New Delhi: Kanishka Chaudhry, a high-school student from Gujarat, never had an inkling that mental health would become such a raging debate after the suicide of Bollywood actor Sushant Singh Rajput on Sunday morning. The girl, however, is ready with an iOS app to help teenagers and adults overcome mental health issues.
Apple has announced 350 winners of its annual WWDC Swift Student Challenge from 41 different countries and regions, including nearly 15 from India and she is among those next generation of coders and creators.
Apps that can help people make more connections and improve people’s mental health always motivated Kanishka to do something similar for humanity.
“Imagine an app where people with mental health problems can express themselves without any limits and the best thing about that app is they don’t have to share their real identity, like on traditional social media platforms,” Kanishka told IANS.
A student of GNFC Narmada Vidyalaya in Bharuch, Gujarat, she developed one such app called ‘Ralasi Teen’ during the lockdown period that would be available soon on Apple App Store.
“People can share their stories and problems off limits and can have like-minded people to interact with,” she said.
When she won WWDC 2019 scholarship last year, it gave her some kind of positive hope that even not-so-famous apps can bring a change to a community.
“That really encouraged me to do better and develop more apps and software. Apple really encourages students to make apps that bring a change. And that really encourages me to make apps for the community,” said Kanishka.
She made an Xcode playground about mental health awareness this year. The playground starts with some text slide show showing some real facts about mental health.