Mumbai: Class Five Boys Win MIT Hackathon Award 2020 For App On Climate Change

An app on climate change developed by two class 5 students from Mumbai has bagged top spots in the App Inventor Hackathon 2020 held by the prestigious Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), USA.

The app won the first and fourth spot in the 'people's choice' and 'judges choice' categories respectively, among 300 apps from across the world.

Ayush Sankaran, 10, a grade five student of Billabong High International School in Malad and Jashith Narang, 9, from Bombay Scottish School, Powai, participated in the under-18 youth category and used the coronavirus-induced lockdown as an opportunity to create awareness on environment deterioration and ill effects of global warming by developing a mobile application called 'Climate catastrophe – Earth in Dearth' in only seven days.

The boys stated that their innovation was inspired by climate activist Greta Thunberg.

"Smartphones have become such an integral part of all our lives, and mobile apps are an effective way to gauge everyone's attention. We thought if Greta can start a revolution just by starting a conversation, we can definitely use our skills to educate others. The app is good for society. I am very grateful to my parents and teachers for their constant encouragement," Jashith told The Better India.

"We are very proud of Ayush's achievement. He has won 3 different awards for different apps in this pandemic, and has proven nothing is impossible by constantly innovating and building new inventions even during the lockdown," said BHIS Dr Madhu Singh.

"We did not in our wildest dreams think about winning. For us, it was just another fun activity during the lockdown. The recognition is very motivating for us as we strive to build more such productive apps in future," said the duo.

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