Medha Gupta sometimes felt worried making the 20-minute walk from the corner where the school bus dropped her off to her home in Herndon, Virginia—especially during the colder months in winter.
Her mother, Divya Gupta had a 1 : write an app. She was half-kidding, but Medha took the challenge 2 . So she went to work.
The result was Safe Travel, an app 3 by Medha to help walkers feel more 4 when travelling alone. Using the iPhone, a person can programme it to send a warning to someone he or she trusts if he or she 5 to arrive at a destination within a certain time.
It was the first IOS app that Medha had created. While she didn't think much would come from the project, her6 caught the eye of judges for the annual Congressional App Challenge, who selected her as the winner for Virginia's 10th District.
The App Challenge is designed to encourage 7 to consider careers in science, technology, engineering, and maths by 8 coding and computer science. Winning students are 9 to attend a reception on Capitol Hill in April and also received $ 250 in Amazon Web Service credits.
Medha said it took her about 40 hours to design,10 and test the app. As for her next app, Medha's not certain. She11 has her app-development tasks on hold because she's12 teaching herself AI to help deal with improper words on Facebook. Yes, she knows that there are teams of13 probably doing the same thing. But she14 it can't hurt her own part, too.
"If we see something15 with the world, we should do something about it," she said. "After all, the only one stopping us from doing something is ourselves."
