Students create digital tools to solve problems

Award-winning UK students unveil their mobile apps to investors and tech experts 

 December, London:  UK teens are leading the charge into innovative app development, according to seven groups of students who launched their mobile apps at the Apps for Good marketplace at BT Tower.

 Seventeen-year-old Mahjabin created an app with her classmate Janna in a bid to help her mother and grandmother learn more about growing plants.

 “My family care so much about their plants but don’t really know where to get information from – we thought by creating an app that brings the information to them quickly and easily we could improve their lives,” said Mahjabin.

 “Through the Apps for Good course we’ve learned all kinds of technical skills like user interface design and coding as well built our skills in everything from talking to a room full of investors to ways to project manage large and difficult projects – which helps even in preparing for A-levels.”

 Thirteen-year-old Kordaine, whose team’s app Promise Keeper is set to help young people build better relationships with their parents, has set himself a goal to ensure everyone he meets downloads the app.

 “Promise Keeper solves the issue of parents not keeping their promise – we want our app to help not just people we know but also people all over the world who want to fix this problem,” he said.

 The seven apps launched were:

• Beat the Book - an app that uses gamification to encourage students to read and has been produced by a boy from St Matthews Academy with Injoit and sponsored by Nesta.
• Feelings in a Flash - a communications app that helps teenagers track, share and deal with their mood or feeling and has been created by two girls from Blackheath Computer Club with Plant Pot and sponsored by Nominet Trust.
• Mapp Your Way - app that helps students navigate their way around a large school using QR codes and was produced by five students from Wildern School with Codeten and sponsored by BlackBerry.
• Weather Birds - garden watering app that instructs users based on weather predictions and has been produced by two girls from Central Foundation Girls’ School with Fuerte International and sponsored by Thomson Reuters.  
• Promise Keeper – an app that allows two parties to track commitments and has been developed by five boys from St Matthews Academy with Put It Out and sponsored by Omidyar Network.
• Oyster on the Go – proof of concept app that shows information from TFL based on an individual Oyster card and was developed by four boys from Featherstone High School with Novoda and sponsored by Barclaycard.
• RMBme - a highly customisable reminder app that uses images and has been developed by four girls from Reading Girls’ School with Service2Media and sponsored by Dell. 

The apps, available today on Google Play and BlackBerry App World, were created over the past 12 months by student teams in partnership with some of the world’s leading tech companies, businesses and developers as a part of the Apps for Good Awards and programme. The apps were chosen from a competition entered by more than 1,200 students across 50 UK schools in 2012.

Apps for Good students also received coaching on the day from games heavy-weight Ian Livingstone, Apps for Good board members social and innovation guru Charles Leadbeater, and angel investor and former MD of LinkedIn Europe, Kevin Eyres.

Apps for Good is reaching out to schools across the UK to deliver the free course, and is seeking more industry experts to help guide the teachers and students.New experts can apply on our new online platform: http://network.appsforgood.org/