Bengaluru-based teens develop mobile app on social issues

Two Bengaluru-based students have developed an Android social application 'vPledge' that was unveiled here on Saturday.

Priyal Jain and Prateek Mahesh have devised the app, through which people can pledge to take up causes like conserving nature, donating meals, feeding stray dogs, using public transport and ensuring better health, hygiene or education.

This was after an exposure to Android for Kids at a technology summer camp hosted by AcadGild, the company said in a release.

Through the vPledge app, an individual can make a pledge such as planting 10 trees. On successful completion of a pledge, vPledgers, as the app's users are called, are allowed to share the accomplishment on social media channels, tag friends, challenge them and also grab points that can be redeemed.

While the 13-year-old Jain is from Delhi Public School, the 12-year-old Mahesh belongs to New Horizon Public School. AcadGild, a technology education start-up led by Vinod Dham and Vikalp Jain, has launched the mobile application.

AcadGild offers both students and working professionals a hands-on experience on software programming skills globally, in batches of 8-10 students. In addition to the vPledge app, the 13-year-old Samarth Grover, another AcadGild student, has successfully created Tic-Tac-Toe for mobiles - a game for two players that can be played via Bluetooth without using the Internet, the release added.

"The development of a fully functional and much-needed social cause app like vPledge and Tic-Tac-Toe for mobiles by children as young as 12 and 13 illustrates how the right training and mentorship programme can impact the development of programming skills," said President and co-founder of AcadGild, Vikalp Jain.

vPledgers can also graduate to other levels with activities such as feeding and caring for strays, distributing storybooks to poor children, walking 2-3 km every day to ensure better health, reducing vehicle emission and donating meals to the poor, the release said.