover their operation costs,” said one of them.
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