No child's play this: Bengaluru school girls develop mobile app

How many times have you let go of a rickshaw guy when he tells you he doesn't have that two rupees of change to return to you? We are guessing quite a number of times. Well, if a bunch of girls from Bengaluru have their way, the problem of extracting change from that rickshaw guy, shopkeeper, cabbie or even bus conductor may cease to be a problem. Five girls from the New Horizon Public School have created have created an app called ChangEd (Change for Education through Donation). This Android mobile application now will allow shopkeepers and drivers to register their Paytm gateway account and pay the balance amount to customers through Paytm.

The app emerged as a result of their participation in the international competition Technovation 2016, where by blending technology with a social cause, they reached the finals. The competition is for girls from across the world, engaging and inspiring them for technology entrepreneurship.

Incidentally, the app developed by our Bengaluru girls is also open to raise funds for NGOs and has tied up with ChangEd to carry out education-related projects."If a customer pays Rs 100 for a product that costs Rs 98, the shopkeeper generally gives a candy of Rs 2 as balance. If all the money that goes unaccounted for in transactions like these can instead be credited to a particular account and later be raised as funds for the betterment of society, then why not?" said Aanchal Agarwal, a team member, reported by TOI.

Also  read: Teenage girls from Dharavi turn app developers

"NGOs often face shortage of funds to conduct programmes to educate rural kids. If shopkeepers tie up with us, we give them recognition in the form of a badge or sticker so that customers will know that their change, if not paid back to them, will at least be accounted for and the credibility of the shop will also increase," said Nidhi Nair, another member.

This young techie team fly to San Francisco where the results of the competition will be declared on July 13. They are competing with four other institutes from different countries for the top prize, and will no doubt be hoping that their app emerges the winner. We wish them all the best!

Feature Image Credit: ubnsoft.com