An app to mark attendance, another for children with special needs: Govt school students bag Rs 1 lakh grant

The students are developing an app called Shiksha. “We have developed a prototype of a mobile application which has learning activities for those with developmental delays and special needs. For example, an activity like brushing teeth can be taught through a fun animated video. The app will then ask the user to submit their own video doing the same activity. We got this idea because my brother is autistic,” Jha told The Indian Express.

She, along with several others in her classroom, have shifted from private schools to government schools. “I came here because they were teaching subjects like robotics, coding and web design,” said Jha, whose father works in a US-based health care firm.

The second team, from RPVV School in Surajmal Vihar, has a working prototype of a QR-based smart attendance system for schools. The idea came from the Delhi government’s initiative to promote entrepreneurship, Business Blasters. “TranQR is a product of the Business Blaster initiative of the (CM Arvind) Kejriwal Government. It has developed a cost-efficient, durable, and effective student identification system using Virtual Identity Patches (VIP). In TranQR’s product QR code is applied like a fast tag on the school uniform, which, when scanned, eliminates the need for a manual attendance register, saving teachers’ time…” a statement issued by the Delhi government said.

Tushar Tuli, co-founder of TranQR, said in a statement, “We dreamt and our dreams were supported by the Delhi government with seed money.”

Education minister Atishi called the grants a matter of pride for government schools. “Until 2015, no one would have thought that Delhi government school students would participate in such a high-level competition,” she said.