Spotlight: Coding for a Cause
Though students all over the world have faced massive setbacks over the past two years due to the pandemic, some not only made the best of their situation but also found ways to help others. One of these students is the sixth grader Aesha Bhatt, who lives in Johns Creek, Georgia. When the pandemic began, Aesha started taking coding classes from BYJU’s Future School with her father to keep her mind active during the lockdown. When she learned that BYJU’s Silicon Valley Challenge wanted students to solve real-life problems using technology, she knew it was the perfect opportunity to put her passion for coding to good use.
“I had heard a lot about bullying and abuse on the internet and from my friends,” Aesha shared in an interview with Khabar. “When I searched how many people got bullied each day, I planned to create an app on this topic because I could see how much of a problem bullying really is. It is a big worldwide issue and I wanted to solve it by creating the Anti-Abusing app.”
Aesha worked with BYJU mentors, her parents, and her school counselors to create the Anti-Abusing app to connect students facing bullying or abuse with counselors who can help them. The app lets students digitally report incidents of bullying so they can comfortably address experiences they may be uncomfortable discussing face-to-face with parents or school administrators.
“On the user side, there are three buttons,” Aesha explained. “The first button is the report button where users can report their situations to the counselors and the counselors can take further action. The second button gives info on how to respond to bullies. The last button gives you advice and you can also select based on the type of bullying you have faced to get more specific advice. My goal is to change the world with this app and help as many people as possible who are getting bullied.”
The Anti-Abusing app is already available on the Google Play store, and Aesha has received very encouraging feedback from students and counselors who have found the app helpful. The positive responses have encouraged Aesha, who is working on making the app accessible through the Apple App Store and creating an SOS button so that users can call 911 when they are being bullied.
The Anti-Abusing app is not the only coding project Aesha is working on either. She is helping her mother, Hita Bhatt, start a cooking channel on YouTube as well. After coming up with the idea for the channel, Aesha designed a logo and created a website for the channel by herself. She is also developing an app to help tourists learn basic words and phrases in other languages. “My goal is for people to learn languages in an easier way,” Aesha clarified. “I’ve created almost everything that I needed to on the app, I just need to test it out and check for errors.”
Aesha revealed that she hopes to continue utilizing her passion for coding to help others saying, “My goals for the future are to make more helpful apps just like the Anti-Abusing app but for different purposes. I want to be able to help more people with the other apps.”
Bhavana Kunnath, a contributing writer for Khabar, is a student at Oglethorpe University. She can be reached at kunnathbhavana@gmail.com.
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