A parenting app called My Child App by 19-year old Harsh Songra has been downloaded by 8,000 users in 100 countries, and is now ready to join the big game.The app by the indomitable dyspraxia afflicted teenager, whose inspirations are Steve Jobs and Elon Musk, has just received a seed funding of US$100,000 through Silicon Valley-based 500 Startups, the Singapore Angel Network, and a few other private investors.
My Child App, which first caught the attention and support of Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg through FBStart brings with it much of Songra's experience as a dyspraxia patient. It taps into the rise and prevalence of mobile phone use to promote monitoring of children's health by parents. Primarily, My Child App is designed to assist the parents in tracking a child's growth to enable early detection of any developmental disorder.
Users only need to input answers to a few simple questions to begin assessing the health level of their child's development. The app can help detect anything amiss with a child's condition in as little as 45 seconds.
"It stays with a parent right from pregnancy and through the journey of bringing up the child," Harsh explains. "The app broadly segregates developmental disorders into neurological, speech, and physical ones."
Using the app's assessment, parents can more easily consult medical experts and specialist and expect quicker attention and treatment for their child. In underdeveloped and developing countries such as India, this is a big help to its inadequate medical infrastructure.
In India alone, 7.8 million below 19 years of age suffer from a disability. Of these, 683,702 have speech disorders and 1.04 million have movement disorders. Meanwhile, the country's doctor-patient ratio is far below the World Health Organization recommendation of 1 for every 1,000.
Harsh himself was not diagnosed of dyspraxia, which affected his motor skills and affected such functions as hand movements, tongue movements and walking until he was nine years old. Only then did he receive help for his condition. Among the famous names associated with dyspraxia are Albert Einstein, 'Harry Potter' actor Daniel Radcliffe and English fashion model and actress Cara Delevigne.
"Having information about learning disorders and who to speak with on a simple mobile app, where a parent answers simple questions about the child's development, is incredibly powerful in regions where mental health professionals aren't readily available or parents don't have access to the right medical professionals," 500 Startups partner Pankaj Jain said through Techinasia.
What's in the horizon for My Child App? Harsh and his co-founding friends Aafreen Ansari and Shreya Shrivastava will launch a new feature for the app come February. They will also be aiming for 300,000 users by the end of 2016's first quarter.
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