What can teenage girls do for this society? Well, the question is answered by a simple mobile app named “Maitri”. This team of 5 girls made this unique app that connects old- age home people with the kids of orphanages to help them in overcoming the situation of loneliness.
What is Maitri?
Maitri is a mobile app that connects children at orphanages with senior citizens in old-age homes. This app is an initiative to bring together older people, lonely and depressed in old-age homes to the children in orphanages. The word Maitri is a Sanskrit term meaning loving-kindness to oneself. This app is trying to bring out the real meaning of the word to practice.
The Girls power
The idea of this app originated from the shared passion of five girls who made the team and named it as “Tech Witches”. They participated in the “Technovation Challenge” in San Francisco, US last month. It was the world’s largest Technology and Entrepreneurship Programme for girls. This innovative app proved lucky for them and helped them bringing a Bronze medal home.
The developer of the app includes Ananya Grover, Vanshika Yadav, Vasudha Sudhinder, Anushka Sharma and Arefa. All are in class 12th of Amity International School in Noida. These girls mentioned that they want to break the stereotype of technology being a male-dominant space. They want to change this thinking that girls don’t belong in the fields of Artificial Intelligence and Technology. They emphasized that girls can pursue careers in technology.
How does Maitri App work?
The app can be downloaded for free from Google Playstore. It allows users to volunteer and donates to old-age homes and orphanages. The vital function of the app is to make children and senior citizens spend time together by allowing old -age homes and orphanages to sign up and organize meetings.
The app has seen over 1000 downloads to date and has 13 old-age homes and seven orphanages connected through it. The developers are focusing on the Delhi-NCR area in the initial phase. However, they are planning to take this app pan-India by getting more orphanages and old-age homes registered on it soon.
As investment is needed in the first year of the operation of the App, the developers are looking to crowdfund $40,000. The donations received through Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) funding will also help the team recover their operation cost.
Tech Angels
I think these Tech witches team turned out to be Angels by thinking out of the box and making this App. Their app is purely based on the idea of spreading love and compassion. Moreover, with this idea, they will be successful in conquering the loneliness entirely, which is their goal.
